On the weekend, I was invited to a dinner on Sydney’s North Shore. I know what you’re thinking, but they don’t know me as well as you do. Anyway, I got invited, so I went.
The meal was cooked to perfection, with bottles of plonk almost as old as me! I’m exaggerating here ... my age that is.
For the main course, I sat between a decamillionaire and a scientist who in his doctorate discovered a way to use charcoal to develop a fertiliser.
“Sounds deep!” I thought.
As I looked around the table of guests, I was musing that they may be musing they were a cut slightly above the crowd I run with out in the country, and that I was a cut way below what they were used to.
But I said to myself: “You know, if you keep your mouth shut tonight you’ll get invited to more of these jaunts.”
So, that was my plan. What could possibly go wrong? Well, they say two topics you should never discuss in mixed company are religion and politics.
However, no sooner had we sat down for the main course than the material scientist asked me: “So, what do you think of Donald Trump?” That question would currently have to be on the top of that list “Bottom 10 Questions Conservatives Like Being Asked At Dinners Out”.
I thought of switching the topic to religion, but was worried things might turn out like that night I’d had too much beer and switched over to Jamaican rum – and I’m not talking dark chocolate.
The whole party of guests joined our conversation and I realised quickly that I was one against the house. We disagreed without any of us being disagreeable, and so we all furthered our knowledge.
In a discussion or even a disagreement, how do we know for sure if we are right or wrong? Is it possible that I could give you an infallible method for determining who is right or wrong in an argument?
If I did give you such a method, I would be infallibly wrong.
The point is, there are many subjects that have a truthful answer.
But because the road to truth has many turns, we often cannot be infallibly sure we have reached our destination of being right.
And, therefore, we should not be too confident that those who disagree with us are wrong.
What we do know is that if we tell the truth to the best of our ability in a disagreement, and are open to the possibility that the person disagreeing with us knows things that we do not, the actual truth is more likely to be attained.
So, which conversation piece did I switch to at my flash dinner?
If I did give you such a method, I would be infallibly wrong. The point is, there are many subjects that have a truthful answer. But because the road to truth has many turns, we often cannot be infallibly sure we have reached our destination ... therefore, we should not be too confident those who disagree are wrong.
Well, given religion was too obvious, and politics too dangerous, I cleverly avoided both by talking about something Sydney people do not know anywhere near as much about as we do in the country: all things Victorian – the state that is, not aestheticism and prudery.
I started showing off about how I go to Melbourne all the time, how I used to play Aussie Rules in Wagga, how Albury is only five minutes from Victoria and how in Griffith we have flights to Melbourne every day … (I think).
Of course, being the twerp I am, I forgot Victoria had an election on.
That’s politics. That’s opinion. That’s disagreement. But you know what? That’s OK.
Nobody knows everything and that is actually one of life’s joys.
If you actually knew everything, what would even be the point of any conversation with anyone?
As a priest, you often know things, private things, and it’s not always a joy; it’s sometimes a heavy burden.
I’m sure police, doctors, counsellors and many others know the pain of knowing things they wish they did not know.
Next time you get into a disagreement be open to the possibility that you are not right, but only maybe right and maybe wrong.
It makes for a more interesting conversation and many more flash dinner invites.
Twitter: @fatherbrendanelee
