Fallen, there is a whole psychology of approach in joining a group where there is a common bond of agreement. If one is seen as a renegade interloper that contradicts that common bond, then all will turn on that one to protect (justify) their understanding. To stand your ground, only provokes a greater response and therefore, if the assumed interloper rises to the challenge, likewise does the resistance. This is as true here as it is in the watchtower.
The key is to negotiate the common ground. The most effective manner is to invite explanation. “This is what I believe…” “Can you explain to me why you have that belief because I believe this to be the case”. Questions invite dialogue and dialogue allows for discussion and discussion invites agreement because it allows for change of opinion with honour being left unscathed. Humility in the face of strongly held values is always looked upon favourably if well argued. Compromise is an art-form. Compromise does not always signify abdication of truth. One holds on to truth with both hands (assuming one is certain it’s truth), but sometimes one can compromise their own vanity for the sake of retaining the others fertile learning need. Vanity is cheap. The more one throws their portion of it away, the less value there is in retaining it. Peace then becomes the playing field on which many a game of heart and mind is successfully reasoned.
Essentially, this is the working base upon which the term “love” finds its genesis. The more one values their own sensitivities and does not pay attention to their worth in keeping those sensitivities, the greater becomes their pragmatism and the greater block they build to discussion. They themselves, stop learning because they come to reject all other approaches and thus limit severely, the greater scope in understanding that other slants in comprehension others may have. How many youths mistake infatuation for love - but can anyone tell them differently?
Truth cannot be compromised but it certainly has more constituent parts than its whole. And these constituent parts give it, its value. How can that be? Because it is a value of the heart and thus as different in each of us as is our sense of love. We have degrees of love. Jesus said that “greater love hath no man, than to lay down his life for another”. But for those whom cannot achieve that degree of value, this does not necessarily make their love less than that of another, but simply valued in a different way. It is this ‘difference’ then in each other that we negotiate in our search for the truth. We may not understand the meaning others apply, or their reasoning. Do we have to? Sometimes we just have to accept that a mother will always sacrifice their life to save their child until there is an exception to the rule. And there always is.