Wine with Lunch and Arguments on TV
Stained Teeth Composed on July 31, 2009 Wines:
;)
Bota Box Cabernet
- Grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon
- Country: USA
- Region: CA
- Impression: This is what I wrote down: "Sun triangles on concrete subway stairs". This makes it sound sort of unpleasant, which it really was not. I think what I'm remembering here is descending the stairs to the good old Green Line in Kenmore Square on a beautiful spring day in Boston. The mellow heat of the concrete; the coolness of going underground.
Location (while drinking):
My Kitchen (a home)
Activity (while drinking):
Food?
Yes; Coconut Curry over Couscous (left-overs from last night's dinner)
The Scene:
Since starting to work from home over the past two years or so, I've gotten into the habit of having a glass of wine with lunch. Wine Allergic Girlfriend looks down her nose at this, but I always retort: "But I am European!" I am, of course, not European but this is the only argument I have. Just like a five year old can get away with calling someone fat - "So sorry! He's only five." - Europeans can get away with drinking wine basically whenever. As Iles Brody writes in an Oct. 1942 issue of Gourmet Magazine: "I couldn't imagine eating lunch or dinner without wine, even merely a sip of it, even a cheap pinard." I do not know what a pinard is, but I whole-heartedly agree.
OK BUT AND SO: the other thing I like to do while eating lunch is watch the previous evening's The Daily Show. I do this using Hulu. This particular episode - July 27th, 2009 - Jon Stewart interviews Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, a conservative publication I know very little about, but in which the cover story this issue is about cocktails, so already I can see we agree on one thing.
Jon Stewart and Bill Kristol agree on very little, and this is why Kristol is on the show. Stewart is famously wonderful when interviewing people with whom he disagrees. He treats them with respect usually, and allows them the time to speak. He manages to talk about actual real stuff like Health Care while also remaining charming and funny.
BUT STILL: the conversation between Kristol and Stewart still operated according the rules of argument that made me an extremely annoying 15 year old. I call it (at least this is what I call it as of right now) - setting discussion traps. OK, "discussion traps" is a stupid thing to call it. The goal of setting discussion traps is to make your opponent look like they are contradicting themselves or saying something that is essentially ridiculous and/or offensive. For instance, see this little bit in the Kristol interview:
NOW: this is great, no question about it. Stewart catches him in a pretty big contradiction - Kristol claims gov't-run health care would be bad; and here he is saying gov't-run health care is the best. I do not have problems with this.
But as I was sitting there eating my lunch, drinking a glass of wine from my box o' wine, I also felt sad and frustrated by how we tend to discuss things when we disagree with the other person. We try and trap them in details. I did this all the time when I was 15; literally all the time. It was pretty much how I conversed with people. Tried to prove how wrong they were. Sadly, I find myself slipping into it with my Stepson who is now 15. One thing I am trying to do more in my life is look for the places not where I can trap people in discussion, but where we actually do agree. To do that, often, you have to abstract out from your discussion -- meaning, you have to go to higher ground. To take an example from when I was 15: When the details of a movie prove contentious, abstract it out to the idea of the movie; if you don't agree on that, take it to the genre; or take it the experience of watching movies in general. Eventually, we'll find that point of agreement. We both see movies because they entertain us, or whatever.
The point isn't to stay at that highly abstracted level, though; it's to restart the discussion from there. When you do that, you start from agreement and analyse at what point you start to differ. And that's just kind of interesting. When you try to trap them in the details, you assume you simply do not agree with this person and you're going to prove they're wrong gosh darn it. But if you abstract out until you agree, it's no longer about trapping them; it's about how your disagreements relate to that thing on which you ultimately agree. OK, so this has been a bit rambling towards the end, but it's a pretty fair facsimile of the thoughts running through my head with that glass of wine in my hand.
Matthew
I made a few edits to the last paragraph to explain myself better.
Reader Comments (4)
I only disapprove because of the NIGHT TERRORS.
Today I am spending my morning reading your blog. I've not done this since June so I have a little catching up. These comments may pile up, I'm not sure, but I'm certainly enjoying myself (You get NIGHT TERRORS????) Anyway, this one in particular made me feel a need to comment because I had this exact conversation with a friend two nights ago after we got into a horrendous argument that started when we passed a billboard with a picture of the Hudson River airplane landing -- you know the photo, with all the people huddled together on the wings, water at their feet, etc... -- and ended with him and I standing in a driveway shouting about Canada, the United States and the media. He and I are very close but argue about things in this way a lot, not because we don't get along, and not because we argue this way with other people, but because for some reason he and I aren't able to have civilized disagreements. SO. We'd been talking about ways to better this situation and began by analyzing the complicated art of Conversation & Disagreement in general. And so when I read above I instinctively cried "Andrew!" and he said "What?" and I said "Read this!" and he did, and we agreed that you phrased it nicely. So. Well done. The end.
yeah, really.
Molly - I am happy to hear this. Especially from someone who plopped down a world atlas in front of someone with whom she disagreed and pointed out the town in Mexico where she was from.