I think a clearer breakdown of disagreements would look like this:
- Disagreements over facts
- Disagreements over tastes
- Disagreements over values
Facts
Through many meetings I've heard many disagreements over facts. Luckily the people I work with honor the truth, and I don't hear outright rejection of the facts--the disagreements are generally due to confusion about the circumstances of a measurement. You can get wildly different results for a measurement for what appear to be slightly different setups. At the end of the day we usually figure out what the confusion was, and agree on the result. We may not be happy about it, but we hold that the facts are the facts.
I wish I could say the same about everyone. Politicians are notorious for ignoring facts in favor of getting elected.
Many times disputants have no first-hand knowledge of the details of the matter at hand, and rely on their favorite authorities. Or perhaps I should better say: they rely on what has been reported that their favorite authorities say. Reporters are notoriously careless, and often decline to let pesky details get in the way of a good story. As I mentioned above, apparently small details can make major changes in the result.
One little problem is that some authorities lie. If your only source of information is a Saudi newspaper you're not likely to have a solid knowledge of anything outside of Wahhabi praxis. The rumor mill will generally be even less accurate than the official bamboozlers. When pressed, your source may admit that no, he wasn't actually the one who saw the witch turn into a goat, but a cousin of his saw it and that's just as good. The cousin, it will turn out, is not strictly a blood relation and if found, will refer you to his cousin in turn.
Taste
I think Spaghetti-Os are unfit for human consumption, that mushrooms in a green salad represent an unfortunate adulteration, and that Beethoven could compose rings around Elton John. Some of these positions can be sustained with argument and facts, but at the end of the day a reasonable person could conceivably disagree, and say "I like this." There's no accounting for taste. And if I must I'll eat the salad.
For that matter, I think John Adams is a terrible composer--but I actually like "The Chairman Dances" (from his "Nixon in China"). I can't explain why that should be an exception.
Youngest Son likes "Psy Trance" music, especially South African. I don't quite understand why, but was able to recognize enough of the roots of the style to guess that he'd like "Popcorn." Youngest Daughter wants to hear opera. Sometimes they both play at the same time...
Tastes in music don't usually play as huge a role in life as taste in wives, of course; but the principle is the same: X clicks with you and Y doesn't. There's not always a strong intellectual component to taste.
Values
Some things are not a matter of fact or of personal response but of something more deep-seated which you may call values. Unless you only hang around people who agree with you, you'll have heard arguments in which the disputants say things like "This proposal takes away our liberties!" vs "How can you deny so-and-so the security they deserve?" The proposed changes to the American health care system are a fruitful font of such arguments. Several times I've heard the dispute boil down to "This puts the people who manage the Post Office in charge of our health" vs "Why is that a problem?"
If you listen closely you discover that the participants are often talking past each other. Those who value liberty over security often aren't even talking the same language as those who value security over liberty. These are much more fundamental matters than mere taste, though people often pick up these values from their environment without much thought.
Another fraught dispute is about divorce. I've heard some who favor the status quo reject facts about harm to children as irrelevant to the primary value: the interests of the parents. Because of what they define marriage to be, they cannot even agree about the relevant facts with those who propose more restrictive divorce rules. This isn't a dispute about facts, or about tastes, but about values.
For what its worth, one of the fundamental divides in our culture seems to be about the nature and value of freedom. Is freedom "potential" or "the ability to commit?"
Values can be wrongly ordered, of course, just as "facts" can be wrong and tastes unfortunate or even sick.
Example of Fuzzy Things at Church
Our former church (and to some extent our current one) is heavily into "seeker-friendliness" with a loud band and praise songs. There's not much quiet meditation and prayer, and not much congregational response. Singing is about it, if you can even hear yourself over the sound system. No corporate prayer, or Bible reading--and needless to say no liturgical year. I grew up with the Southern Baptist liturgical year, featuring Anne Armstrong and Lottie Moon to help celebrate Easter and Christmas.
I happen not to be terribly fond of several popular praise choruses, and loud music is painful. However, my objection to the church's approach wasn't based on taste, but on values. I judge that the congregational response is critical to worship; and as far as I could see there was little or no response beyond the vague excitement that any loud music can bring. Sunday morning was entertainment, with an entertaining sermon.
You could argue that I'm deceiving myself, and finding value-based excuses for enforcing my tastes. That's always possible, though I doubt it (I like some other praise choruses, and Verdi's "Requiem"). You could argue that I don't understand other people's responses as well as the worship team does, and I should trust their understanding. Once again: possible, but I doubt it.
If this is a matter of taste I should keep my mouth shut and accept the situation as my cross to bear. If it is a matter of value then the question becomes "How important is this?" At the former church I concluded that, on the whole, worship (personal response to God together) was not happening much and that I had an obligation to our kids to take them somewhere where worship would be modeled better.
Maybe I was wrong. If there were no other churches in the area I'd have stayed.
Politics
It is sometimes claimed (I've said it myself in greener days) that both major American political parties want good things for America and merely disagree on the means. I have been forced to a far more cynical view of politicians, who in the current environment cannot seem to avoid corruption; but be that as it may I'm not sure the parties agree on what is meant by "good." Certainly they have different ends in mind (when they have ends beyond their own advancement), and different visions of what the USA is and ought to be in the world.
Oddly, it was not always so--the values of political parties change with time. I suspect a Southern Democrat from 1950 would have heart failure looking at his party today, and probably a Republican looking at his.
Take one little example of values in politics and society--is diversity a means or an end? Is it a value in itself or something that produces other values?
Changes
People's values change too. Sometimes someone discovers that they something is more important to them than they realized it would be, and re-evaluates their values to accommodate it. I wasn't enthusiastic about having children when I got married--I figured children came with the territory but I'd had no great longings in that direction. After having children I've changed my values to something closer to what they should have been all along. That doesn't mean my tastes have changed--my ideal vacation is still to sit back with a good book and not go anywhere. That doesn't seem to inspire enthusiasm in the rest of the family, though, and I value their happiness and being happy with them.
The values that we pick up from our environment don't always hold up when we think them through--and it takes some people a while to get around to thinking them through. It is easier to pick up new ones from a new environment, and college is certainly a new environment for freshmen. From the fact that they generally wind up espousing whatever is in fashion this decade I conclude that most college students aren't "thinking through" but "picking up" values.
Oddly, one way to acquire new values is through new tastes. I'm told Amish youth are expected to be out in the world before rejoining. Imagine an Amish boy, schooled in the importance of diligence and good use of the limited time he has on earth, who decides he enjoys World of Warcraft too much to give it up. Cue the cognitive dissonance. If he starts to reject the old value of "good use of time" what will he replace it with? Probably something from the constellation of new values the other players exhibit--the primacy of personal satisfaction, perhaps. He'll probably still be diligent--it isn't exactly the same as using time wisely.
I suppose there are probably personal inventories to help you figure out what things you value. You have to figure out why yourself.
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