To disagreeing yet coexisting

It is so important to disagree, to have agency, to be able to exert one’s own filters to process a thought or action.

But in our families, you are expected to agree with every single major decision or shut up if you don’t. The fact that you can still stay together and even love one another despite disagreeing is lost on them. On social media for instance, either I agree with you or you agree with me, friends are added and blocked on black and white, no room for grey. Every night on television, party spokespersons are entrusted the unenviable task of publicly agreeing with and defending every god-forsaken statement or action made by their leaders. It is also in the same vein that when someone does something despicable, we accuse his/her entire family of being as despicable, we assume they can’t disagree and that they’re also built from the same cloth.

I know a CEO who is friends even years later with the people he has sacked. I know couples who are friends post separation. To be able to disagree and yet be fine, one needs to feel the freedom to express dissent and one needs to be secure enough to be told that you are wrong and possibly try to introspect and make amends. The flip side of which would be an atmosphere where everyone is encouraged to be yes men, kill choice and independent thought in favour of power or age and gradually begin exchanging a lot of words but actually never really ‘talk’.

Sounds familiar?