We have it on good authority that Socrates believed that the unexamined life was not worth living. 

I’m not sure he was right or wrong, but I am sure that our unexamined conversations can be very dangerous.

I’m honestly not sure, when I think about it, that our conversations are usually menat to communicate anything as much as they are often dances of rhetoric meant to help us maintain our own presently-held prejudices. So often very complicated ideas and concepts (even good ones) are boiled down to slogans, not so that people can understand what we’re saying, but more so that we can be more assured in our own correctness, even with people who disagree with us.

The same bombastic statement can serve multiple roles in doing that. When I say that “Socialized medicine is a right”, while the statement is a meaningful claim that can have merits and demerits, I’m not often asking to hear them. More likely I’m trying to get people who already think like I do to affirm my position, and to anger and disgust those who do not agree with me. In the first case, I will get wise knowing nods to my statement, and in the other I will get snarky (or even angry) counter-claims. In either case, I’m not actually communicating as much as seeking affirmation (from the enlightened people who agree) and identifying an outgroup (seeing those who disagree with me to be the unthinking brutes that they are).]

Yet, I’m commanded in scripture to have a different goal:

James 1:19–20 (ESV) — Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

In context, James is speaking about the need for believers to submit to the teachings of God, first by working to understand them, and secondly by avoiding the ways we can avoid being taught (such as through speaking too early and so losing the opportunity to hear what is being taught, or by just getting angry and so closing our ears to something we may need to hear).

The Christian is meant to be seeking the righteousness of God, and that requires that I not skip the all-important early steps in a conversation. First that I seek to understand what the other person is saying. This means breathing when we hear the slogans of the other person and try to understand what might actually be wisdom in what is being said. If we can’t see it, we can ask questions to learn from the person what it is they mean, and give them the time to express it before coming to the conclusion that they are wrong. After all, even if we have heard the same slogan a thousand times and each of those thousand times defended poorly, it may be that this time the person has thoughtfully come to a conclusion, and the fact is there may be something correct in what they say that will lead us to greater righteousness. A place that our anger will rarely bring us. 

In short the first step is to assume that the person is at least as thougtful and knowledgable as you are, and even if they are not, to recognize that they may have wisdom to impart to you. God has developed that person to the place they are, and has put them into our lives as a gift. It is best we use the gift well. 

Of course, this is not to say that we are never to speak, and never to anger. There are very foolish ideas around, I know, I believed many of them at various times in my life. But James is wise in telling us to be quick to hear and sloe to speak and slow to anger. There is a time for speaking and anger, but only after we have heard.