PROMPT: In any situation, progress requires discussion among people who have contrasting points of view.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
ESSAY: Human beings are pretty complex characters. Every person is entitled to an opinion. When people with contrasting opinions debate and brainstorm, it leads to refinement of ideas. However, when debate becomes factious and is never ending, it starts hindering progress. Thus I would like to emphasis that, progress requires discussion among people having contrasting opinions but if the debate itself makes the progress ponderous, then it eventually results in no progress at all.
An excellent example where progress has been achieved by discussion of contrasting opinions is democracy in USA. USA is one of the oldest democracies in the world. Democracy is the government of the people, for the people and by the people. So it is natural for people to have conflicting opinions, discuss and come to a consensus. For instance, civil right's movements by blacks was one such event where people, their reprentatives and lawmakers discussed the black people's right to basic civil liberties peacefully and came to a conclusion for the same rights for the blacks as for whites.
However, another democracy from South Asian part of the world i.e. India presents a rather grim scenario. Listening to people's conflicting opinions and not reaching a definite conclusion in appropriate time has led to many bills and laws getting stalled. This resulted in policy paralysis and no progress was made at all in any front. One of the silver linings in such paralytic period was the signing of Nuclear Agreement with USA in 2006. This happened because leader at that point of time took a quick decision considering all opinions. Hence today, India has easy access to nuclear supplies all over the world.
In contrast to India, its neighbour China which has a single party system is better developed economically and socially. In 1970s, Communist party leader Deng Xiapong started liberalizing Chinese economy which led to better economic growth and increase in social indicators. But, as China has only one party, there are no conflicting opinions, hence there is no refinement of ideas and bad ideas can lead to drastic consequences. For example, one child policy led to female abortions, a decrease in sex ratio, human trafficking and no brides for Chinese men. Had this policy been discussed thoroughly before being passed, then such ramifications could have potentially been avoided.
Therefore, progress should happen with discussion of conflicting opinions. But, it should be ensured that the discussion does not lead to chaos and something meaningful comes out of the it in appropriate time period or else, there will be no progress at all.
