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It is true that people can both learn from mutually shared ideas and contradicting views. However, by offering alternative perspectives, disagreement exerts more influence on the increase of personal knowledge and the progress of human civilization as a whole.
A lot of people believe they could learn much from those with the same or similar views because a conflict-free learning environment brings less stress and much encouragement to them. Everyone is naturally born with the inclination to be accepted and appreciated by the members of his or her group. If we find our views are shared by also shared by others, we identify ourselves with this particular group and feel we actually belong to a kind of group and are not helpless or isolated. I remembered in the college as a freshman, whenever the teacher asked us to form a group to discuss something, I was always excited to hear that someone else held similar opinions with me and this made me anxious to speak out my views in the next discussion. But if my ideas were criticized, I sometimes felt so ashamed and dared not to speak freely at all.
But as I grow older, I find more often I could learn better from the contradicting views. Different opinions make me see the flaws of my ideas and provide us with alternative perspectives. Due to the limit of personal experiences, specific major knowledge and nationality, no one can claim his or her understanding of a certain issue is flawless and complete. Different voices sharpen our mind, broaden our ken, shed light on our learning and help us grasp the whole picture of the problem. For instance, last year in my college, a debate on the topic “should college students do part-time jobs” was held in my school because too many students were taking part-times at that time and some even totally ignored the major study. The dean, along with several of the tutors, worked out such a debate to help us to fully aware of all the advantages and disadvantages of par-time jobs. In the debate, the students realized for the first time some of the bad points of part-times and begin to seriously think about a plan of how to utilize the four-year college most efficiently.
Contradicting views not only benefit us in personal lives. Throughout the human intellectual history, it is always the different schools of thought, rather those who share similar ideas, contribute more to boost the social, scientific and technological development. In the Warring period of China, some scholars initiated the famous “debate among 100 schools” which involved all the major schools of thought at that time such as the school of Confucianism, Daoism and the school of law. This debate lasted for a few years and gave a deep influence on the social structure, democracy and the academic arena laid a solid foundation for the prosperity of China for the next 100 years. In present day, all over the world, various scientists publish millions of papers based on their own research and experiment and a lot are contradicting with each other such as in education, there is a long tradition of debate over a favor for student-centered teacher methods or teacher-centred ones. In the constant debates, to convince others, the researchers must do all kinds experiments to prove their methods work better than others. Along all the debates and conflicts, the teaching methods are updated and students and the society as a whole, finally benefit from this.
Disagreement and conflicting views may hurt feelings and cause stress, but it is always along with pains that we gain as individuals and the humans as a whole. |
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