A Quote by Michelle Dean

I like debate and argument, so I'm usually all right with disagreement, and I'm even all right if the critic doesn't come to a clear thumbs up or thumbs down. But I need the disagreement to have some kind of line I can follow on the map. I like following an interesting mind along it.
Thumbs up or thumbs down on a website is not a conversation. The danger is you get into a habit of mind where politics means giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a website. The world is a much more complex place.
Everybody is so hungry for referrals, for 'likes.' I don't need to be liked. I don't need to be liked at all. I don't care if there's a button right there at the top of Drudge saying 'like' or 'dislike,' 'thumbs up,' 'thumbs down,' it doesn't mean anything.
I don't know that anybody has walked up to me in the street or in a store or in the grocery and said to me, 'I hope you bomb Assad.' Certainly plenty have said, 'No; thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down.'
If you've got a shot at having some 30 million people give you thumbs up or thumbs down every week, you take it.
Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which come from the Latin, dis and sentire) means originally to feel apart from others. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree and both may count themselves in the majority. But a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.
Disagreement is not necessarily a reason to head for Splitsville. In fact, a relationship without disagreement is probably too brittle to last. Some of the best human bonds are forged in the fire of disagreement.
I am totally down with disagreement. I don't like Haterade, but disagreement is wonderful. When someone disagrees, we try to reach common ground. That's good.
As a critic, I try very hard to say exactly what I think. And in a medium in which we are well-known for the binary thumbs up and thumbs down, I try to be able to give the mixed review. But most pictures fall into that middle ground, so I wrestle over which way my thumb is going to turn. It's not flip.
I want to be a part of something, and when we define movies now based on how they do on the weekend. We live in a society of "thumbs up, thumbs down."
Allowances can always be made for your friends to disagree with you. Disagreement, vehement disagreement, is healthy. Debate is impossible without it. Evil does not question itself, only hope questions itself. Even the incorruptible are corruptible if they cannot accept the possibility of being mistaken. Infallibility is a sin in any man. All laws can be broken and are. Often. Like when a bumblebee flies or an ancient regime is toppled.
I should probably be careful admitting this, but sometimes, when my characters are having a disagreement, it's a disagreement I'm having with myself. I can see both sides of the argument.
Listen, you make a big movie, you're going into the Coliseum, and people are going to give you the thumbs up or the thumbs down. And that's part of the game. It's part of the fun as well.
There is too much disagreement for disagreement's sake. In a time of persistent challenges that still call into question our most sacred aspirations as a country, we cannot afford shallow callous divisiveness in our public debate.
Our DNA is as a consumer company - for that individual customer who's voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That's who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it's not up to par, it's our fault, plain and simply.
I don't feel that an atmosphere of debate and total disagreement and argument is such a bad thing. It makes for a vital and alive field.
For my generation the relationship with Europe was the central point of American foreign policy. Even during my time in government there was disagreement, sometimes very strong disagreement. But they were all like arguments within a family. I am not sure if the generation which doesn't have these experiences has the same view of things.
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