We can learn much more from people whose views we share than from people whose views contradict our own.

The process of learning and maximizing our culture is extemely complex and so variegated that no general rule or no unique method for it have been ever designed. Throughout documents of our history, we can read about theoretical discussions recorderd by writers of every epoch (see the Roman Empire or the ancient Greece) on whether it is more pivotal to compare our own ideas with someone who shares them with us or, on the contrary, with someone who can contradict us. In the end, it seems generally more correct to deem that dialogue, by means of interactions between opposite views on a same topic, is the more productive way to enhance our cultur. We have several instances that can prove this position. Nevertheless, it is not wise to totally refute the proposed sentence: it is in fact also true that people who share our views can play a little but still important role in the activity of learning.

Ancient Greece is where a substantial part of our European culture was born. If we go back in time to the third century b.C., in Athens, we meet a prolific group of deep thinkers called "Sophistoi", literally "Savvy men". It is consistent to refer to them because of their precious and unique way of phylosophing: they founded the entirety of their thought upon the consideration that, through dialogue, using their language as a tool, they could effectively explore the nature of reality. As a matter of fact, they produced a plethora of books and observations that expressed fundamental new ideas and observations on our world. However, the secret of their productivity was only one: no matter where the dialogue is going, people must seek for the shrewdest way to prove the superiority of their ideas over the others'. This way, if the stated ideas were to be considered interesting and compelling, they would have resulted lucid and cogent after a discussion with anyone.

Back to our time, it is useful now to shift to Sicily. In the core of the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily has world-wide known pieces of arts that resemble the main features of a noticeable number of different cultures. The secret behind the artistic and cultural richness of Sicily is, in fact, its position: thank to the never-ending flux of ships back and forth to every port of the Mediterranean Sea, an amalgam of cultures and knowledges have come across Sicily. Thus, many writers, philosophers and artists of our past have compared their ideas, empowered their views on things, and engender a higher level tradition of culture. It is incontrovertible, hence, that from dialogue with people of different views we learn more than we would by comparisons with only people who only share with us similar ideas.

Someone could argue that this is not enough to prove that we learn "much more" from contradiction than from identically thinkers. It is only partially true. In fact, it does not sound coherent to say that we learn "much" more. By dialogue with people whose positions on certain topics we already know, we can, as a matter of fact, learn how to qualify the bases of our ideas and of our knowledge. It is the case of writers of the same writing school, like Realists of the 18th century, or it is the case of scientists of the same laboratories. This notwithstanding, no true novelty can be brought into someone's mind without the aid of others' cultures and wittiness. Isolated and far away populations are proof of this: poeple of the far north, in Russia, who have never encountered different cultures, are still exploring the most elementary of the philosophical ideals, while in Europe, place of intense cultural exchanges, we have a long-lasting tradition in deep thinking and variegated culture.

To conclude, our ancestors and thinkers, altogether with crucial examples of modern cultures, have bolstered the idea that discuss among people who have different opinions on the same topic is the best way to achieve a higher level of culture. Thus, it seems legit to almost entirely disagree with the author of the topic. Nonetheless, dialogue with similarly-thinking individuals can help us strengthen the roots of our reasoning.