Well I Fear, My Dear / That It’s Eminently Clear
That You Can’t See The Trees / For The Forest
Your Father Was An / Extraordinary Man
But You Don’t Seem To Have Inherited
Many Of His Mannerisms
- mccartney

David at PaddlingInstructor.com stepped into a hornet’s nest the with a post about kayak makers moving their production to China. It’s certainly an important debate and one that stretches way beyond the borders of Canada and the limits of the paddle sport industry. It’s also not a debate with any simple solutions or obvious villains. I certainly don’t think anyone is simply being anti-anyone else. Most people will accept competition. What they seek however, is a level playing field. How we get there of course is a debate worth having. One thing that does strike me though is that we never find any solutions unless the tenor of the debate is kept civil. We have to work together to find solutions to any problem that effects us or our neighbors.

In this world of ours people come from all different points of view. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. We can and often should disagree on a lot of issues. A good debate among reasonable people should in theory be the foundations of growth and awareness. It’s actually sad in some ways that we have built up rules among ourselves, families and friends to limit what subjects we can talk about. Religion, race, politics, etc., We seem to say to each other something like, “this topic is important and we can’t discuss it in a reasonable manner, so let’s not talk about it and remain friends.” Is that really who we are? People who can’t find a way to disagree without anger?

My thought is that we should demonize the anger and not the debate. Maybe, you’ve heard this one before or something similar, “The one who gets angry first, loses.” Simply, once anger takes over a wall goes up and no solutions are found. Our anger becomes our own worst enemy. It’s a challenge to be sure. However, it’s probobly not a good thing that those who don’t want a fight walk away either. In a sense walking away passively can seem arrogant and maybe it is some times. And again, no solution is found.

It helps to understand that often when people get angry it is because the issue is not just ideological, but it has real effects in their lives. If you don’t respect this point, they feel belittled, threatened or simply that you are not hearing them. If you truly want to find a compromise or at least walk away without hatred, you have to clearly understand the other person’s point of view. Not agree, but understand. Then you have to make them aware of your understanding and most importantly find value in what they are saying and express it. From that point of common ground there is at least an opportunity to tone things down and start building a discussion. From there it’s at least possible to find a way to work together toward a solution that helps everyone.

Does this always work? No. Life is more complex than that of course. But we have to keep in mind that all the great things humanity has done we have done when working together. No one said we had to agree on everything, just function. When we’re polarized we cease to function. When we cease to function, we lose.