Here are 3 ways to destroy a friendship
I could have given this blog the title How strong are your friendships? (Part 2), but I thought you might be more interested in hearing of ways to keep your relationships intact.
Back on April 1st I wrote a blog about how thrilled I was that I had a strong relationship with a friend of mine. In fact I believed it was so strong that even though we were on different sides of the debate about the COVID-19 crisis we agreed to disagree and would move forward with our relationship and after enjoying the debate over it we would know where each other stood and respect the other’s opinion and just move on in our growth as people. Well sadly, it appears that I was alone in this thought. Let me give you a quick summary of what went on since April 1st.
My friend continued to send me large opinion articles about why he was right in thinking that self-isolation was a problem when it is the disregard of human rights of the over 80% of the population whose health is not going to be affected but whose lives are being disrupted by the shutdowns. After a while I got tired of getting opinions sent to me that were contrary to my beliefs. I finally told him to ‘let it go’. Sadly, he did not understand that I had more important things to do other than read information that I did not agree with. But then he sent me another e-mail with another opinion article, and in the e-mail, I found him to be out of sorts. Meaning that he went over the line by failing to realize what his actions were doing to our friendship. And it is because of this I will explain why you need to be aware of the three ways that a friendship was destroyed.
- He used what is called false equivalence, which occurs when someone incorrectly asserts that the two things in discussion are equivalent or equal because they share some characteristics. As an example, it is saying that cats and dogs are the same animal since they both have a tail and are mammals.
- Secondly, he used an ad hominin attack to try to show hypocrisy or deception in my belief. The best example I can think of when it comes to this is someone stating to you; ‘How can you criticize the oil spill when I saw you throw an empty paper cup out the window when we were driving.’
- Thirdly, he used the false equivalency argument in conjunction with another ploy that is called the ‘strawman argument’. These are arguments that distort an opposing view in order to make it easier to attack. In my case he used false equivalence to create a distorted version of my belief so that it could be perceived in a negative manner.
So, there you have it, three ways to destroy a friendship. Sadly, some people don’t realize that you can disagree without being disagreeable. Sadly, some people don’t recognize that the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason is essential in all communication.
If you are in such a situation,
- wouldn’t it make more sense to; disagree without being disagreeable?
- wouldn’t it make more sense to; govern and discipline yourself by the use of reason?
Lastly, we all need to remember that when someone tells you who they are (by their actions), believe them.
P.S. Please share this with those you care about.
Tim, as the subject of your accusation, I trust that you will publish my reply.
I am saddened that your lack of tolerance for a different opinion should cause you to be offended or assume that I wanted to destroy our friendship. As a matter of record, the last article I sent you was on 7 April, my covering email stated “I respect your opinion”. I can find no record of having sent you anything related to the virus since then.
The articles I sent you were from reputable sources which indicated – as subsequent events and many more articles confirm – that the global overreaction to the coronavirus was unnecessary and is causing considerably more human misery than the virus itself.
You can easily find details of the suffering in Canada and elsewhere if you care to look. An Archbishop in your church is now speaking out against the shutdown.
The WHO is stating that an additional 250 million Africans are being pushed to the brink of starvation by the global shutdown. That number may well be inflated by that organization’s habit of exaggeration, however, independent sources confirm that the situation is disastrous.
As a Christian, I can not stand by and condone a dictatorial government’s policy that has caused and continues to cause, record unemployment, increased suicides and domestic abuse and also denies physical and mental health care to millions of critical non-corona cases while hospitals are underutilized.
So while most sanctimonious Westerners are hiding behind masks and polluting the environment with millions of rubber gloves, my conscience and my respect for ALL lives will not let me keep quiet. Turning a blind eye is what got 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi Germany.
If that is unreasonable, so be it.
Although I do not agree with your thoughts on the panic about the virus, I do not find them offensive and certainly not grounds for destroying a friendship.
If you had an issue with me or my opinion, all you had to do was pick up the phone.
Peter, I was trying to be discrete by not mentioning your name in my blog, but you asked me to publish your response, so here is my comment.
You missed the entire point of my blog!
As you know I respected your opinion even though I didn’t agree with it.
Sadly, you used every opportunity to try to discredit me in your personal emails. You also ignored my request of not getting sent any more information because I had better and more important things to do in my life. In most civilized societies that is not what friends do.
Tim
P.S. For your information a dictatorial government is one which one person or a small alliance or group holds absolute power without effective or actual constitutional limitations. Here in Canada we have a minority government, in other words there is no absolute power.