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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