Common Ground

[Farren]

The "Forums - Belonging or Not" thread has turned into an argument about common ground and it triggered a bunch of thoughts but I didn't want to get directly involved in an argument that has taken on an aggressive tone, so I started this new thread.

Goliath, you said that you more or less disagree with 90% of what theists say. I've seen similar sentiments expressed by different people about other groups of people and I always think its faulty reasoning.

Its especially pertinent where I live because when the country was adjusting to life without apartheid I both black and white people I knew continuously highlighted the "massive" cultural differences between black and white and how they make interaction difficult in many instance.

Everybody shits. Everybody eats. Everybody sleeps. Most people love their families or would like to if they could. Most people like music. Most people like the movies, plays, books or other forms of entertainment. Most people don't want to die. Most people would like to retire early. Most people like sex. The majority of people would rather be happy than sad. And so on and so on...

I think its incredibly easy to find common ground with other people simply because they're human. The reason many people find it difficult to find common ground is because someone enjoys discussing certain issues (like say rugby, which some people love and I think sucks) and finds themselves all at sea when they find they can't connect with someone on those issues, either because they disgree or because the person has no interest.

In the latter case, I can see a case being made for difficulty of communication, but its not due to a lack of common ground. If both sides are willing to stretch a little and take an interest in talking about issues that are common ground, they're usually surprised at how much there is. That's been my personal experience. When I was a teenager I just wasn't interested in talking about anything other than role playing games, computers, high science , philosophy and to a very limited extent the arts.

But after I moved to a vibrant Bohemian community in my twenties and started just taking an active interest in people for the sake of people a whole vast world of experience opened up for me. I realised you choose what interests and disinterests you. It doesn't just land on your lap, pre-fabricated. Interest grows with understanding, so if you make the effort to understand the interests of others, pretty soon there are a whole lot more people you can delight in and a whole lot more in the world to fascinate you.

In the other thread you said (paraphrase) "I disagree with theists on just about every issue".

Do you disagree with theists who are opposed to GW Bush? Do you disagree with theists who think people should be free to make their own choices, unless they impinge on someone else's ability to do same? Do you disagree with theists who feel that you should treat other human beings with dignity and respect, unless they give you cause to treat them otherwise? Do you disagree with theists who think gravity makes the earth go around the sun and the moon around the earth? Theists who think there are 24 hours in a day? Theists who believe that Tiramasu is delicious? Theists who think the Olympics are enjoyable to watch? Theists who enjoyed the movie Star Wars? Theists who think there should be more welfare spending? Theists who think there should be less welfare spending? Theists who believe a motor vehicle operates by explosive combustion of petrol? Theists who think that the square root of 4 is 2? Theists who think the Mandelbrot set is constructed by an iterative series of computations performed on each point on a complex plane?

If the answer to most of these questions and any similar ones you can conceive of is "no" then surely there's a vast amount of common ground that you have with theists and the areas of disagreement are simply a minority subset of issues you've decided are adequate to completely alienate you. Surely, if this is the case, its not an issue of great difference between you, but a choice, made by you, to allow a subset of differences to assume overwhelming importance in you interaction with certain other people.

Waddya think?

[xorbie]

I know I'm not Goliath, and agree with many parts of your post. Unfortunatly, I think it sounds nicer on paper than it works in reality, at least with most people.

Theists who believe that Tiramasu is delicious? Theists who think the Olympics are enjoyable to watch? Theists who enjoyed the movie Star Wars? Theists who think there should be more welfare spending? Theists who think there should be less welfare spending? Theists who believe a motor vehicle operates by explosive combustion of petrol? Theists who think that the square root of 4 is 2?

Of course I can find theists that I agree with on many issues. I can find theists I agree with on almost all issues. And I can certainly find theists that make good friends - if I couldn't I'd have problems in the real world, as it is.

