While there is no accounting for outright lies or wilful deceit, I have long held that differences between us are insubstantial or rooted in misunderstanding. Or, frankly, the differences are wholly irrelevant. If you want argument just sit at the bar with a beer. My overall view of society is that we’re all in need of identical governance for our well-being and survival. I’m here talking about fundamentals only – the type required to dissolve differences and to obtain resolution. I recognize that lack of knowledge and education quickly contaminates the topic (but that speaks only to the irrelevance of argument). Acquainting myself with “the other side” is a rhetorical adherence of mine, not especially because I believe I’ll be convinced of the opinions, mostly just out of curiosity, specifically my search for what it is that stimulates them.  My news channels for example include FOX NEWS among the others – CBC, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, Al Jazeera. Today I listened at length to Sirius XM Patriot – a channel described as, “Conservative talk and opinion featuring Breitbart News, Andrew Wilkow, Sean Hannity & Mark Levin”. After listening for only a few minutes, it evidently includes “Christianity, flag waving, the military and the family”. There was as well as an unwritten acceptance of white superiority (in spite of token interjections designed to drive a coach and horses through the error). Sometimes you only need to hear or see someone on the other side before sensing their preferences.

The choice to hear “the other side”, while having the appearance of cooperation, is but an introduction to the real value of doing so. It is after all neither difficult nor compromising to listen to what is being said. It is not a love affair. But listening too attentively – as though to clarify the arguments or to imagine rebuttals – is a waste of time. The project is not one to be enhanced or defeated by debate or familiarity. Indeed debate and affection are the furthest from requirement. What, by contrast, is required is resolution.

Resolution is a finite term – a decision, promise, undertaking involving a pledge or firmness of purpose. Nowhere does it speak to “the other side”. It is unidirectional – to “your side” only. The moment you cross the line to “the other side” for whatever purpose, the scope is commensurately limited. Certainly there must be discussion of what are the wants of the opposite parties; but in the end it is the choice of the parties to resolve their differences independently of “the other side”. Couching the formula as a quid pro quo is futile whether the strategy is conducted openly or speciously. It is the result of the resolution that matters – not the measure of give and take. The disagreement is most likely long past persuasion.

Naturally it is hard to digest accommodation without including a list of reasons why. But that putative logic risks exposing the conclusion to subsequent argument and debate – a palpable threat to what is hoped to be conclusive. The resilience of resolution is not a list of reasons or qualifications. What matters – and the only thing that does – is that the fight is resolved (however). Generally speaking the redundancy of introductory arguments is that the parties already know why they disagree (or, they may even not care – disagreement is after all a pointless cause). And usually there is nothing going to convince either one to change.

As I listened to Wilklow and Hannity today, I was overcome by the tainted commercialism of the radio station – everything had an “800” number (repeated as often as four times for clarity) but more importantly a common theme of protection from violation, whether on the internet, car damage, death without insurance, etc. The corporate theme seemed to thrive upon the possibility of unexpected loss.

The other sensation I had listening to Patriot is the disquieting and unsettling custom of both the interviewer and the guest to rely upon hackneyed expressions like communism, leftism, conservatism and family in order to punctuate an interpretation. It was an argument already fulfilled merely by the choice of language.  Once again the cleverness of the rhetoric has nothing whatever to do with resolution; and, more often than not, if the situation gets to the point of fielding similar unilateral characterizations, the hope for resolution is threatened.

Some people enjoy a fight. Some have nothing but reward to gain. Some colour their manner as, “I’m just trying to make a living!” For them, I have no words. If, on the other hand, there are two parties presently set upon disagreement, I therefore recommend to them this simple goal: Resolution.  The only sides of resolution are outside the pact; within, it is fixity of purpose only.