I don’t agree with Dan about numerous things, but because he has a coherent and rational intellectual system inside which those disagreements could be discussed and progress could be made, I know that I could trust him and we could work together productively to make progress toward both our concerns.
In other words, he has his own individual instincts, concerns, and approach, and so do I, and those don’t always line up. But those individual elements are nested within a larger coherent intellectual system of rationality that operates by certain defined rules. And I can play by those rules just as much as he can, meaning I might be able to prove some good points of my own on his terms, and he could prove some good points of his on my terms, because the terms themselves aren’t individuated but are common to us both. So we can have subjective differences and contributions within a shared objective framework, one we can both negotiate as individuals but can share and use to and come up with something larger and greater than our own individual opinions, concerns, and instincts.
So even though I don’t share all his positions, his relative perspective, I do respect and want to share in the larger nested rational process he is expressing those perspectives in. And that’s the basis for good government, for negotiation, for real problem solving, for validation, for testing, for compromise. That’s a system where you could learn from being wrong and be kept humble and restrained in being right. That’s the kind of system we need, but sorely lack.
Making Nobody Happy 