As a person who has always been intuitive and has always sought to understand better, I remember well a hard-earned lesson about how to understand people at their worst (which, sadly, is something I have seen a fair amount in my life so far). We do not see things as they are, but as we are. Once I understood this fact, other people became much more comprehensible to me, in fact, perhaps too much so, as I saw how people accused others of what they were, assuming that everyone behaved exactly like them, and revealing their true character by the false accusations they made against others. This realization has saved me a lot of grief, for even if I am not a bit less combative than I was growing up, my aim is truer now that I have a better idea of what I am aiming at in a debate or argument with someone else. Whether it is a good thing or not to be able to hit so close to home better will be for others to decide, since I cannot be an impartial judge in my own case.

How we are greatly determines what we see in the world around us. Most children are notoriously innocent and naive in their dealings with others. Those who have no understanding of the dark evil in this world cannot possibly understand just how ugly this world can be. There are people in this world (sadly, some of whom have been relatives) whose response to what is innocent and good is to seek to corrupt and exploit it and turn it into something shameful and repugnant. On the other hand, there are people (hopefully, most people) whose response to what is innocent and pure is to protect it, and to attempt to provide wisdom gradually and slowly, in the knowledge that too much too soon is painful and deeply dispiriting and discouraging. It is a hard balance to maintain between trying to learn wisdom about how the world works and remaining hopeful and confident in helping to make the world a better place. The young are usually more idealistic than the old, because they don’t know better–and sometimes that’s a good thing, when they do more than cynical and damaged souls think to be possible. Sometimes it’s a bad thing because it leads them to underestimate the evil inside of their hearts that they fail to recognize, or to underestimate the variety of motives that would lead someone to claim to support their particular ideals for wicked ends.

Likewise, if we are skeptical and mistrusting it is hard for us to judge others fairly, especially because we tend to be fairly strict and harsh when it comes to our initial interpretation of what others are up to. Now, mind you, a fair-minded person (even a skeptical one) can recognize trustworthy behavior over time and trust after a while, but it takes a lot of time and effort, and most people are not going to receive that kind of effort. If we recognize our own internal biases, we can at least flag them in our dealings with other people so that we can create a sense of distance between our initial reactions and immediate responses to what someone is saying and doing and a more gradual attempt at understanding what someone else is all about.

Fortunately, we are greatly aided in our attempts to understand others by their behavior toward us. One form of behavior I find lamentably often and particularly unacceptable is the tendency of people to project hostility on those they wish to be hostile toward. I understand this same tendency is present within myself (as much as I dislike it), but I at least try to struggle against it and maintain some form of respect for those I am talking with, in the hope that they might at least provide something interesting or thought-provoking or worthwhile to a discussion or debate. Mind you, it rarely happens, but when it does I appreciate it, because it sharpens my own understanding. Dueling the unarmed is the worst sort of training, because it gives one false confidence in one’s skills when one has not even started to address the real serious issues in one’s position simply because one has only battled those who are completely unable to form an dangerous response.

But when we deal with people who are dismissive and arrogant toward us, we can be sure that they will call us insulting and arrogant. If they misrepresent our position, they will accuse us of misrepresenting them. If they insult us, they will accuse us of slander and libel when we answer their lies and false accusations with truth. If they lie and steal, they will call us unethical. If they are heretics, they will accuse us of being doctrinally unsound. If they are hateful and divisive, they will accuse us of being abusive and unloving. In all such cases what people will tend to accuse others of being will be exactly the same qualities that are present in spades in those making the accusations. We ought not to be surprised by this, but its consistency and ubiquity is a bit shocking.

It is far better, if we wish to avoid this trap ourselves, to be respectful of others in the hope that they will provide something worthwhile for us to address, even if they are completely wrong about us or our positions or the truth. It is also worthwhile for us to be the sort of people who collect facts, are willing to admit when we are making cases (rather than assuming as if our impressions and intuitive guesses are the gospel truth, even if they may be very accurate for a well-honed and highly developed sense of intuition). Having a sense of humility about our own insights allows us to recognize better the boundary between what we know and what we infer, and we ought to be honest when we are simply making inferences or intuitive leaps, and when we are standing firmly on evidence. Sometimes intuitive leaps are worthwhile (I like to indulge in them often), but we ought never to confuse them with certain and absolute truth. They are only ideas, theories, and possibilities, to be verified and thrown away when they are unprofitable and falsified by later evidence.

If someone wants to willfully misunderstand us, there is not much we can do to force them to see the truth. Human beings have a capacity for self-deception that is quite simply stunning and unbelievable. But at the same time if we know what other people are really all about we can respond to them more effectively whether they recognize us or not, and not only to them, but to anyone who might conceivably be persuaded by what they say. While our opponents are battling straw men of their own making, we can destroy their arguments with reasoned responses, pointing out of obvious inconsistencies, as well as evidence that they totally overlook because we know their blind spots.

Let us never forget though, that if we are blind to the fact that the way we act toward others reveals our true character, then other people can do the exact same thing to us. If we are arrogant, we will make mistakes and other people who are more humble and more wary and watchful will be able to make us pay for it. Humility is not only worthwhile in disarming the hostility that some might have for our perspectives and points of view, but also because it reminds us that the people we argue and debate with are competent enough to take advantage of our own mistakes. Arrogance leads to making mistakes because we disrespect our opponents, and that disrespect is often fatal. Let us spend more time pointing at ourselves in the mirror, and recognize that the bluster of others is a cover for insecurity in ways that are very easy to spot and just as easy to target, if we are so inclined. And I generally am.