COUNTRY MUSIC & THE ART OF CIVIL DISCOURSE

I enjoy a debate. Politics, football, philosophy, theology. It's all on the table as far as I'm concerned.?My oldest is the same. Her Mum bemoans the 2 of us are 'so bloody alike!'

Another trait we share is being dogmatic when arguing. This leads to sparks flying. When this happens, other members of our household scatter knowing where it's headed.

They've seen this movie before.?

There is rarely malice in our discussion but plenty of passion &, on my side, Olympic level pigheadedness. Our recent comings together on the Gaza conflict make Ali vs Foreman look like a church picnic.?

After our last spat, as the alleged adult in this dynamic duo, I resolved to 'do better'. My wife said she'd believe it when she saw it. I thought she was probably right but I was going to give it a try.

I didn't need to try. I got lucky instead.

Our next potential disagreement came along quickly. In addition to a love of debate we both love music. We often present different songs to each other.

'Hey, have a listen to this.'

On the day in question, she had control over Spotify & played Luke Combs' 'Fast Car'.?

'This is a banger Dad'.'

Now this simple statement had my gnarly old GenX hackles up!

How could you possibly think this was better than the original by Tracy Chapman? Well, that’s not what my daughter had said, was it? She hadn’t compared the cover to the original. She had simply said that on its own this was a good song & guess what, it is.

In the instance just before I launched into another ‘… well back in my day’ rant that only a bombastic middle-aged Dad can deliver, I caught myself. This was a good song, in fact apart from the singer’s country twang, it was exactly the same song I was about to argue for. My daughter & I had probably 90% agreement here, maybe even more, and I was about to drive us off another rhetorical cliff for the sake of claiming the sliver of remaining territory.

'You see my old man's got a problem ...'

Before I made this mistake I metaphorically turned the wheel and changed our direction.

‘You gotta make a decision …’

Instead I asked, ‘What do you think of Tracy Chapman’s version?’, rather than my originally intended ‘What are you talking about!'

‘Great song too Dad.'

Then my daughter unwittingly hammered home the point.

‘The version they did together at the Grammy’s was excellent.’

There it is. I was seconds from launching us into an unnecessary argument about which version of a song was better when in reality the singers of both versions had recently come together to blend their styles into a gorgeous rendition - already viewed 7 million times on YouTube.

This gave me cause for pause.

What are the other examples of where I’d neglected to see the massive wedge of common ground in our recent arguments?

Earlier I mentioned the combative nature of our discussions on the current conflict in Gaza. My youngest’s analysis of these 'debates' is that they have been ‘epic, not in a good way’.

When I considered these discussions within this new framework of shared ground in mind, I realised that in essence my daughter and I were coming from positions of remarkable similarity.

She didn’t want to see the harming of innocent women & children. I felt exactly the same way. We were just talking about different groups of women & children when the sensible position would have been agreement that all innocent humanity involved in this horrible conflict be spared pain, rape, detention & death.

The irony that we had lead ourselves to a fiery disagreement about the conflict in Gaza by arguing over rhetorical disputed territory was not lost on me.

Civil disagreement in the attempt to find common understanding has always been a way to reduce conflict, be it over international borders, disputed histories or the merits of ballads from the 1980's.

The former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Macmillan said it best when visiting Australia in 1958. “It is better to jaw jaw than war war.”

Of course it is. What a dolt Dad was.

While I pray 'jaw jaw' happens in Gaza soon & I pray 'jaw jaw' happens in Ukraine soon, I know that it will happen much more frequently in my house going forward. ?????????????

As Tracy Chapman so eloquently wrote in 1988 and Luke Combs recently sang so beautifully ...

“Maybe we make a deal.

Maybe together we can get somewhere”.