8 | AUGUST 11 • 2022 

opinion
We Need to Agree to Disagree
H

ere’s a story I recently 
shared on Facebook: 
I was paddling my 
inflatable kayak on a lake in 
the Berkshires. Granted, it is 
not the sleekest 
or coolest-look-
ing conveyance, 
but it gets the 
job done and it 
fits in the trunk 
of my car.
At one point, 
I passed two 
guys in a very lovely canoe. 
One of the guys says to me, 
“That looks like fun!” And I 
say, “And you have a beauti-
ful boat,” which it was. And 
then the guy in the stern of 
the boat says, “It’s a lot more 
expensive than yours.”
His response sort of 
stunned me: Why was he 
talking about the price of our 
boats? Had my clunky kayak 
offended his sensibilities 
somehow? 
My Facebook friends most-
ly agreed with my initial reac-
tion: The guy was a jerk. But 
then a few people weighed in 
with an alternative interpre-
tation: The guy was actually 
making fun of himself for 
spending so much on a canoe. 
One friend, a Jewish educator, 
channeled the guy’s thinking 
this way: “Our boat might be 
beautiful, as you say, but I’m 
not sure it’s worth it, consid-
ering we could be getting a 
lot of fun from rowing in a 
kayak like yours and would 
have spent a lot less money to 
do it.”
True or not, I love that 
interpretation. It reminds 
me of something from Pirkei 
Avot, the Mishnah’s compi-
lation of ethical principles: 

“Judge to the side of merit” 
(1:6). That is, in life and con-
versation, give the other per-
son the benefit of the doubt. 
How many conversations 
slip off the rails because we 
assume the worst of the other 
person?
The story was fresh in my 
mind when I attended an 
invitation-only event Tuesday 
on “viewpoint diversity” 
put on by the Maimonides 
Fund. The daylong seminar 
brought leaders of various 
Jewish organizations togeth-
er to discuss our society’s 
inability to engage in what the 
keynote speaker, NYU social 
psychologist Jonathan Haidt, 
describes as “constructive dis-
agreement.”

PUBLIC SHAMING
In Haidt’s 2018 book, The 
Coddling of the American 
Mind, he and co-author Greg 
Lukianoff dissect a “callout 
culture” in which “anyone can 
be publicly shamed for saying 

something well-intentioned 
that someone else interprets 
uncharitably.”
Because Haidt’s book is 
mostly about the college cam-
pus, I thought the day might 
shape up as an attack on 
“woke-ism.” But the speakers 
and attendees were diverse, 
and liberals and conservatives 
alike fretted about the demise 
of civility and tolerance in 
their polarized worlds.
A Jewish education profes-
sional said she is wary about 
bringing up Israel in front of 
donors, many of whom treat 
any criticism of Israeli policy 
as “anti-Israel.” And the leader 
of a right-leaning think tank 
complained about a left-lean-
ing Jewish “monolith” that 
dismisses the views of Jewish 
conservatives or considers 
them somehow “un-Jewish.”
A considerable number of 
people spoke about what they 
characterized as self-censor-
ship, fearing the consequenc-
es they or colleagues might 

face if they utter an ill-con-
sidered thought — or if their 
opinions diverge from emerg-
ing “small-o” orthodoxies 
on gender, race, politics and, 
once again, Israel. (I agreed 
to Chatham House Rules, 
which means I could charac-
terize our conversations but 
not quote or identify partici-
pants.) 
After the event, Mark 
Charendoff, president of the 
Maimonides Fund, said he 
and his colleagues — Ariella 
Saperstein, program officer 
for Maimonides, and Rabbi 
David Wolpe of Los Angeles’ 
Sinai Temple who put much 
of the program together — 
had been thinking about 
these issues for a while.
“It seems to us that it’s 
just become more difficult 
to have some of these con-
versations,” Charendoff told 
me. “It started off with Israel 
— what are you allowed to 
express regarding Israel, and 
then, you know, politics in 

Andrew 
Silow-Carroll
JTA

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