However, belief in God just isn't really a huge issue for me. I don't, you do, whatever. However, I can say I agree with neocons on things that mean a hell of a lot to me. The problem is then two fold. Firstly, this is a group I dislike as a group. I feel that as a group they are actively damaging a country that I dearly love, and would not like to see damaged. They are, as a group, bad. This means anyone who is a member of that group, is a member of a group I feel is doing very, very bad things. It's difficult to accept that, especially in someone you want more than a superficial relationship with.

Secondly, issues you care a lot about are issues you often want to discuss. This is actually not true for me so much IRL - my friends and I discuss politics pretty rarely. But we're young, and I get my politics dose at II anyway. The point is, if you disagree with someone on so many things that are so close to you, it's tough to just not talk about it. And when you do, you end up just arguing (well, this is the case for me at any rate), and this creates a lot of tension.

The problem is that the common ground is usually tangential at best to the issues you disagree on. For example, if someone wanted less welfare spending and taxation but basically felt that society should benefit people and try to help the poor and the such, that would be vastly different from someone who wanted less welfare spending and taxation because they thought the poor were undeserving and lazy. Our common love of tiramisu just wouldn't cut it, IMO.

Sorry this is rambling and non-sensical, it's pretty late and I'm just thinking aloud...

[Farren]

I'd just like to stress that the thinking behind my post was not so much "We can all be friends" as the idea that blaming anything on a lack of common ground is putting the cart before the horse (I admit in the process I lapsed into some "hands across the world" speechifying though).

Its one thing to say you dislike people for particular beliefs they hold and another to say you dislike them or avoid their company because you disagree on everything, or lack common ground.

It may be a trivial distinction to some, but I feel not recognising it creates blind spots and can lead to a feedback loop. For instance, my sister is a fundamentalist Christian and she thinks the Bush's decision to invade Iraq was a fine and moral thing (ask her why and she says "my conscience, informed by God").

When my brother was out here he started talking to her about it and got very upset, both by her support for something he considers totally wrong and by her tortured and hermetic logic.

Nonetheless, she's a real sweety and very liberal in other respects (her 14-year old son has an earring, plays gigs with his band at appropriate venues and is allowed to stay over with art school friends who are gay).

Now if every time we saw my sister, my brother and I thought "oh God its Lulu, we disagree on absolutely everything" that attitude would permeate our every interaction with her. It wouldn't matter if she was talking about Iraq or her son's music, we'd find her infuriating and evaluate every comment, every action negatively - and respond accordingly. IOW, we would end up disagreeing on everything.

If, on the other, my brother and I (as we do) say "oh dear, Lulu's going off about something she's clueless about again" when international politics comes up, but understand that she has many other sterling qualities and opinions, the disagreement is contained to where its relevant and we don't have a self-distorted and self-fulfilling view of our relationship with her.

I'm not precluding the idea that sometimes you can feel strongly enough about a principle that you actually do make a conscious choice that you do not want to associate or converse with certain individuals based on their views. Neither am I saying that's an invalid choice.

What I'm saying is if you start out with the idea that you disagree on everything and base your decision on that, you will arrive at that conclusion and vindicate your decision - whereas if you start out with a clear understanding that you disagree only on x, y and z, you'll often find that you can tolerate that difference and make a different decision about whether to associate with or befriend the person.

And Xorbie, it wasn't rambling and nonsensical at all. In any event you can't do worse than me for rambling. I'm the rambling king.

[wildernesse]

However, belief in God just isn't really a huge issue for me. I don't, you do, whatever. However, I can say I agree with neocons on things that mean a hell of a lot to me. The problem is then two fold. Firstly, this is a group I dislike as a group. I feel that as a group they are actively damaging a country that I dearly love, and would not like to see damaged. They are, as a group, bad. This means anyone who is a member of that group, is a member of a group I feel is doing very, very bad things. It's difficult to accept that, especially in someone you want more than a superficial relationship with.

