Weekly Challenge: Go out and have a Rogerian Argument.

Whatever Happened to Rogerian Argument? » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names



This is a very good article that discusses the idea of my blog. I didn't know that the new style of communication that I had stumbled upon had a name. I guess that I have unknowingly become a fan of the Rogerian argument. I like it. The conventional Aristotelian argument, I win or you win, sets us up in a false dichotomy and polarized thinking, that either one is right or the other. Black or white. Democrat or Republican. Right or wrong. Good or bad. Too many in the list or not enough. Funny or not.



We teach in the LDS church that the truth is circumscribed into one whole, which can be interpreted that we can't pull one truth out and observe life from only that perspective. Truth must be acknowledged from every angle. Thus by following the Rogerian Argument, or in my words, being willing to be wrong and to acknowledge things as they really are, we can learn the truth through crucial conversations.



David, my younger brother, and I are pretty good at holding these kinds of discussions. Last night, as we waited for the moon to turn red, we talked for hours on controversial subjects such as welfare and the abolition of bi-partisan systems. We viewed the pros and the cons together. We had differing opinions, but we asked questions and proposed "what-ifs" to help us understand each others point of view. I found it rather enjoyable.



So today, I offer a challenge. A commitment, if you will. Go out and have a Rogerian argument sometime this week. It doesn't have to be over something huge like abortion, but it could be if you are that brave to start there. My prediction and experience is that you will find that the emotions will not be as high and that the subjects will not be quite as controversial as we build them up to be. However, both sides have to participate in this style of thinking, or it will not work.



Remember. Restate the other person's point of view until they are satisfied that you understand them. Then, and only then, bring up new evidences or logic trains to help them see what you see. If emotions get high, pause and discuss which comments raised the emotions and what each person wants and doesn't want from the conversation. Then re-engage.



Will you do it? Are you scared? Take a step outside of your comfort zone and see if it changes your life for the better.

Consequences: How the cause and effect laws apply to both conversation and modesty.

So, I posted a controversial post on Facebook, and as we all would have guessed, it exploded into a heated argument.

 "Girls, tight skirts are a no go at Conference, no matter how long, or short, they may be. They are most definitely not modest, and I care enough about yall to let yall know."

 We can see that I tried to make it sound at least a little nice by stating my purpose and motives behind the comment.

"I care enough about yall to let yall know"

I also posted things from the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet published by the Church that supported my claim.

However, the biting attitude in the first half very ineffectively portrayed my complex and deep beliefs on the issue. It showed very little understanding. It raised people's defenses by lowering safety levels to zero.

Naturally, people got very offended and began to attack me with all of the mentioned things that "Crucial Conversations" predicts will happen when we are on what the authors call "our worst behavior". I was labeled as judgmental, accused of defining modesty for them, accused of going beyond what the prophets have written on the subject, and even was told by one person that they never wanted to ever talk to me again. My Christianity and charity was insulted deeply, and what others wrote hurt my soul to read.

Initially, I felt like a failure as I watched myself respond with highly emotional comments, and even descended to saying some things that were flat out rude. I slowly pulled myself together as I realized what I was doing, and did my best to back up and look at the whole situation. Did the others fully intend to insult me? Did I intend to insult them? Did I go too far? What could I have done better? What can I do now to show my understanding and open up the safety again so that we can discuss this at a mature, healthy level?

So, I apologized for what I did wrong. I didn't say that my point of view was necessarily incorrect, but I truly regretted the way that I had worded it. I asked for people to tell me what things that I did caused them offense, but asked them to refrain from trying to convince me that I was wrong in my manner of thinking and to stick to relaying information on the way that I had discussed the topic.

Again, naturally, people told  me what I had done wrong. I had used absolutes ("tight skirts are a NO GO"). However doctrinally founded I believe that my claim was, to others I had defined what can and can't be worn to maintain modesty, and they didn't like someone else defining their standards, or rather in my mind (according to them) holding them to standards that they don't agree with. They affirm that I have staked out the right to choose which people I decide are modest and which people I decide aren't and to hold them mentally accountable for their choice of dress.

I have in no wise changed my standard for modesty, and I know that each person has the right to choose what they will and will not wear. They do not have the ability to choose the effects of wearing what they will.

I feel like this is an issue at stake; choices and consequences are eternally bound together. Choices affect how our life goes. Consequences naturally follow our choices, and once we have acted we have no ability to decide which consequences we want.

I did not have the ability to choose how people reacted to my post, and I had to deal with all consequences of my choice. I chose to do so with my shoulders as square as I could muster, and asked for ways that I could improve. I owned up to my mistakes, and have adjusted my thinking respectively.

