Ian MacMullen, resident scholar in the SNF Paideia Program, tells a cautionary tale of dialogue gone wrong at Paideia’s bad twin…
“Misunderstandings About Understanding”
A Tragic Meta-Dialogue in One Short Act
Scene: A mysteriously cold and breezy conference room at Locust University in Misadelphia, PA. Two students, Rita and Cy, are eating the bountiful lunch provided by Locust’s OMG Panacea Program. Panacea has paired Rita and Cy together for a short dialogue exercise, which is about to begin.
CY
I’m really looking forward to our conversation on this important topic, Rita. I feel sure I’m going to learn so much about you.
RITA
I’m looking forward to it, too, Cy. And I’m also expecting to learn a great deal. But I’m surprised to hear you say that you expect to learn about me. I kind of hoped you’d say you expect to learn from me.
CY
Don’t preposition-shame me! But if it makes you happy, no problem: I’ll use your preferred preposition. I expect to learn a lot from this conversation.
RITA
That’s no better, Cy. Don’t you expect to learn from me? Do I have to choose between my preferred preposition and my pronoun?
CY
Enough with the semantics, Rita! For better or for worse, I think our disagreement goes beyond language. I’ll be blunt: I’m not here today to learn about the topic of our conversation.
RITA
Oh! Why not? If I remember rightly, you just said you thought it was an important topic.
CY
Absolutely, it is! Very important. But I don’t need to learn about it from you.
RITA
I feel insulted.
CY
Oh, I’m sorry. Let me clarify: it’s nothing personal. It’s not you. It’s me.
RITA
What do you mean?
CY
Well, I don’t need to learn more about this topic from anyone. It’s a great topic, and it raises a lot of very interesting and important questions. But I already know the right answers to those questions.
RITA
So, why did you come today?
CY
Because although I already know the right answers, you don’t. That’s why I’m so glad you’re here to talk with me. I really want to understand where and why you go so terribly wrong on this important topic.
RITA
So, you’re the scientist, and I’m the lab rat that you’re studying. You just want to figure out how my brain works? Or rather, how it doesn’t work?
CY
I would never call you a rat, Rita. I respect you far too much for that. Your brain is infinitely superior to a rat’s. That’s why I want to understand why it doesn’t work properly on this very important topic.
RITA
Thanks, I guess.
CY
But I like your description of this dialogue as a type of scientific experiment. If there’s one thing you and I can presumably agree on, it’s that science is a noble enterprise, and sadly undervalued these days.
RITA
Oh, I’m a big fan of science. I just got my COVID shot this morning. And I’d happily volunteer to be an experimental subject in other contexts. But I thought you’d be here today with your mind open to the possibility that I am right, at least about some of the interesting and important questions we’ll be discussing, not just to identify the flaws in my reasoning.
CY
When you put it like that, Rita, my approach does sound a bit arrogant, I admit. But be honest: you aren’t really open to changing your mind either, are you? You didn’t come here today to learn from me. Our situation is symmetrical: each of us wants to understand the root causes of what we regard as the other person’s defective judgment. If you’re my rat, I’m your guinea pig.
RITA
You know what, Cy? You’re wrong about the past and right about the present.
CY
I don’t understand you.
RITA
I know. That’s the problem you came here to fix today, right? So let me help you.
CY
Thanks!
RITA
You’re wrong about the past: when I signed up to participate in this dialogue, I really was hoping to learn from you about the topic.
CY
I’ve never been so glad to be wrong! Because I have so much to teach you!
RITA
Your celebration is premature, I’m afraid. Because, as I also said, you’re right about the present: now that I realize you’re not open to learning from me, I’m no longer interested in learning from you.
CY
I’m sorry to hear that, Rita. But I’m also intrigued.
RITA
How so?
CY
Discovering that I’m sure I’m right has irrationally led you to feel sure that you’re right, even though our views on this topic contradict each other. That makes no sense! But it’s also super interesting! I’m so glad I came today. This is exactly the type of insight I was hoping to acquire. I already understand you so much better than I did before. Now that I see you are irrational in this respect, I am forming the hypothesis that you are irrational in other ways that will explain your failure to grasp the truth about the important topic of our discussion today. I can’t wait to test that hypothesis. Dialogue is so great!
RITA
I stand corrected, Cy. I said you were right about the present, but it turns out you’re not. Finding out how arrogantly closed-minded you are didn’t make me any more confident in my own beliefs. But because those beliefs are important – because the answers to the questions we’re supposed to be discussing today really matter for people’s lives – I am not going to revise my views unless you are willing to do the same. The truth may well lie somewhere in between your current position and mine, but if you’re not going to meet me there, I’m not moving, either.
CY
That seems perverse. You’re retaliating against me at the cost of your own understanding. If you really think you could learn from me, why would you decline to do so just because I won’t reciprocate? Wouldn’t you prefer to have true beliefs, even if – as you apparently see the situation – I remain obstinately mired in falsehood?
RITA
If it was just about the truth of my beliefs, I would agree with you, Cy. But, as I already explained to you, those beliefs matter in the real world in ways that go far beyond their truth or falsity. What really matters is what we do, not what we believe. And what we do – collectively – depends on what we all believe, not just on what I believe.
CY
What do you mean?
RITA
Well, they say that democracy is the art of compromise. So, the collective decisions our society makes usually fall somewhere between what each side wants. If people like you continue to believe what you currently believe, and people like me shift our position in response to what we learn from people like you, the decisions we all make together will skew in favor of your position. You’ll be rewarded for your obstinacy. I’ll be punished for having learned. And, most importantly, the decisions our society makes will be objectively worse than they would have been if I hadn’t learned from you. So, if you won’t budge, I shouldn’t either. That may be retaliation, as you put it, but it’s also a principled commitment.
CY
So, you are willing to give up the opportunity to learn for the sake of good public policy? Who knew that retaliatory stubbornness could be so admirably selfless?!
RITA
Thanks, Cy. Now I feel both understood and validated. As you said a moment ago, dialogue really is great!
CY
I guess our time is almost up for today. It’s too bad we didn’t have time to talk about the actual topic. But I still feel we’ve learned so much.
RITA
That’s right. I have learned that you’re arrogant and closed-minded.
CY
And I have learned that one shouldn’t be open to changing one’s mind unless others are, too. Because pursuing the truth in that unilateral fashion would be selfish.
RITA
And, next time we talk, we can both finally proceed with the important work of figuring out why the other person is getting the wrong answers to the important questions we were supposed to be talking about today.
CY
I can’t wait!
Ian MacMullen is Practice Professor of Political Science and resident scholar in the SNF Paideia Program.
This entry is part of DiaLogic: Thinking Through Big Questions for Dialogue, a monthly series in which SNF Paideia Dialogue Director Dr. Sarah Ropp and guest contributors from the SNF Paideia community explore key questions and share ideas, experiences, resources, and practices related to diverse dialogue topics. We invite you to respond with your own thoughts and ideas in the comments. If you’re interested in contributing an essay or if this post sparks any ideas about collaborating to create more dialogue at Penn and beyond, please reach out directly to Sarah Ropp at sropp@upenn.edu. For more DiaLogic posts, visit this page here.