But these people have reasons for acting the way that they do--reasons that are very important to them, even if those reasons sound ridiculous or even cruel to you. Many of these people would think that liberals if in control would damage a country that they dearly love and that liberals do very, very bad things. You may never be able to agree on things--but if you write them off as bad evil stupid cunning wily people (I know you're not doing this, but I'm a member of "progressive" groups who just can't figure out why people aren't just like them and they portray non-progs this way) then you're not going to be able to engage in any give and take in the long run. And that give and take can be beneficial to both sides.

Secondly, issues you care a lot about are issues you often want to discuss. [snip] The point is, if you disagree with someone on so many things that are so close to you, it's tough to just not talk about it. And when you do, you end up just arguing (well, this is the case for me at any rate), and this creates a lot of tension.

Ending up arguing is something that can be changed if both sides want to change, though. And if you can find someone who disagrees with you, but who is able to keep her cool, then you've probably got a person who is always interesting to talk to.

The problem is that the common ground is usually tangential at best to the issues you disagree on. For example, if someone wanted less welfare spending and taxation but basically felt that society should benefit people and try to help the poor and the such, that would be vastly different from someone who wanted less welfare spending and taxation because they thought the poor were undeserving and lazy.

And yet very few people have actual black and white issues on everything. For instance, they might think that the majority of what we consider poor right now is undeserving and lazy, but that there are instances where there should be government assistence. Most of the time, you won't get to the grey areas where there can be some common ground unless you have a good relationship (built on Tiramisu and the like) that gives each side confidence to speak freely to a person who they know disagrees with them.

In many cases, you're going to have to deal with people who disagree with you (emphatically!) on important issues, so it's a good thing if you have the ability to enjoy the Tiramisu aspects and as many other common interests as you possibly can.

[Goliath]

Goliath, you said that you more or less disagree with 90% of what theists say.



No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

No. I've only said that it seems as though I have very little in common with theists. I've also admitted that the possibility exists that I have a lot in common with theists, but I don't have the ambition to explore such a possibility.

Well? How many times do I have to say it? How many times do I have to dispute the mischaracterization of my words? The "Forums..." thread shows that said number is certainly bigger than one.

No, Farren, you have no idea what I think or what I've said.

The rest of your argument fails.

[Farren]

Goliath,

If I misread or misinterpreted you just say "I think you misread me". Only one sentence is required. I'm not trying to start a fight with you. I interpreted some of your posts as meaning something and I responded to what I understood.

As I said in the OP my intention wasn't to fight about it or imply you're an asshole or cast judgement in any way, it was simply to express my feelings about what I understood your sentiments to be and maybe have a completely calm, civil and interesting discussion about it. Its a neutral topic as far as I'm concerned. I addressed the OP to you because some of what you wrote stimulated my contemplations.

Frankly I didn't read every inch of your argument with vm because it looked like a downward spiral into arguing about who's arguing and so on, which is crappy reading, so I may have missed any later clarification of what you were saying. That's why I didn't post on that thread. I didn't want to get involved in a fight but I found the topic interesting.

Frankly I'm astonished at the obvious anger in your response. Are you, perhaps, assuming that I'm ganging up with vm and trying to make you feel like a shit or something? That's certainly not my intention.

[Goliath]

Goliath,

If I misread or misinterpreted you just say "I think you misread me".



But that never seems to be sufficient around here. Every time that I can recall trying that, my interlocutor responded by stating the same mischaracterization.

I guess it was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, though, so I apologize.

Although, a mischaracterization has been made.....I sense...........



Frankly I'm astonished at the obvious anger in your response.



Yep, another misreading of what I wrote as being written in anger.

Nope. I'm not angry. Only a bit frustrated.

[Farren]

Goliath,

If I misread or misinterpreted you just say "I think you misread me".



But that never seems to be sufficient around here. Every time that I can recall trying that, my interlocutor responded by stating the same mischaracterization.

I guess it was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, though, so I apologize.

Although, a mischaracterization has been made.....I sense...........



Frankly I'm astonished at the obvious anger in your response.



Yep, another misreading of what I wrote as being written in anger.

