Why do they keep on disagreeing with me?

The question asked in the title has been a concern of mine since at least high school and continues to be an issue that puzzles me, although I am beginning to reach a state of peace on this matter. When I was a high school student I would see things quite clearly and I would explain to the class or to another student how things really were. Often this raised no particular conflict or puzzlement to either of us, but sometimes I would be faced with disagreement or a questioning look. This was puzzling but good, because when I was in high school, I just assumed that the only reason someone would disagree with me was because they were ignorant about the subject at hand. This was no problem, it simply meant that I needed to “educate” the person and I would proceed to do so. Usually this worked and we stopped at some point discussing the matter any further. I interpreted this state of affairs as equivalent to “winning the debate through education.”

When I got to college, I discovered that sometimes the silence of people was not actually an acknowledgment that I had won the debate. For several years I interpreted this to mean that I had to redouble my efforts to share my view of the truth with the person in question. The big difference is that I had matured to the point where I took responsibility for the ignorance of the person with whom I shared my various insights. This was called internal locus of control in the psychology classes I took in college and I was further pleased with my greater insight that the disagreement was not really due solely to the ignorance of the other person but was a shared responsibility. The problem was, I thought, primarily due to the fact that I had not taken adequate responsibility for both our views of the matter. I also realized that the situation was more complex than I first thought. I not only needed to explain the facts but I also needed to explain the reasoning that must be utilized. In other words, I realized then that it was not just a matter of the ignorance of the facts, but it was even more due to the logic (lack there of) that was inhibiting him or her coming to the correct conclusion. I adopted my new found responsibility along with the expanded insight and shared my gifts as freely as possible.

After I got out of college I still found myself in situations where people disagreed with me. This occurred after I had shared my insight about the logical process needed to come to the correct conclusion and after I had fully explained the facts of the matter. They still disagreed. At that time in my life, I developed and adopted another new theory that now changed my perspective on these sorts of discussions. I realized that the people who disagreed with me were simply dumb and it was pointless to continue to try to enable them to see the truth. What else could it be? I shared, I explained, they failed to comprehend, ergo stupid person. Sometimes their limitations were evidenced by their inability to link consecutive ideas so that the result was the conclusion I had come up with. A nice neat logical explanation of the why of our disagreement had been provided and I was quite happy with that explanation, for a while. In fact, my realization made it clear that there was little point in trying to argue their way to agreement, so I became what was thought by others to be tactful and kindly and understanding. In reality, it meant that I gave up on them and no longer cared that they were stupid.

After I got to middle age, I continued to mature and I developed another new enlightenment regarding why people disagreed with me. They did so because we did not fully share a common value system. As I thought back to the difficulty many people had with linking consecutive ideas, I realized that while their thinking process was like mine, their value for different directions at the point where the links emerged was influenced by their values for the alternatives that were presented. For example, if I said you should not do X and X was bad because it consisted of subparts A and B and B was especially bad, someone else might say “not true.” They disagreed even though they knew that X consisted of A and B, but it turned out that they did not actually care about B and hence while B was there, it was only A that mattered and A was fairly neutral in terms of badness, at least for them. So I realized that values associated with elements of the debate was what really mattered. For example, once I said you should not eat that particular food because it is bad for you and the reason it is bad is because it increases your cholesterol. But the person I was talking to had an unmedicated cholesterol level of 125 and I realized that I would never convince them to avoid that food, because for them increasing cholesterol was really not a problem that raised any level of concern for them. I felt pretty good about this way of resolving my inner conflict regarding disagreements and as long as I remembered this viewpoint and operated accordingly, I was not getting into so many arguments and life was good.

Now that I am getting comfortably past middle age, I have been told that my problem with people disagreeing was misunderstood and that it is time to adopt a greater new insight. The problem, some people are trying to explain to me, is actually an irrational subconscious reaction to my ideas by those who disagree. I had been introduced to the power of the explanation of phobias. These are irrational rejections of my argument on whatever the matter, due to the other’s dislike of some personal quality of mine, such as my inability to select clothes that fit together in a harmonious manner. In other words they are rejecting my view because they are phobic against my personage. This seems to be the most satisfying of all the theories that I have ever held regarding those who disagree with me. They are now clearly ignorant, stupid, illogical with the wrong value system because they are phobic. What a relief to finally understand once and for all the cause of all my disagreements with all the people who have ever questioned my opinions.

I can die sublimely happy now.