A Lesson from a Two-Faced Guy

Janus, the source of our word January, can help us "face" disagreements and create more peace in our minds, our lives, and our world.

In my last column, I suggested that the etymology of January could help us enter a new year successfully. This week, we look at another lesson from two-faced Janus.

On a related note, if you are looking for some inspiration to make the most of the new year, I encourage you to have a look at a series we ran last January: Better with Ben. For even more on improving your life with insights from Benjamin Franklin, check out my audio book Ben Franklin’s Lessons in Life (free to anyone with an Audible subscription).

A man named Thomas Bolling once recounted an interesting story about a classmate of his at the University of Virginia — a guy by the name of Edgar Allan Poe:

In his room when conversing with him, when with pencil he would be scratching something on paper ... he gave as a reason ... he was only trying to see if he could divide his mind, carry on conversation and write sense on a different subject. Several times on such occasions he handed me some verses he had written, and all that I remember about them [[is]] they rhymed pretty well.

That young Poe could write lines that “rhymed pretty well” is not all that surprising. This is, after all, the man who would eventually write “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Bells.” The more interesting detail in Bolling’s account is Poe’s attempt to “divide his mind.”

If you read last week’s Mind Travel column, you probably remember Janus, the spirit with two faces. Considering Janus as a kind of metaphor, I wrote, “If you could see two directions at once, as Janus can, you could take in more information, understand more, even — if your brain is capable — comprehend two very different things at the same time . . .”

Whether you prefer the notion of dividing your mind or seeing with two faces, there’s something to be said for dual comprehension. Indeed, if we can master it, we could dramatically reduce conflict and create a more peaceful mind, community, and world.

The Raging Fire of Opinion

I’ll bet you have some opinions. I know I do.

1. I prefer Melville to Hawthorne. There, I’ve said it.

2. I’ll put U2’s Achtung Baby up against any rock album, and, when it comes to guitar virtuosos, Hendrix is the man. (Dig, y’all.)

3. Bananas must be eaten while still showing some green. A single brown spot means the banana is officially rotten.

4. I think pitchers ought to bat, and I’m a traditionalist (and a humanist) when it comes to calling balls and strikes. (Let the human umpires do their job, I say.)

That’s about as controversial as I’m going to get here in my public newsletter, but, trust me, I have a few other opinions, as well.

You might disagree with some of these opinions, and we could have some friendly disagreements over, say, the merits of Jimmy Page’s picking or the overarching value of the designated hitter. That’s the nature of opinion: it’s subjective. No one can definitively prove one is right and another is wrong.

And yet . . .

For thousands of years, humans have fought, with words and fists and spears and guns and bombs, about who’s right when, let’s face it, no one is because there’s no definitive answer.

These people typically have fought about weightier things than bananas, but the matters that have divided us are just as subjective: culture, religion, ideology.

Why do we feel so compelled to prove we are right? That’s a question for psychologists, I suppose (although I do have an opinion on that one, too).

Whatever the cause for all this fire — “always burning since the world’s been turning,” as Billy Joel put it — the good news is that we can douse the flames if we take a hint from Janus.

A Request

I have a suggestion — a request, really.

If you know me personally or even if you have merely encountered me through my essays, podcasts, or lectures, you may have noticed that I’m something of a peacenik, broadly defined. I know that conflict is inevitable (partly because of all those different opinions), but it doesn’t have to be destructive — to our societies, our families, or our mental wellness.

Think back to the last argument you had over an opinion. Politics is a particularly hot-button subject these days, but you also might have been arguing over something closer to home — say, your child’s fashion choices. Do you remember how you were feeling — tense during the argument, probably, and maybe frustrated or exhausted afterward? Overall, did you walk away feeling better or worse because of the argument?

I think it’s safe to say that conflict is typically not enjoyable, and I would say that it’s also not productive if it amounts to mere bickering over opinions. After all, when was the last time one of these arguments ended in a resolution that led to a better outcome?

Here’s my request . . .

The next time you find yourself starting to get hot over differing opinions, remember the two faces of Janus and try to see with two sets of eyes — your own and those of the person with a different opinion. Why does this other person feel this way? Perhaps, seeing the issue through another set of eyes, you would have the same opinion.

The point is not that you have to change your own opinion. You probably won’t. Rather, the value of this exercise — of seeing with another set of eyes — is to reduce or even eliminate the negative impact of the conflict. As the old expression goes, you can agree to disagree.

Difference Isn’t the Problem

Before you dismiss me as a conflict-averse or just unrealistic, let me clarify my position here.

First, I am not calling for agreement on everything. I’m reminded of a quotation attributed to Walter Lippmann: “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.” (The Apple series Pluribus also comes to mind.) Disagreement is inevitable and, when handled well, healthy. We can learn and grow as a result of disagreement, especially if we are willing to see and to try to understand others’ points of view.

Second, some disagreements are not mere differences of opinion. During my years in the classroom, I frequently taught a class on academic argument, a realm in which writers and speakers take up questions that can be argued with facts, not mere tastes, feelings, and belief systems. We may never agree on whether capital punishment is “right” or “wrong” in the moral sense, but we can look at its practical ramifications — the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of the death penalty as a deterrent, for example, or the impact of an execution on future crime rates. Such argument is by no means easy, and some aspects of research — the difference between correlation and causation, for example — can be thorny, but it is possible to make progress in areas such as public policy, medicine, education, and more when we examine factual evidence and are willing to consider and try to understand things that do not align with our current perspectives.

Finally, even outright conflict — as painful and destructive as it might be — may sometimes be a rational and a productive option when the stakes are high. If you are a regular reader of Mind Travel, you probably noticed I have been writing about the American Revolution of late. If Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others had ruled out conflict, they would not have achieved the independence they were seeking. Like Franklin, who deplored war, I would have liked to see the conflict resolved by words rather than arms, but the point is that conflict is not always something to avoid. What matters is how we seek to resolve it. Again, as Franklin himself advocated, being open to other perspectives is key.

Conflict will happen. How will you face it?