January 3

Differences of opinion should never mean hostility.

-Gandhi (Young India 3-17-1927)

Gandhi created this pair of sandals for his “opponent” in South Africa, General Jan Smuts, which were clearly worn very often. 

Where there is more than one person, there will be differences of opinion. How we handle differences of opinion is a litmus test of our relationship to and comfort with conflict. Someone who is conflict-avoidant may avoid discussing differences of opinion in fear of upsetting the other person. Someone else may dive directly into those hard conversations with a sense that their opinion is the only valid one, and any difference of opinion is to them a sign of an inexcusable ignorance, instead of a healthy sign of differences in life experiences.

It often happens that the person who is most threatened by differences of opinion is the most insecure in their own. The more secure we are in our position, the less we feel shaken when someone disagrees with us, and the less we feel we need to defend it at all costs from every individual who thinks otherwise. Somehow the person disagreeing with us becomes more important and dear to us than the subject about which we differ.

Relationships are the very basis of nonviolence. The person who is trained in nonviolence will not passively avoid difficult conversations and differences of opinion when they matter, but they will use a form of discrimination and self-restraint in deciding what is important to disagree about and when to keep quiet and wait it out. Who knows, maybe the person who disagrees with us has some truth in what they are saying– if not about the subject itself, then perhaps we get a glimpse into some experience that formed this person’s view, and it gives us pause. A hostile attitude on our behalf might keep us from learning something new, or seeing another person in a new light. Not to mention that hostility is rooted in a desire to harm the other; while the actual definition of the term ahimsa, from which the term nonviolence is derived, is “the extinction of the desire to harm.” When we interrupt hostility within ourselves, we interrupt a cycle of violence.

We can train ourselves to transform hostility into its counterparts — compassion and empathy — not because we are not willing to disagree, but because we feel assured that we can disagree and still maintain the dignity of the person with whom we differ.  Like much else in nonviolence, this is an art to cultivate. As British historian Arnold Toynbee said of Gandhi, “He made it impossible for us to go on ruling India; but he made it possible for us to leave without rancor and without humiliation.”  This shows the length to which this ability to not identify the person with the problem can go when carried out on a large scale.

 

Experiment in Nonviolence:

Listen to someone who holds a difference of opinion from you today. (This can and will be anyone.) What can you learn from them?

 

Daily Metta 2015, a service of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, is a daily reflection on the strategic and spiritual insights of Mahatma Gandhi in thought, word and deed. As Gandhi called his life an “experiment in truth,” we have included an experiment in nonviolence to accompany each Daily Metta. Check in every day for new inspiration. Each year will be dedicated to another wisdom teacher.