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Some people pine for those three little words, I love you.

I pine for, I don’t know.

I realise time is short. That not everybody has time to read through primary sources to discover what someone has actually said and to discover the context that statement was uttered in. That not everyone has access to those primary sources, even if they have time — whether barred by poor comprehension or gatekeeping (e.g. monetary, subscription) or both. Some people don’t know how to search primary sources. Some people don’t know that they should.

Yet some of these very people are more than willing to execute long winded diatribes on the mere basis of I hear tell.

Don’t get me wrong. I hear tell is a fine place to start a conversation. But would that those three little words be an invitation to note as interesting, this hearsay, perhaps to learn more … even to express a tentative opinion on the matter. I heard a rumour that the neighbours are moving. Wouldn’t that be a shame? We have these conversations all the time. But a controversy and/or political stance can change the game.

Again, don’t get me wrong. It’s exquisitely human to get up on a soap box from time to time. To vent one’s fears and frustrations.

My bugaboo here is about being made subject to an ongoing diatribe by one’s having asked for evidence more rigorous than I hear tell.

My request for evidence, Dear Diatriber, is not because I have some myself. Although I might. And if I do, or think I do, I’d rightly appreciate that I might lay it bare on the table for scrutiny. Let’s see, shall we? Maybe I’m right. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe neither of us have a clue. Maybe we’re on about entirely different things. Maybe ….

But these appeals to reason and mutual discovery amid a diatribe are often no more effective than sprinkling dew drops on a grass fire. In fact, they can be as a sprinkle of gasoline. Sometimes it pays to create a back burn, but that too risks an escalation of the flames. In other words, hitting back can backfire and make things worse. So sometimes it pays to bite one’s tongue and wait for a hard rain or a burn out. Diatribing consumes a lot of energy, so the diatribed listener might be wisest to conserve her own. Tune out and think of England.

And so. Sometimes waiting for a window of calm invites the diatriber into a more nuanced exchange on the matter. But not always. Nor does avoidance always work.

Sometimes the diatriber keeps you, the diatribed, in his sights. And this relentless cocked-aim isn’t good for relationships, nor is it epistemically healthy. One can get as tired of holding the barrel as the other standing at the long end of it.

Is there a path to peace if neither will yield? Maybe.

In my idealised world, I imagine each Diatriber and Diatribed lovingly dipping a quill in ink and penning the following (best read aloud in Bronte fashion):

A love letter to the Diatriber:

I won’t lay down my intellect to keep the peace because you’ve laid down yours, with respect to a particular matter, and insist I join you.

But I will join you in mutual ignorance if you can utter those three little words, I don’t know. And I reply, I don’t know, too.

The Diatriber’s return, My Beloved Diatribed:

Me, too.

Why the symmetry between the love letters? In order to maintain the dignity of each and to engender a little intellectual humility. It’s the difference between believing one’s self right and righteousness. It’s the latter that leads to diatribes. But righteousness also stems from feeling wronged, a hazard of being diatribed.

Joining another in mutual ignorance might seem odd, even anti-intellectual. But its value is that it acknowledges neither of us has a ringer on the truth. Which just is an exercise in intellectual humility. And which best keeps the wind out of vitriolic sails when it’s mutually signalled.

Further. I don’t know is neither an admission of a faulty intellect nor an indication of a moral defect. Nor is it an invitation to lay down one and anothers’ intellect. It’s an invitation to use them together even — and perhaps most especially — to examine those commitments of which we feel most certain. And it’s an invitation that one can decline to accept, I suspect, with the least amount of vitriol. But not always:

What do you mean you don’t know? You should know! You’re pretending you don’t know! …

Sometimes there’s naught one can do.