Nope. I'm not angry. Only a bit frustrated.

Cool, I'm sorry if I touched on a nerve. As you can probably see from the other posts, this thread immediately evolved away from being about you to being about the general topic which is better because I started this thread more to talk about ideas than individuals.

Anyway,

Peace, man. I'm cool if you're cool. No need for apologies.

[JoeP]

Farren, that's a good case you make. For some (quite sad) reason, I'm reminded of IT help desks - managers fret about needing highly skilled people at the front line to make any dent in user satisfaction, and yet 40% or more of requests are trivial things like a password needing resetting, which you can train an agent to resolve on his/her first day. It really doesn't take much to resolve 80% of user calls during the first call ... because users are stupid the simple things are very common. People worry about the difficult stuff and completely lose sight of the fact that the easy stuff makes up a lot of what's going on.

The black/white dialogue (or perceptions ... sometimes dialogue is too much to hope for) is a good analogy to bring up. Simply by phrasing the question as "what do blacks and whites have in common?" or "what do atheists and theists have in common?" distorts the answer to focus on the differences.

(I admit in the process I lapsed into some "hands across the world" speechifying though).You? Never.

I'm the rambling king. :yes!:

One of the reasons ... and now I'm rambling, at least wandering off on a side issue ... for focusing on the differences is a fear that if you start agreeing with a black rights activist, or a free-market liberal, or an evangelical atheist, on some issues and admitting common ground, the other person will co-opt you into a false friendship and start insisting that you have to see things their way, manipulating your agreement on some points into agreement on logically unrelated points. Cheese knows, these arguments get manipulative very quickly (and honest discussions become arguments very quickly).

See, I can ramble too. I'm the rambling third attendant.

[Farren]

...
Simply by phrasing the question as "what do blacks and whites have in common?" or "what do atheists and theists have in common?" distorts the answer to focus on the differences.
...


I think that sentence eloquently summarises the issue.


One of the reasons ... and now I'm rambling, at least wandering off on a side issue ... for focusing on the differences is a fear that if you start agreeing with a black rights activist, or a free-market liberal, or an evangelical atheist, on some issues and admitting common ground, the other person will co-opt you into a false friendship and start insisting that you have to see things their way, manipulating your agreement on some points into agreement on logically unrelated points. Cheese knows, these arguments get manipulative very quickly (and honest discussions become arguments very quickly).

See, I can ramble too. I'm the rambling third attendant.

I can kind of seeing where you're going here. We're not entirely consciously in control and our fear of inadvertedly endorsing ideologies or practices we might otherwise not (because we're in an awkward situation, because we found ourselves going "yes, yes... yes... yes - oh shit, no!" or whatever) leads us to rather keep people with what we consider important differences at an arms length where they can't get under our skin?

Yeah, I think there are inherent dangers turning your relationship space into a thoroughfare and if I understand you correctly you were describing the "turtle" method for dealing with this. Of course there are other ways, such as always being prepared to do an about-face on everything so that putting your foot in it doesn't mean it can't come straight back out with a grin and no hard feelings. There's was an Indian politician my brother told me about a coupla years back that was often criticised for his frequent reversals of opinion and his stock answer was "I know better now".

I suppose that kind of thing depends very much on your personality though, because a lot of people simply aren't agile enough in those sort of situations and always come away thinking "I should have told her... I should have done...", so I suppose if you fear relationships and interactions that are going to throw unexpected and possibly unpleasant things at you that you don't have the capacity to handle, turtling might be the only feasible solution if you have a specific set of weaknesses and aptitudes.

[livius drusus]

:bonghit: :giggle:

[Farren]

:bonghit: :giggle:

How to get on anyone's wavelength in one easy hit. I'll have some of that.

