Disagreeing Agreeably

Pastor Foster raises a good point, which can be expanded upon. Or, rather, raises a good question: When should someone be agreeable, and when disagreeable? How, in particular, should a Christian act?

I think I am somewhat of an expert on this, being known variously both as an unusually agreeable person and an unusually disagreeable person. By temperament I am mild, but by conviction I am often strident. As an economist, with our particular scholarly culture, I often act in ways that seem to outsiders savage and rude. On the other hand, I knew one person who said he became an economist because all the economists he had met were such nice guys, and we seem to have much less of the backbiting, two-facedness, and politicking that I see in humanities departments and law schools.

There is a simple framework that resolves these paradoxes. It is good to disagree agreeably. It is bad to agree disagreeably. Occasionally, as an exception to the rule, the right thing to do is to disagree disagreeably.

Pastor Foster says, correctly, “There are times when being godly hinges on being disagreeable.” Conservative Christians have trouble with this. They want to be nice. They want everyone to love them. Indeed, they think that being loving means acting in a way so everyone loves you, which is quite wrong. Any parent knows that being loving means having your kids hate things you say. Any friend knows that being loving means having your best friend hate things you say— things nobody but a true friend would tell them.

Just last night, Ben, Lily, Faith, and I were reading Book II of Plato’s Republic. It was the part about the Ring of Gyges, where Glaucon is reviving Thrasymachus’s Book I argument that “Justice is the will of the stronger” because, as he tells Socrates, Socrates used tricks to humiliate Thrasymachus but didn’t really kill his argument that the unjust man has a happier life. So Glaucon sets up that argument to be as strong as it can be— he “Steel Man’s” it, to use the expression of recent years— by contrasting the perfectly unjust man with the perfectly just one. The perfectly unjust man is perfectly hateful, but to be as unjust as possible, he must also be so clever that he seems perfectly loving:

Let the unjust man also attempt unjust deeds correctly, and get away with them, if he is going to be extremely unjust. The man who is caught must be considered a poor chap. For the extreme of injustice is to seem to be just when one is not. So the perfectly unjust man must be given the most perfect injustice, and nothing must be taken away; he must be allowed to do the greatest injustices while having provided himself with the greatest reputation for justice. And if, after all, he should trip up in anything, he has the power to set himself aright; if any of his unjust deeds should come to light, he is capable both of speaking persuasively and of using force, to the extent that force is needed, since he is courageous and strong and since he has provided for friends and money. (361a)

The perfectly just man, on the other hand, is perfectly loving (at least we Christians believe that; whether Plato does is a separate question), but seems perfectly hateful:

So he must be stripped of everything except justice, and his situation must be made the opposite of the first man’s. Doing no injustice, let him have the greatest reputation for injustice, so that his justice may be put to the test to see if it is softened by bad reputation and its consequences. Let him go unchanged till death, seeming throughout life to be unjust although he is just, so that when each has come to the extreme— the one of justice, the other of injustice— they can be judged as to which of the two is happier. (361c)

As sinners, we are always wanting to be the perfectly unjust man— not imperfectly unjust, where we get caught, but perfectly unjust, where we don’t. But we have to keep in mind Glaucon’s Just Man, whom he continues to describe, in a very interesting way:

With two such men it’s no longer hard, I suppose, to complete the speech by a description of the kind of life that awaits each. It must be told, then. And if it’s somewhat rustically told, don’t suppose that it is I who speak, Socrates, but rather those who praise injustice ahead of justice. They’ll say that the just man who has such a disposition will be whipped; he’ll be racked; he’ll be bound; he’ll have both his eyes burned out; and, at the end, when he has undergone every sort of evil, he’ll be crucified and know that one shouldn’t wish to be, but to seem to be, just. (361e)

Remind you of anyone?

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He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
But He waspierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
By oppression and judgment He was taken away.

No mention of crucifixion, but apart from that, the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 is pretty similar to the Perfectly Just Man, even though it was written 400 years earlier, in a distant and less sophisticated land. No wonder that Nietzsche said in relation to events 400 years later, “Christianity is Platonism for the masses” (Christenthum ist Platonismus für’s “Volk”)

Of course, nobody will want their name to be associated with that of the perfectly just man, because of the shame that would bring them. Such is the fate of those who disagree with public opinion.

The rest of The Republic is devoted to trying to beat Glaucon’s improved version of Thrasymachus (Thrazzy Makkus, as someone in our house called him). I won’t go into trying to beat it here; let’s just suppose it’s better to be perfectly just than perfectly unjust, and note that being perfectly just means disagreeing with injustice and being called disagreeable and immoral. After all, this is just an essay, so even you who are perfectly unjust will want to agree with me on this point publicly, to better lull us into trusting you so you can continue your evil designs. So I know you won’t contradict me here. We ought to disagree, following Pastor Foster’s counsel. (Not that I’m saying he’s perfectly unjust…)

But what got me started thinking about his tweet was not Book II, but Book I of The Republic. Thrasymachus is a sophist, a professional arguer, a lawyer. He is out to show the rich young men that he can outargue the great Socrates. He even makes them agree to put a money bet on who will win. Unlike Glaucon, his objective is not truth, but winning the argument. He is aggressive, insulting, and ungracious to Socrates:

