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Don't Tell Me What to See. Turn on the Light.
By Kristy Knable
Originally published in the News and Tribune on August 19, 2026.
Most of us have learned to approach disagreement as a contest. Someone makes an argument. We immediately start assembling ours. What’s my comeback? What fact proves them wrong? How do I win?
I’ve been trying something different lately, and it has changed more than the kinds of conversations I’m having.
And it has changed the way I feel while I’m having them. I’m calmer. Less angry. Less invested in making another person admit that I’m right. Instead of immediately attacking someone’s conclusion, I try to find the premise underneath it.
I’ve started thinking of this as illumination.
Illumination is making the hidden premise visible so people can evaluate it for themselves.
Pay attention to that last part: for themselves.
Recently, I tested this approach in a difficult social-media conversation.
It began with a post celebrating Christians who had disrupted an event at a mosque. I asked how we would feel if Muslims stood outside a Christian church, loudly proclaimed Christianity as false and then celebrated when the church ended its event early. Another commenter strongly disagreed. At one point, she asked why we should defend Muslims’ constitutional rights “above” our own.
I once would have responded with a pile of facts - and a pile of emotions. Instead, I noticed one word. Above. I had never argued that Muslims should have rights above Christians. I had argued that they should have the same rights.
So I asked why equal constitutional protection for another person should be understood as placing that person’s rights above ours.
Turn on the light.
The conversation moved into illegal immigration, even though we had been talking about people practicing Islam at a mosque. Being Muslim doesn’t tell us someone’s immigration status.
Turn on another light.
Eventually, the woman explained that she believed the Bible teaches us everything we need to know about immigration, borders, boundaries and the future. Underneath our disagreement was another question entirely:
Should the Bible determine what constitutional rights people have in the United States? I asked her.
She answered yes.
So I went one level deeper: Whose interpretation of the Bible should determine our constitutional rights?
That question brought us to the heart of our disagreement. She explained that, in her view, knowing the Bible and walking closely with Jesus meant she didn’t need to question every single thing or worry about whose interpretation was correct. Scripture provided the answers.
Finally, she told me she was tired of all the questions. And that was where I stopped. Illumination isn’t to interrogate someone until they surrender. You turn on the light. You invite someone to look. Ultimately, they decide what they’re willing to examine.
I recognized something in her certainty. I used to possess a version of it. I know what it feels like to believe the answers are already there and that questioning too much can lead us away from truth.
My journey took me somewhere different. Today, I believe questioning my understanding is part of discernment. The things I am most certain about are often the very things I should be willing to examine most carefully. But I didn’t arrive there because somebody humiliated me. That realization has helped me develop three rules for disagreement.
1. Turn on the light.
Find the hidden premise. Put it into plain language. Ask whether it survives scrutiny.
What would have to be true for this conclusion to make sense? Would I accept this principle if the other political party used it? Sometimes simply ask: Is this actually what you believe?
2. Don’t make them smaller.
We have to give up one of the most satisfying parts of modern disagreement: making the other person look foolish. Someone says something outrageous and the perfect response immediately comes to mind. Maybe it’s sarcastic. Maybe it’s devastating. Maybe everyone who agrees with us will love it. That can be satisfying. But it rarely creates reflection.
Ideas aren’t entitled to dignity. People are. I can challenge an idea fiercely without diminishing the person holding it.
Humiliation says: Look how foolish you are.
Illumination says:Look at what this argument requires us to believe.
Maybe the other person is still thinking about your question tomorrow. Maybe someone quietly reading notices a contradiction they had never noticed before. Maybe nobody changes their mind at all, but for the first time you both understand what you actually disagree about.
The best intellectual burn isn’t really a burn. It’s illumination.
3. Stand in the light yourself.
This is the hardest rule: Nobody gets an exemption from scrutiny. Especially me.
If I’m asking someone else to examine the assumptions underneath their beliefs, I have to do the same. What evidence would change my mind? Would I accept this reasoning if someoneI opposed used it? Am I applying the same standard to people I agree with?
Sometimes the questionable premise will be mine. Good. That’s where growth happens.
If the light only ever points outward, we aren’t practicing critical thinking. We’re just getting better at finding other people’s flaws.
A republic doesn’t merely require citizens capable of scrutinizing their government.
It requires citizens capable of scrutinizing themselves.
Our leaders, parties, news sources, fears and certainty deserve scrutiny. Especially the beliefs that feel so obviously true that we’ve stopped examining them. That social-media conversation didn’t end with either of us changing the other’s mind. But we discovered what we actually disagreed about. Maybe that’s enough. And I’ve discovered there is an unexpected freedom in that.
It isn’t my responsibility to force another person to see what I see. My responsibility is to examine the idea honestly and examine myself with the same rigor. What the other person does with the light belongs to them. I carry a lot less anger when I remember that.
So the next time someone says something that makes your blood pressure rise: Find the premise. Turn on the light. Don’t make them smaller. And make sure you’re standing in the light, too.
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