Argument Reframing
Conflicts between imperfect humans are problems of perception.
It is the weirdest thing to give what you believe is a rational explanation defending your side of a disagreement only to hear from the other an entirely different understanding of what you just said.
This used to really frustrate me. We all want to be heard, and more importantly, understood. And yet there are times when this isn’t happening, at least not in the present conversation or argument.
So, what can I do when someone doesn’t seem to understand or possibly believe that I mean what I am saying?
The answer, with regards to the other person, is not much. This means that probably the most difficult aspect of arguing with others, especially about things we care about with people we care about, is learning to stop.
Nothing says we have to accept the invitation to participate in every argument we are invited to join.
Of course stopping isn’t easy, especially if we think the sign of having won any debate is having the last word.
I’ve shared deescalating comments that can reduce the temperature of any disagreement, but let me repeat one here. You can say, “Let me think further about what you are saying. You might be right.”
Most of the time, in my experience, I have found that arguing is the result of differences in perception. We don’t see the problem in the same way and so clearly we won’t see the solution the same way either. The way to align perception as much as possible, knowing that perfect agreement is impossible, is to seek to understand what the other is saying more clearly and with the honest desire to understand over coming to agreement. It goes back to that classic truth, “Seek to understand more than to be understood.”
We may not be able to persuade the other we are right and we might discover that we weren’t as right about things as we thought, but this can only occur as we focus on our own understanding and growth.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.