i agree with okie that the main problems seem to arise from the WAY people write what they have to say rather than the CONTENT that they are trying to express.

i also think that it is much easier to externalise and worry about what OTHER people are doing than it is to worry about ones own actions. i guess we can say 'i'd worry about myself if only they would worry about themself' till the cows come home. it takes a great amount of strength and compassion for someone to break out of the cycle and focus on their own actions REGARDLESS of what other people are doing.

i have trouble with the notion that there is a divide between 'support' on the one hand and 'argument or debate' on the other hand. maybe i use 'argument' and 'debate' as technical notions where they don't have the connotations that people here seem to take them to have. not sure about that. i see 'argument' and 'debate' as being akin to 'discussion'. i don't see why a discussion can't be supportive to someone while at the very same time expressing opinions or ideas that diverge from someone else.

to say something along the lines of 'we will just have to agree to disagree' doesn't seem to be a strategy for furthering the discussion so much as a strategy for ending it. i agree that there can be a time and a place for that (when feelings are running hot, for example, and where people are investing a lot in outcomes). but i also think that discussions could continue for longer than they tend to if everyone (me included) was more careful with the way that things are expressed.

I also think that sometimes people simply do just want support. Sometimes people say that they feel fragile and just need a little support right now, and I think that generally speaking people tend to be pretty good at offering support in those situations. Othertimes people do seem to want a discussion, however. I don't really understand how people can expect to discuss things only with people who agree with them... But then... Seems to happen on the faith board all the time ;-)