{"id":41667,"date":"2025-04-14T15:34:32","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T22:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=41667"},"modified":"2025-04-14T15:34:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T22:34:32","slug":"can-we-try-civil-disagreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/can-we-try-civil-disagreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Can We Try Civil Disagreement?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I currently believe and why<\/strong><\/p>\n

From high school science class, I learned that a parasite is an organism, my brain says a bug, which needs to actually live on another organism, a host, to keep it alive. It feeds off the host which provides nutrition to fuel its life. The problem is that in the course of the parasite meeting its own needs, the host pays a price. This could take the form of weakness or death. Based on the title of this book, my thought is that the author is correlating certain hot topic ideas that then feed on social media, news outlets, or universities that have imbedded themselves into the life of a society and caused disruption, (weakness?) or death of common sense.<\/p>\n

When I read the title of this book, my mind went to The Anxious Generation<\/em> where social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt discussed the result of a generation of young people growing up with more safety precautions than ever before. The anxiety went beyond physical harm to emotional hurts. Because these emerging adults had not navigated small difficulties on the playground or at school, they did not have the coping skills needed to transfer to adulthood. Rather than sticks and stone would break a bone, but names would never hurt, children have become fragile adolescents who feel personally harmed when words spoken conflict with personally held tenets[1]<\/a>. Dr. Saad\u2019s book took a different journey yet he may be responding to it.<\/p>\n

How my beliefs have been affirms and challenged by the reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first purpose of The Parasitic Mind<\/em> was to define what Dr. Gad Saad perceives to be some of the damaging progressive pathogens that are being expressed in mainstream settings such as universities, media, businesses, politics, and \u00a0more. The second purpose was to offer ways to become protected from the effects that he believes could be dire[2]<\/a>. Finally, he offered a call to action to combat them and the importance of free speech. As soon as I read about his view of the importance of free speech, I sensed I was more willing to read what else he had to say.<\/p>\n

Yet beyond free speech, I was challenged as I realized I would have to get beyond what I perceived as a rigid approach to truth. Dr. Saad stated that the lack of intellectual diversity is like the spider who is drugged by the sting of a spider wasp then brought to the nest where the baby wasps eat it[3]<\/a>. He is outspoken and seemed to have little tolerance for ideas that posed what he thought were wrong definitions of truth. Additionally, he described those ideas as idea pathogens then correlated them to horrific illnesses such as Ebola, bubonic plague, and more; calling them parasites of the human mind was disturbing[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Where I drop away from Dr. Saad is the way he interacts with issues like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as a parasitic ideology similar to a cult[5]<\/a>. This raises questions for me. Are all new ways of looking at things inherently bad if you disagree with them? Is sparring online or demonstrating\u00a0 the best ways to effect change for either side? Is it possible that both sides of a topic might have areas that could be framed and articulated differently?<\/p>\n

Rather than simply write off something because a person doesn\u2019t like how it started or the method used to promote it, I think there is another option than simply condemning it as all bad. Perhaps intellectual conversations where courageous individuals can discuss historical background, pros, cons, values, limitations, and connections to scientific fields would be helpful. And more importantly, is there any common ground where two presently extreme opposites could acknowledge their differences but agree to live in that, recognizing that one group has a right to assess them differently than another? More than civil discourse, maybe call it a process of civil disagreement.<\/p>\n

Even as I say write this, I am aware that this might be one of those wicked problems that have so many layers that one answer will not solve the problem in total[6]<\/a>. But as authors and emeritus professors, Joseph Bentley and Michael Toth wrote in Exploring Wicked Problems<\/em>, working with problems that we care about offer benefits that may include:<\/p>\n