I do not believe that personal wardrobe selection is any different. I believe that women are free to make that selection as they desire, but they cannot choose how they are perceived any more than I could. They can rationalize as much as they want their rights and explain what I should do in response, which is good for me to know. However, they can't wear something immodest and expect to have no negative effects on the spirits, bodies and minds of men any more than I can expect to post the posts with a similar attitude and to have different results. That expectation is not realistic, nor is it fair. It is not founded on any science that I have heard of, but if anyone has information otherwise I am most willing to study it out.

I am grateful to those who have been willing to push past the naive me and help me to understand things better, and sorry to anyone whom I have offended by my tactics, though not by my argument. For this soldier, modest IS hottest, because I love a virtuous woman to no end. Virtuous women are my heroes, and the last Chapter of Proverbs is my favorite by far.

Thanks for reading, I hope to have more things to write soon, but I hope that next time I will have offended less people in my efforts to speak up!

Women Wanting the Priesthood From a Man's Perspective

This is an article on a VERY controversial subject. Not exactly a smooth way to break in the blog, but an important and relevant one for this upcoming weekend that I believe the First Presidency of the LDS Church will likely address. Please read, and comment on the author's conversational abilities. Here are some prompts just to help the process:

1. What does the writer do to understand the other side's point of view?
2. What assumptions does the writer make?
3. Where, if at all, does the writer label the opposition's views (dumb, unfounded, irrational, selfish, etc.) and how might he word it better?
4.  Is this an effective way to cope with the petition and the implications that it carries with it?

I would like to thank the New York Times for breaking a story yesterday that highlights one of the biggest problems in the LDS Church; i.e., gender inequality. The article talks about a group of about 1,300 women who signed a manifesto for female ordination. 1,300 signatures. That sounds like a lot. In fact, if I write the number out with all caps and bold it, then it sounds like even more signatures: THIRTEEN HUNDRED. Wow.

But what does 1,300 signatures really represent? For ease of math, let’s round the number up to 1,500. According to mormonnewsroom.org, there are 15,000,000 LDS members in the world. Some simple math (on a simple calculator) tells me that the 1500 signatures represent 0.01 percent of the Church. But, you might say, men shouldn’t be included in that calculation because they aren’t the ones who are being oppressed (at least not in terms of receiving the Priesthood). So, for arguments sake, let’s cut the number of members in half to represent the split between men and women. Crunch the numbers and we see that the number now becomes 0.02 percent.

In the spirit of fairness, I decided to look and see how a comparable petition would fair with the US Government. And it’s not terrible. There are 313.9 million people in the United States. According to petitions.whitehouse.gov, in order to cross the threshold and be reviewed, a petition must receive 100,000 signatures in the span of 30 days. Unfortunately 0.02 percent of the United States population only equates to 62,780 signatures. In other words, it was a valiant effort but this petition gets rejected. I’m not saying the petition system is perfect, but it doesn’t seem to miss the important ones; e.g., the petition to deport Justin Bieber that reached the threshold in January of this year.
Other than the fact that Obama wouldn’t care (see what I did there?), we now know that these women only represent a small (dare I say teeny) portion of Latter-Day Saints. Loud? Yes. But small just the same. Doesn’t this make you wonder why the New York Times cares about a petition that doesn’t have enough signatures to make it to paper in the US Government? Let’s save that topic for another day. (Believe me, I have lots to say about the media targeting Latter Day Saints. Like, why is every other episode of DateLine about a Mormon who murdered his spouse or defrauded his entire congregation? Does that really only happen in Utah?)
So I propose that instead of focusing on such a bitty group of loud individuals, we should really start to consider the needs of the quiet majority. I’m talking about men. I believe that there is some gender inequality in the Church. But I don’t think it’s a one-way street. So I’m starting a list of requests that we, men, have all noticed, but until now, have been quiet about. (If you have any to add, then put them in the comment section)

• How come there’s a mother’s lounge but not a father’s lounge? Women get to nurse and feed their baby in a dark, quiet room while fathers have to walk around the Church looking for an empty classroom or use the “stand-and-sway” method to put babies to sleep. Even if we find an unused classroom, we don’t have the rocking chair.
• We want padded seats in our meeting room too. Do you know what men have? We have cold, hard, metal chairs. Are not all bottoms created equal?!
• Male enrichment night. After we graduate from scouting, we get one, maybe two, activities a year for men. (Typically a shooting guns activity with BBQ.) But we want monthly activities like the women. Let’s even up those budgets a little huh.
• Nursery for Elder’s quorum events. Women get the youth to babysit when they have an activity, but it’s expected that men should go to an activity without help. Do you just assume that our wives are always available to watch the kids when we have an activity? On the flipside, are you saying that men are incapable of watching the kids when the women are away to their activities? Either way, it sounds oppressive.
• We want a nice table and podium in our room. Sure, we’re not known for our table decor when it comes to Sunday lessons, but we couldn’t even if we wanted to. We only have a small table with skinny legs. How am I supposed to display my tackle box and Singing Bass wall mount in style when I give my “fishers of men” lesson?
• Finally, I want to propose an every-other-move ordinance where the Elders Quorum and the RS split all of the new move-ins and move-outs in the Ward. Your argument: men are stronger and can lift more. My counter-argument: women are more likely to show up and “many hands make light work.”

