​Rowing Face to Face

I had a friend who made canoes. Once he offered an outing in a canoe to two gentlemen who were visiting from countries on the continent where canoes were invented thousands of years ago. They entered the canoe and sat facing each other to my friend’s amusement.
 
Put two people face to face in a canoe. Give them oars. They might be in the same boat, but where do they go? Lots of paddling to go nowhere in a rotating canoe.
 
Put two pundits, one from the Left and the other from the Right in a TV studio. They are like people facing each other in a canoe. Lots of talking to get nowhere.
 
In some studios, people do face the same direction, but they are usually people from the Left paddling only on the left side of the canoe or people from the Right paddling only on the right side of the canoe. Such a canoe simply moves in a circle and ends where it started. How rare is it to see people facing the same direction with some paddling on the left side while others paddle on the right side of the canoe? Goodness! That would move the boat in a straight line to a different place.
 
The next time you argue with someone, ask yourself whether or not you are both facing each other in a canoe of disagreement.