When someone says, “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”,
what we’re really hearing someone say is that they want to avoid truth and/or change. If arguments can be ended by simply saying “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”, what’s actually being agreed is that “If there is a right and wrong answer, it’s not important. What’s important is that neither of us, especially me, has to suffer with the fact that we’re actually wrong.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree.” is far more common among government workers than those in the private sector. The average widget producer either has a better widget or he doesn’t, and he’s not about to let a competitor get away with saying “We’ll have to agree to disagree about which widget is better.”
Similarly, if two doctors disagree on a diagnosis, simply saying “We’ll have to agree to disagree.” they make the most correct diagnosis more difficult to find.
Better to respond: “This is such an important issue that we really should find out what’s right and wrong, rather than taking the easy way out.”
