The age we live in is riddled with acerbic comment, sharply polarized debate and intensifying degrees of intolerance and denunciation. No more so is this the case than in matters of morals and anguishing political choices. In this sense, Proverbs 15:1 might be seen as both admonitory and prophetic. The prophetic leaves us worried and perplexed. The admonition gives us a way out.

The reality is that many of us are far too willing to seek comfort in certitude, at the expense of real dialogue, rather than face our opponents as equally imperfect human beings struggling in their own fashion to discover the truth. We see it daily in Question Period in the House of Commons, read it all too frequently in op-ed pieces that vilify straw men while asserting a smugness in our own “perfect” wisdom. We encounter it at street corners and in stores where one person’s immediate wants are too often translated through language and gesture into everyone else’s commands.

We are all too insistent, far too impatient, intensely unwilling to consider let alone hear out the other’s perspective. And the speed with which we can and do communicate these days — the always on, always connected frenzy that disallows, discourages and denigrates reflection, second thoughts or even musing — is quickly becoming the antithesis of communication.

Pro-choice advocates heap violent slurs of fascist intent on anyone who dares wonder if aborting a fetus for convenience sake is a step too far. Pro-life advocates use language guaranteed to eradicate humanity on anyone who might want to discuss the practicalities of living in what is an increasingly secular world filling rapidly with people who don’t share or even comprehend a Catholic morality.

But if we can’t imagine, let alone engage in, the “possibility of real dialogue” then escalating anger and possibly increasing violence might be the only alternative. The inability to discuss reasonably the death of George Tiller is not a polar extreme but simply an example of where our lack of comprehension, of compassion, of patience is leading us.  We witness the same elements of intolerance when we discuss charitable works, our position in the world, economic justice, the “correct” way to educate our children, the place of faith symbols in our public spaces and even the very notion of what we mean by dialogue.

The free market of free speech is a cornerstone of the democratic world we inhabit and the basis of the individual liberty we cherish. But cornerstones can be smashed and eroded as much by inadvertence as by design. Failing to understand the corrosive effect of denunciation, denigration and dismissal portrays a true human ignorance.

Barry Goldwater once said, “moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue and extremism in defence of liberty is no vice.” The problem that we need to wrestle with, and refuse to wrestle with at our peril, is truly understanding what moderation, extremism, virtue and vice actually mean. Coming to this understanding requires more than angry exhortation, it requires dialogue with those we most fervently disagree with. And dialogue is best conducted with soft words.

(Kavanagh is a senior producer with CBC Radio.)