A couple weeks ago I wrote an article about the state of dialogue today and the ways in which the debate “spread” has worked its way into our everyday lives.

After a semester and a bit of adapting to the Yale culture of “grabbing a meal,” I’ve come to recognize a second contributing factor to the devolution of meaningful, honest enriching conversation: too many of us are scared to argue.

You can immediately tell after a meal who grew up in an environment where it was acceptable to disagree at the dinner table. Many of those people argue simply for the entertainment and enjoyment of argument; others on the opposing extreme would rather misrepresent their beliefs than find themselves butting heads with someone else.

This article is not to celebrate some superiority of the first group. But there is an important argument to be made for the value of civil debate: testing opinions, trying out lines of reasoning for size and evaluating the nature of your beliefs in the low-risk environment of the dining hall.

Dinner is primetime for talking about the most recent social dilemma between mutual friends, some relevant aspect of that day’s news to us as students or a disputed conversation from one of my classes. Precisely by taking a stance on those issues and seeing where the conversation goes, you can find out what you really think.

To say I’m arguing with my friends carries a negative connotation, when really all we’re doing is having a civil, peaceable conversation where we dare to disagree with each other directly. Often, I will intentionally adopt arguments or positions that I am not fully sure I even agree with, and this back-and-forth process over dinner I can figure out my real stance.

Without that process, I would not — and could not — feel any real conviction in my social or political beliefs. It goes without saying that beliefs are a combination of social acculturation, upbringing, environment, instinct, identity and so on, but the actual confidence in those beliefs can only stem from backing them up in debate.

Whether someone likes or dislikes dinnertime debate, too, is a result of differences in household culture. In my house every conversation sounds like an argument, and I grew up with extensive freedom in disagreeing with my family and engaging in equal discussion about those disagreements. Naturally, whether for differences in community culture, family structure, parenting style or any other of the myriad differences that define different families, not everyone grew up acclimatized to argument at the dinner table in the same way.

And at home, feeling unable to disagree is logical. At the family dinner table, power dynamics are in full swing. There are topics about which it is difficult and uncomfortable to disagree with parents, opinions that might get you in trouble and topics that are simply forbidden.

However, as college students, everyone in the dining hall is a peer: someone you can engage with at an equal level and who has no authority over your life or your beliefs. And specifically as Yale students, we talk obsessively about dialogue; just open the opinion section of the Yale Daily News website and every third article — including this one — is a meditation on the ways to reach a better quality of speech at Yale.

A necessary step to having good dialogue is individuals with opinions. A necessary substep to having opinions is knowing what you think and having the confidence to say it. By simple community agreement, agreement to be open to disagreement and to people changing their beliefs and making the wrong argument, the dining hall can become a peaceful and open forum to (a) find out what you think, (b) get used to arguing what you believe and (c) learn how to be wrong and acknowledge it.

The takeaway is pretty simple. Think more, opine more, argue more, disagree more, repeat.

MANU BOSTEELS is a first year in Pauli Murray College. His column “A Yale Life” runs biweekly and explores takes on campus life, student experiences and ways to understand broader developments from the perspective of Yale undergraduates. He can be reached at manu.bosteels@yale.edu.