 
                        20051218.01

                          A letter

     The meeting which you suggested, if I understand you
correctly, would have as one of its main purposes the
circumvention or elimination of misunderstanding between us.
Such an effort would have as its premise that we were in
essential agreement, and that the essential agreement between
us would be made manifest by the elimination of
misunderstanding.  But it is also conceivable, and to my mind
more likely, that genuine understanding would make manifest
the essential disagreements between us.

     I distinguish between the elimination of
misunderstanding and the elimination of disagreement.  The
two purposes are far from identical.  Indeed, more likely
than not, purported agreement would actually entail
inescapable misunderstanding; while genuine understanding, to
my mind, defines and establishes the parameters of
unavoidable disagreement.

     My working hypothesis is that it is better for each of
us in his/her own way to maintain the assumption that the
failure to reach agreement is a consequence of
misunderstanding.  Certainly for me, writing into the face of
implacable disagreement would be different, more difficult,
perhaps impossible, might represent such insuperable
isolation as a total language barrier would represent. And
you, as a teacher, - and that is a role of which you cannot,
and should not try to divest yourself - might be unconsolably
dispirited by the realization that your brightest student was
impervious to your ideas. I argue not that we should avoid
each other, but that we should approach our meeting with
perspicacity, with awareness of the potential difficulties.
The need for agreement is inexorable; but we should be
prepared to accept the circumstance that the only agreement
of which we are capable, is to disagree.


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Copyright 2005, Ernst Jochen Meyer
