On Getting Along With People – Sunday, August 11, 1946
One of the most important things in this world is getting along with the people we have to live with. The question of peace itself revolves around our being able to do just this. Living literally alone is seldom possible, and seldom desirable, but living in daily association with others means either fighting with them or learning to get along with them There are many apparent ways of getting along with people—some of which are acceptable and some of which are not.
One of the most readily apparent but also one of the most fallacious is forcibly to eliminate all differences—to make everyone think and act alike. Another fallacious way is completely to give up our own views and try to do everything that everyone else wants us to do. Such extremes are untenable, of course. They could not be done in the first place, and, even if they could, they offer no solution to getting along with people.
Less extreme, but still fallacious, is the assumption that getting along with others necessarily means the compromise of our own standards and ideals and principles. Compromising standards isn’t getting along with people. It is merely self-betrayal. It is buying peace at any price. It is appeasement, and appeasement where principles and standards and truth and moral right are concerned —is but the beginning of more troubles. And so the question still remains: How to get along with people who don’t think alike, who have different standards and different interests? It is practical and possible to do so, as is daily demonstrated by countless men and women who live in the same world, in the same town, and even in the same homes with others of different likes, of different interests, of different convictions, and who do get along together without compromising their principles.
But the moment we do compromise any of our principles, we stand in danger of being forced to compromise all of our principles; for the moment we step across the line of principle, there is no other borderline at which to stop. After the first compromise, all others are merely a matter of degree. And so, keeping peace among friends, and even among strangers, involves, whenever occasion calls for it—in letting it be known what we stand for and why, in sticking squarely to ideals and convictions, and respecting and defending all others in a like privilege. In short, the way to get along with people is to know what we ought to be, to be what we ought to be, to give respect and to demand respect, and not resort to bluffing, appeasement, or compromise on any point of principle.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, August 11, 1946, 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon, EDST. Copyright 1946.
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August 11, 1946
Broadcast Number 0,886