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How To Read Something You Don’t Agree With And Why We Should Do It More Often
If you are anything like me, you often find yourself actively trying to form an opinion on a piece of writing as you go, even when reading it for the first time. Whether I am trying to do this or not, I constantly find myself judging instead of taking in. This can be anything from a news article to a book or a blog post; when I should be trying to understand what the writer is saying, I am instead fixated on how I would respond.
If you are anything like me, you will also want to break this habit as soon as possible.
There are many, many reasons why critical reading skills are vitally important. And given the circumstances, you might need to read something with the intention of forming your own stance or opinion on it. However, if your intent is to learn or understand the writer’s perspective, as is often the case, forming comebacks and retorts to each line as you read is not the way to go.
Instead, we should be approaching new writing with the purpose of understanding not disproving. Our aim should be to learn, not to defeat. In doing this we will likely come to better engage with our own ideas as well as the ones being presented on the page in front of you.
This is important as while you may whole-heartedly disagree with what a piece of…