When we came to this point in the argument and it was evident to everyone that the argument about the just had turned around in the opposite direction, Thrasymachus, instead of answering, said, “Tell me, Socrates, do you have a wet nurse?”
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“Why this?” I said. “Shouldn’t you answer instead of asking such things?”
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“Because,” he said, “you know she neglects your sniveling nose and doesn’t give it the wiping you need, since it’s her fault you do not even recognize sheep or shepherd.”
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“Because of what, in particular?” I said.
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“Because you suppose shepherds or cowherds consider the good of the sheep or the cows and fatten them and take care of them looking to something other than their masters’ good and their own… (343i)

Socrates, on the other hand, is mild, complimentary, and forgiving:

“That’s because you are wise, Thrasymachus…”
“You best of men,” I said, “how could a man answer who, in the first place, does not know and does not profess to know; and who, in the second place, even if he does have some supposition about these things, is forbidden to say what he believes by no ordinary man?…
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“How eagerly I do so when I think someone speaks well, you will well know as soon as you have answered; for I suppose you will speak well…”
“Now,” I said, “I understand what you mean. Whether it is true or not, I’ll try to find out…
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“Perhaps, someone else among us— and not only I— also has this sentiment. So persuade us adequately, you blessed man, that we don’t deliberate correctly in having a higher regard for justice than injustice…”
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“But nonetheless,” I said, “one oughtn’t to hesitate to pursue the consideration of the argument as long as I understand you to say what you think. For, Thrasymachus, you seem really not to be joking now, but to be speaking the truth as it seems to you…”
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“I am full of wonder, Thrasymachus,” I said, “because you not only nod and shake your head, but also give very fine answers…”

Ultimately, Book I ends with total Thrasymachus totally defeated, subdued like a wild horse whose spirit has been broken.

“But it is not profitable to be wretched; rather it is profitable to be happy.”
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“Of course ”
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“Then, my blessed Thrasymachus, injustice is never more profitable than justice.”
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“Let that,” he said, “be the fill of your banquet at the festival of Bendis, Socrates.”
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“I owe it to you, Thrasymachus,” I said, “since you have grown gentle and have left off being hard on me. However, I have not had a fine banquet, but it’s my own fault, not yours. For in my opinion, I am just like the gluttons who grab at whatever is set before them to get a taste of it, before they have in proper measure enjoyed what went before. Before finding out what we were considering at first— what the just is— I let go of that and pursued the consideration of whether it is vice and lack of learning, or wisdom and virtue. And later, when in its turn an argument that injustice is more profitable than justice fell in my way, I could not restrain myself from leaving the other one and going after this one, so that now as a result of the discussion I know nothing. So long as I do not know what the just is, I shall hardly know whether it is a virtue or not and whether the one who has it is unhappy or happy.” (354a)

Thrasymachus has lost the argument. Socrates does it by trickery, he admits, just to win, but he gave Thrasymachus ample opportunity to escape from every trap, so it is “fair trickery”, I suppose. Thrasymachus is beaten at his own game, in front of numerous potential clients, having taken the low road for nothing.

The lesson for Christians, I think, is that it is often best to disagree agreeably, like Socrates does when he defends justice. As it says in Proverbs 15:1-2,

A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
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The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.

I also said that sometimes it is also appropriate to disagree disagreeably. Perhaps I will address that topic another time. For now, I will only note that since Thrasymachus himself was so disagreeable in defending evil, it was appropriate for Socrates to be agreeable. The nasty face of evil was obvious. In other situations, against an agreeable advocate of evil, disagreeableness on the part of the advocate of virtue may be appropriate and necessary to show the skull beneath the skin. A maxim of the martial arts is that you should strike a hard part of your opponent with a soft part of yourself, but a soft part with a hard part. You use your palm against his skull, but your knuckles against his nose. Perhaps that is what we should do in argument too.
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Twitter:

I remember the days when a person could give unsought for advice online and people IGNORED it if it did not suit them. Now everyone is up in the person’s face about how the advice wasn’t right for them. Who cares? Heard of the bell curve? We are so screwed as a people.

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See also Two Dimensions of Virtue.

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People need to learn to argue in front of referees, moderators, judges— people with authority (if only moral authority) who will keep us playing fair, by the rules. Marriage counsellors and mediators are NOT such people. They are trying to get agreement, to make compromises, and will not take sides even when one side is right and the other is wrong. A referee always takes a side, in the sense that whoever breaks the rule is in the wrong. Mediators aren’t willing to call out cheating and take sides with the noncheater.

If you do not learn to argue with a referee present, though, you will resort to dirty tricks and it will become habitual. You will become shameless. This is a particular problem for women, who in general do not care about justice and do not think special pleading— defending an act when you and your friends do it and attacking it otherwise— is immoral. Remember that Forster said:

“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country”.

This comes up in personality tests, in Agreeableness, I think, one feature of which is taht you value friendship over honesty. Myers-Briggs too, maybe.

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From Wikipedia’s Balliol Rhyme:
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I am tall and rather stately
And I care not very greatly
What you say, or what you do.
I’m Mackail – and who are you?

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