Black and White

Consider this…

If I look at a dot on the gray wall and say it’s black, and you look at it and say it’s white, then there isn’t much room for debate, assuming both of us are interested in the actual color of the dot. If we’re not just in it for the argument, and/or we are not so vested in our own viewpoint that it would be painful to change our stance, then it’s going to be a pretty short discussion.

First of all, those are some big assumptions. More on that in later posts.

However, if you say the dot is blueish gray, and I say it’s greenish gray, there there’s potentially a lot more to debate — especially if there’s a blue or green light illuminating the wall. Or it’s really dark. Or the gray of the wall itself has a blue or green tinge. Or… you get the idea.

The point is that, in the blue/green case, our disagreement is less extreme — black vs white, as opposed to blueish vs greenish. It is when our disagreement is less extreme that there is more to argue about.

So, consider… Perhaps, the more we argue, the less we disagree.