:bonghit: :shake:

[xorbie]

However, belief in God just isn't really a huge issue for me. I don't, you do, whatever. However, I can say I agree with neocons on things that mean a hell of a lot to me. The problem is then two fold. Firstly, this is a group I dislike as a group. I feel that as a group they are actively damaging a country that I dearly love, and would not like to see damaged. They are, as a group, bad. This means anyone who is a member of that group, is a member of a group I feel is doing very, very bad things. It's difficult to accept that, especially in someone you want more than a superficial relationship with.

But these people have reasons for acting the way that they do--reasons that are very important to them, even if those reasons sound ridiculous or even cruel to you. Many of these people would think that liberals if in control would damage a country that they dearly love and that liberals do very, very bad things. You may never be able to agree on things--but if you write them off as bad evil stupid cunning wily people (I know you're not doing this, but I'm a member of "progressive" groups who just can't figure out why people aren't just like them and they portray non-progs this way) then you're not going to be able to engage in any give and take in the long run. And that give and take can be beneficial to both sides.

I think the problem here is that you aren't making a distinction between professional and personal relationships. By personal relationships, I mean, friends and significant others, professional meaning almost anything else. If I was port of an activism group, trying to progress certain social causes, I would certainly try to have meaningful, useful interactions with people I disagree with. The problem is, this just isn't something I have the energy to do in a personal relationship, at least not generally.

[wildernesse]

I think the problem here is that you aren't making a distinction between professional and personal relationships. By personal relationships, I mean, friends and significant others, professional meaning almost anything else. If I was port of an activism group, trying to progress certain social causes, I would certainly try to have meaningful, useful interactions with people I disagree with.

I think working with an activism group to have meaningful, useful interactions with people you differ with is going to be incredibly less successful than if you stumbled into a relationship with a person and then found out they are freaky right-wingers but you still like them. How often do you make initial contact with friends-to-be that this stuff comes up--for me, it's more likely that I've known the person for a while and enjoy their company in general before I start talking about politics or religion. Plus, if you don't have friends on the other side, then it's hard to walk up to someone and ask why don't you support X? Can you explain why Z isn't important? What would make you agree to Y? It rounds out your perspective more--not that you have to agree, but knowing what the counter arguments are only makes you stronger. Because if you end up with a crappy idea, you are tuned into it before you make a fool of yourself--and it's easy to love your pet crappy idea that you've raised from a daydream.

Also, if you are born into a family of traditional conservative Republicans, you don't really have a choice as to only involving yourself in personal relationships with those who disagree with you when you turn out to be rather more liberal than they are. Almost every single person in my family (and in-laws) are traditional conservative Republicans--the exceptions being my husband and myself--and we disagree about many, many things. I know what their opinions are about all sorts of issues and what reasons they give for holding their positions--and they've got decent reasons, at least as good as my own. Some of our priorities are simply different. Knowing what I know about them, I can't engage in rants about Republicans in general or bitch and moan about how evil and stupid they are--we just disagree, and knowing what is important to them helps me to explain what is important to me, as well as figuring out where we see eye-to-eye and where there are areas to build upon.


The problem is, this just isn't something I have the energy to do in a personal relationship, at least not generally.

For me, relationships come before the differences--example: I didn't start out looking for an atheist boyfriend/husband, but I wound up with one because I was in a relationship with a totally fabulous person and he happened to be an atheist. And I love people, so if you are halfway personable and bother to say hi to me once a week or smile in my direction, I will know your name, ask your opinion, tell you loony stories, and generally promote chatter and friendliness and like you well enough to listen to your opinion. So I end up with a pretty broad spectrum of people that I have good will towards and who usually end up with an equally broad variety of ideas about the world. Of course, if you're not a chatterbox who will plop down in a seat beside a stranger and introduce yourself and ask 20 questions, then things might work differently for you.

[Farren]

You know Wildernesse, your post made me think of something I heard once from a Buddhist monk. He said the reason they don't prostheletyse is that its like pressure sales.

Basically, his take was that a belief or behaviour adopted under even friendly pressure is different in nature from one arrived at by self-motivation. So as hard as it is the best way to convince people to change isn't to argue with them (although discussion can be fruitful), its simply to be an admirable person.

