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If You Can’t Articulate the Other Side’s Position, You Don’t Know the Other Side’s Position
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” — Stephen Covey
Our world is overrun with opinions. Even the “news” today is packaged in commentary. We’re increasingly tribal and polarized, and we’re effectively “told” what to believe by the people we listen to and hang out with.
One of the best ways to rise above this and be able to think critically — at least at a basic level — is to take the time to understand the other side’s position(s).
I learned this skill at George Mason University in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Only I didn’t learn it in the classroom. I learned it on the Debate Team.
Those of us on the Debate Team were trained to learn all sides of the issue in question and be able to debate a proposition from both the affirmative and negative perspectives. In most cases, we didn’t know whether we would be debating as the affirmative or negative until minutes before the debate round started.
I debated one full year and part of another year at GMU. For the full year I was on the Debate Team (1989–90), our theme was the reduction of fossil fuel consumption. I had to research and learn everything I could about climate change, the…
