The first rule of Improvisional Comedy the Yes, And rule, compels one to
accept what the other person has created (“Yes”) and then add something to it (“And”)
This is something that a skilled conversationist is good at. It poses trouble for the discussion of critical analyses however, because such discussions involve acts of disagreement (“No” – the negation of something the other person said) and of refocusing the discussion are to reduce incidental and nonessential complexity.
Being able to disagree productively and reach consensus regarding topic definitions is difficult, and something I’ve only managed to achieve with a handful of people who are all much more emotionally mature than I am. That’s really mostly other people figuring that I care much more about the topic than they do, however, and hardly an ideal resolution to the issue.
Ideally, in the face of disagreement, you would simply go up one layer in the abstraction stack, agree on the approach, and then figure out the specific bit of disagreement. By social convention, you start with the premise that both parties are rational, after which the search for the mistaken logic (which will be clear when identified) or for the differing premise can commence.
Hardly ever happens that way. Usually there’s too much ego involved, and enough entanglement with social status happens that it’s difficult to talk about the topic in isolation.
