I'm in the guts of final grades so I can't do a detailed version of this, but see Trish Roberts-Miller's Demagoguery and Democracy for a good take on why willingness to hear disagreement is a deeply necessary aspect of functional deliberation. It's not for the sake of empathy, much less acceptance, but because at the very least, if you're listening to somebody else's argument carefully enough to understand it accurately, then your responses to it aren't actually responses.
I'm in the guts of final grades so I can't do a detailed version of this, but see Trish Roberts-Miller's Demagoguery and Democracy for a good take on why willingness to hear disagreement is a deeply necessary aspect of functional deliberation. It's not for the sake of empathy, much less acceptance, but because at the very least, if you're listening to somebody else's argument carefully enough to understand it accurately, then your responses to it aren't actually responses.
Thanks, Seth! You know, I have Trish's book, and have loaned it out (and gotten it back), so my copy's already been read once, just not (yet) by me!
Oops, also noticed a typo. The negations in that last sentence are supposed to match. If you're NOT listening to somebody....