The principle he espoused is that you do it for yourself and no-one else, but if you or some aspect of you is admirable, people will emulate it and that will be their own choice, which is different in so many ways from views and behaviours adopted under pressure even if some outward appearances are the same.

One of my clients, a (yummy) Canadian of Persian ancestory is an absolute ray of sunshine. She's a very, very liberal muslim who has the remarkable abilty to be instant friends with everyone in her vicinity. She basically stepped off a plane and two months later was a guest of honour at the Traditional Basotho wedding of her new best friend.

We've chatted a lot outside of work and granted, she is very liberal on most issues but we have clear differences about religion. But its just not an issue. At. All. Its not a no go area. We can freely talk about it but there's no sense of... disagreeing... like, invalidating each other's opinions. Its just sharing information about ourselves. Everything is all good all of the time in her universe.

My brother's a lot like that but I see him about once a year 'cos he lives in London. He has a 24/7 wall-to-wall grin. Its not natural temperament. He had an ugly temper when he was younger but he's become deeply immersed in both the philosophies of Daoism and Buddhism without the religious trappings of the latter and takes them very seriously. He meditates for an hour every night and him and his wife every so often split up for a long weekend, take trains to different sea-side towns, book themselves into hotels and spend the entire weekend meditating alone.

He does flare up from time to time but its gone in a moment and then everyone is wonderful again and he's sorry for any offense caused and he really means it. No lingering resentment or anything. I really, really, really admire and love the guy and wish I could be more like him. He gets along with absolutely everyone except people who are filled up with hate. But conservative Christians, Muslims, Jews, Workaholic money-fixated Directors (like his American boss), semi-senile relatives, macho rugby players, you name it. Not an issue in the world. More than that, though, he actually enjoys each and every one of them.

Anyway the thing is its all learned behaviour. For years, he's very deliberately, very consciensciously, sought out knowledge and actively tried to apply it on how he can be the person he would most admire, which is self-love, as opposed to vanity. And one of the things he's spoken about so often, with such conviction, is being open to other people like the empty cup in the Zen parable.

I fear I've wandered off course but the point is I know about 5 people who became an athiest because of their friendship with him, 2 who took up yoga, 2 who gave up smoking and so on. All of them close mutual friends who directly attributed it to Robs and their admiration of how he lives his life and conducts himself.

I know I sound like an overly proud brother but he really is that cool. And even though he holds and expresses strong opinions, he hardly ever tries to "hard sell" his system of thought to other people, browbeat them into agreement or use argument as a vehicle for his frustration with the world. He just tries to be the best person he can be, enjoy life as much as possible and understand other people as much as possible.

[JoeP]

I can kind of seeing where you're going here. We're not entirely consciously in control and our fear of inadvertedly endorsing ideologies or practices we might otherwise not (because we're in an awkward situation, because we found ourselves going "yes, yes... yes... yes - oh shit, no!" or whatever) leads us to rather keep people with what we consider important differences at an arms length where they can't get under our skin?

Yeah, I think there are inherent dangers turning your relationship space into a thoroughfare and if I understand you correctly you were describing the "turtle" method for dealing with this. Of course there are other ways, such as always being prepared to do an about-face on everything so that putting your foot in it doesn't mean it can't come straight back out with a grin and no hard feelings. There's was an Indian politician my brother told me about a coupla years back that was often criticised for his frequent reversals of opinion and his stock answer was "I know better now".

I suppose that kind of thing depends very much on your personality though, because a lot of people simply aren't agile enough in those sort of situations and always come away thinking "I should have told her... I should have done...", so I suppose if you fear relationships and interactions that are going to throw unexpected and possibly unpleasant things at you that you don't have the capacity to handle, turtling might be the only feasible solution if you have a specific set of weaknesses and aptitudes.
Yes, you pretty much got it there. But it's just an aspect, by no means the whole of the problem of "common ground".