Beyond Dispute
Rediscovering the Jewish art of constructive disagreement - WINNER OF THE RABBI SACKS BOOK PRIZE 2025
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
**WINNER OF THE RABBI SACKS BOOK PRIZE 2025**
Fiercely divisive times call for radically different arguments.
In our age of seemingly irreconcilable differences, argument is increasingly seen as a plague to be avoided or a contest to be won. Daniel Taub, an experienced peace negotiator and diplomat, argues that ancient Jewish wisdom offers a third way. Drawing from this tradition, and from his own experience at the heart of some of the world's toughest negotiations, in Beyond Dispute he makes the case for a radically different approach to help us come closer to truth and to each other.
This approach sees argument not as a combat zone but as a joint enterprise, and its disputants not as jealous custodians of competing truths, but collaborative explorers. It seeks to create safe spaces not by outlawing controversial opinions but by welcoming them, and it offers a set of practical tools to rethink our own preconceptions. In fractious times it charts a way to build communities and societies that are resilient enough to face new and challenging ideas without fear.
Weaving ancient insights with contemporary research in conflict resolution, as well as behind-the-scenes personal stories of diplomacy and negotiations, Beyond Dispute is a passionate call to rediscover and harness the vital and surprising power of a good argument.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lawyer and Israeli diplomat Taub (Parasha Diplomatit) draws deeply on Jewish tradition for this impassioned defense of productive disagreement as a vital "source of renewable intellectual energy." Mining the Talmud, Bible, and his own experiences in conflict resolution, he sketches out a philosophy that sees individuals as intrinsically capable of accessing only a "partial and incomplete" version of the truth. A fuller picture can only be found by engaging in intellectual collaboration with others, Taub contends. He explains how readers can argue better by taking stock of their cognitive biases and mentally separating the content of the argument from judgments about their opponent's character. More broadly, Taub suggests that organizations should foster dissenting perspectives by empowering junior employees to speak up, and preserve opposing views in official records. What emerges is an intelligent, well-grounded case that productive disagreement helps to build a society resilient enough to weather and learn from its differences (community "born of agreement is fragile"; community united in debate is "real and lasting"). It's a persuasive case for the value of agreeing to disagree.
