One of the elements of the Rogerian argument is cooperation. There will always be disagreements among people, especially within the United States Government and between politicians, this is more apparent now than ever.
If people could all agree to disagree and find a middle ground in which they all get some of what they want and some of what they don’t want, life would be much easier. Unfortunately there are people that are so stubborn they truly believe that their way, or their ideas are the only answer and will not budge an inch when offered a compromise from his or her opponents. An example of this is when the Republicans and Democrats could not agree to a compromise on the budget and the United States government shut down last year. If they would have had a willingness to cooperate with each other and give accredited validation to both sides of the issue, the shutdown could have been avoided. As a nation we need to take a page from the Rogerian style of argument and be less judgmental of, and be willing to except another’s point of view as valid, even if one we do not agree with it. The fore fathers of the Unites States wrote the Bill of Rights with our country’s future in mind.
The first amendment in the Unites States’ Bill of Rights is our freedom of religion, speech, press, and to peaceably assemble. By including freedom of speech and religion in the Bill of Rights one can assume that our fore fathers felt that all opinions were valid because they gave us the freedom to express and practice them openly. Therefore our current government officials should follow the path that our fore fathers has laid for us and listen to one another with empathy, without judgment and communicate effectively in order to run our country successfully. The day when our government officials realize that compromise is an effective tool we will all win. With a Rogerian argument there is no clear winner or loser because one is looking for a common ground for a starting point, and work out a compromise from there. People need to realize that no one gets everything they want and life is truly not fair, people will see that compromise is the only way they will all benefit.
However, we can all be winners by accepting that we can have some of what we want, and have some of what we don’t.
