Yesterday was a good reminder to me of a few things. I had an argument with a friend who refused to admit or even see that my disagreement with him had nothing to do with not understanding his position, but was based on a considered rejection of his position.

The argument became one about control of the discussion, about who was allowed to speak, consisting of discrediting speakers instead of ideas and shutting down discourse, bereft of concrete facts or discussed positions. This was not something I expected from this particular friend.

And so I spent a sleepless night going over it in my head, wondering why I could not get the individual to stop making accusations for a minute and listen to the responses, to quit demanding I listen to them while insisting I had not yet done so, despite showing repeatedly how I simply rejected the argument.

No, no. I was not listening. If only I would read and consider.
I did read. I did consider. This is how I reject that notion.
No, no. I was still not listening. If only I would read and consider.

There was simply no room or space in which to disagree.

I realize it would not have mattered how long I might have been familiar with and studied the argument given, if I continued to disagree, I would not be listening. No protestation could be valid, for all were swept away by the only truth, the only response I was given: if you disagree, you are not listening.

It reminds me of something I learned years ago in the trenches of the pagan movement and should not have expected to be different in those around me now. When people start defending the dogmatic axioms of their chosen philosophies, reason flees, only the defense of the chosen self-identity as dictated by those axioms remains, even among people we think should know better. Even among people who claim to be better.

When you disagree with someone's position, and they insist you do not know what you are talking about, even in the light of specific arguments, when all they can respond with is repetition of the same broad dismissal, of a dogmatic axiom of their philosophy, without reference to any specifics, and by attacking the speaker's understanding instead of his points, or by attacking phantasms of people or arguments created by their philosophy...it is no longer a discussion or an attempt to communicate. It is a power struggle for the life of an identity.

It is the skeptical atheist who cannot accept that a rational or educated man could really believe in God, that only fools and the easily manipulated or emotionally immature are believers, because his understanding, his life, his self-image, is built on it. And so he can only respond to theists with restatements of his view of them, that the obvious truths of his philosophy are inerrant, that if others just knew what he knows they would join him.

He fails to consider, he dismisses out of hand: if he just knew what others knew...

It is the Christian who cannot accept the Bible contains errors, because his faith, his life, his self-image, is built on it. And so he can only respond with insinuations that the reader is mistaken, that the proponent of errancy is unable to grasp the obvious truth the inerrant is offering up, that more study of the issue will reveal all.

There is simply no room to allow any disagreement with the axiom because it opens up terrible doors revealing the illusion of self-identity and casts the mind and soul into chaos.

The mind seeks to avoid that at all costs. It seeks to maintain the points upon which it has fixed itself as definitional and true things, upon which it filters through, categorizes and understands reality. It does not wish to upset or rebuild the foundation of decision-making.

There have been perhaps a handful of people throughout history who have been able to see past the tip of their own nose when such issues arise; sadly, even knowing this, even practicing it within many aspects of my life, to seek fact before identity, I know I am not one of these people. The best I can do is keep it in mind.

It is not "Everyone is wrong except you." it is "Everyone is right except you." One must still ask, one must still question, one must still argue because it is the basis from which learning comes.

It is only that in such, the mind is clear of the desire for surety and the illusion of certainty and seeks only fact and confirmation, not maintenance or assurance.