In praise of nuanced disagreement

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Among the many casualties of our present calamitous day is the quality of nuance. Power has a way of flattening the variability of ideas, regardless of whether that power is real or perceived. The “perceived” form is more common, put on as a costume by everyday (mostly powerless) people who happily enlist in the armies of strongmen who would as soon stiff them on a tip or send them to a trench to die as give them a thought beyond what their bodies and/or wallet could do for them.

It doesn’t matter to those kinds of people that they’re lining up to shill for a sham; they’re just glad to be “part of the team.” Compounding their lack of intellectual honesty and moral character is the temerity to claim their obedience is somehow in the interest of “freedom” or “liberty.”

The emptiness of most people’s evocation of those concepts is as tedious as it is dangerous. However, defining such terms has been the work of ages, and the essential task bequeathed to us by our 18th-century philosophe founders. Sadly, rather than standing on those founders’ shoulders, we’ve foundered on the shoals. 

So I was especially grateful for two pieces of opinion writing in this week’s paper, and certainly not because I especially agreed with them. In fact, I appreciated them all the more because I didn’t agree with them, but I admired the nuance with which their arguments were made — and that, really, is where “freedom” and “liberty” lie. 

Those ideas aren’t kneejerk totalist reactions that seek to carve out limitations in pursuit of a freedom “from” things, but creative, active and constructive impulses that seek opportunities for finding freedom “to” achieve certain outcomes.

In this week’s letters to the editor, Keith Stadum took issue with my Perspectives piece “Kakistrophe,” of Feb. 6, writing in part: “‘Things are not always what they appear to be.’

“Trump is not the evil doer that you portray. He has already been president for four years. Job numbers were off the charts across all segments of society until COVID. Meaningful work for many solves a lot of issues.”

He went on to state that while he had not voted for “The Donald in two out of the last three elections,” he supported “what he is trying to do.”

I was particularly taken by his point that Trump voters didn’t necessarily vote for the man, but against the Democratic Party, which, Stadum wrote, “blew it — could not beat a felon.”

My mind flies to a few quibbles with that statement; but, on the surface, I tend to agree. The Democrats have since at least the 1990s steadily abandoned the working people of this country and ceded those interests to neoliberal, corporatist actors who do not have the best interests of their fellow citizens at heart. 

Not that Republicans have done any better — and have with increasing fervor since at least the ’80s been far more corrosive on the socio-political and economic life of the nation — but point taken.

Stadum’s other key phrase was that the 2024 election was “about the Lecturers vs. Those Who are Tired of Being Lectured To.” I get that, too. No one likes to be lectured or hectored at, but I suppose that has more to do with who’s doing the lecturing/hectoring and whether one agrees with the substance of the lecture/hector.

Also in this week’s paper is Diane Wheeler’s piece on Page 12, in which she opines on the “bait and switch” of “school choice,” which is being so forcefully championed by the right both at the state and national levels. She wrote, “We were told by candidate Donald Trump that he would be downsizing the federal government when he got into office. One of the most notable deals he wanted to do was to scuttle the Department of Education. Those of us who want to see the federal government downsized into its legitimate role put on our party hats and celebrated.”

However, she added, the “school choice” argument is more of a Trojan horse for siphoning off public money for private gain. I agree with that, too, but not with her ultimate argument that we should just obliterate public funding for education altogether.

What I like about both those pieces is their ability to be nuanced, thoughtful, respectful and offered in good faith. Let them be an example of how free-thinking people can be constructive even — and especially — in disagreement.