Again, I would like to thank the New York Times for pointing out the gender inequality in our Church. We have a long way to go, but I believe we can get there. One padded seat at a time.

http://buzz.io/4219/some-lds-women-want-the-priesthood-well-lds-men-have-some-requests-too/

"Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath"- James 1:19

My name is Clark Lindsey, and I have recently finished a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Argentina. I was away from the country for two whole years with limited information on what was going on whilst I was experiencing real life conversational difficulties with people in a language that I was learning on the fly. I came back and was astounded to hear the close-mindedness of many Americans, especially adults, though I had already seen it in the Argentine people as well when touching upon sensitive subjects such as doctrines and morality.

Seeing this, I decided to investigate how to communicate effectively, and I read the book "Crucial Conversations" by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler. Great book, by the way, and I give full credit to the authors for the initiation of this blog. I simply will put into practice speech models demonstrated in the book and wish to cause great amounts of HEALTHY discussion. Hence the title of my blog. Listen first, then speak. Understand the question and ask people if you understand what they are trying to express. Just imagine what would happen in each of these instances if people would apply simple conversational tools! Imagine how politics would be! Imagine how the news would be! Imagine how your family reunions would be, or how Facebook would be, or how courts of law would be! I learned that when we communicate effectively we can overcome even difficult subjects such as high level corporate spending habits, criminal or simply offensive behavior in the workplace, or even politics, religion, morals, etc.

Hahahaha.

Why do I laugh? Effective communication seems to never go hand in hand with any of the these! Talk show hosts like Glenn Beck tend to sensationalize their point of view and give little emphasis on understanding other people's points of view. They get paid lots of money, and get great reviews for ending up "right" by the end of the show. Theologists spend a lifetime studying and learning to interpret the Bible in 1,000,000,000 different ways, and when someone tries to help them understand that God might see it differently than they do they whip out the Bible and read off 20 verses that prove their point without even being willing to ask God whether or not they are right (not all theologists do so, just most, hence the thousands of different religious in today's world). When you ask someone if why it isn't moral for a company like Hobby Lobby to religiously refuse abortions in their healthcare plans for employees people say that it's because the woman has a right to choose, completely avoiding the issue of whether or not a man can make a decision for his company based on his religious beliefs, which is the issue at stake here. I see people on Facebook labeling other people as irrational instead of recognizing that scientifically speaking they are indeed rational and have yet drawn different conclusions than the guy who posted something.

Am I innocent? NO WAY, JOSE!! I tend to post things on my personal Facebook account from Conservative points of view, and often am vehement in my opinion. Now, I do not endorse all activity by conservative parties, nor do I condemn all activity by liberal parties. I am making a renewed effort look at each topic in its own sphere and element to be judged, not by partisan or religious fidelity, but by true moral, sociological, communicative and logical revision.

I invite all to do the same, stating and emphasizing that God is not a God of confusion and that there IN FACT exists universal truth that cannot be changed. Our job is to find that truth.

I testify as a witness to the world that God lives, and that He loves each and every one of us, His children, or in other words, mankind. He wants us to be unified, for thus the Bible teaches us in John chapter 17. Jesus prayed to God a very important phrase as follows "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, THAT THEY MAY BE ONE, as we are."

The purpose of this blog is to have an argument, that I will admit, but not to contradict people because I am right, rather to open understanding and augment unity amongst those that will listen.

 House Rules 

1. No sexual remarks (even implicit ones). All will be removed and the offender will not be allowed access to the conversations again. That is uncalled for 

2. No attacks on people instead of the idea at hand (such as name-calling, potshots, labeling of ideas as invalid without having evidence to do so but simply calling it that, etc.) 

3. No violent words or enforcing one's ideas by repeating the same point loudly without presenting new evidence. 

4. No swearing will be tolerated. 

Please, comment on controversial subjects. The worse the better. I will do my best to bring them up, listen to what evidences are on both sides, determine what people are trying to say, and draw my own conclusions based on the discussion, and I expect everyone to do the same. I will probably start with something light to test the waters before we get slugging it out peacefully over some of the issues that I have already brought up. Stay tuned for the first discussion!