By John Chandler
One of my favorite childhood Monty Python skits was the “Argument Clinic.” A man goes in to purchase a proper vigorous debate, and is merely told by the attendant the opposite of whatever he says. “That’s not an argument,” the man says, “that’s just contradiction.” The reply: “No it’s not.” The customer never does get his hoped-for argument.
Alas, Monty Python foretold our present reality: no one knows how to argue anymore. Whereas Oxford debates are hours-long affairs, and ancient Socratic diatribes lasted for weeks, we don’t have time for all of that anymore. Our trend is to drop the microphone with conversation-ending trumps that indisputably prove that you don’t deserve the dignity of my response.
Hanna Rosin of The Atlantic notes that proper debate takes “intellectual vigor, nimbleness and sustained attention” which can “push both parties to a deeper level of understanding.” But in a 140-character society, no one has time for that. Instead, she rightly asserts, our cultural trend is one of debate-avoidance. Simply rule out of bounds any perspectives with which you don’t agree by leveling charges at the character of the other person. Tell them that they are something that ends with “-ist” or “-phobic” and they will immediately be ruled out of order, and you will reign as the moral victor — whether you’ve had an actual cogent argument or not.
In many circles (often academic ones in particular), a certain kind of reflexive and full-on outrage actually makes you popular — even “prophetic.” It leads to filibusters, which are actually the exact opposite of a proper argument. A filibuster simply puts its fingers in the ears and shouts for so long that the other side simply leaves in frustration. And one of the problems with replacing real arguments with sloganeering shouting matches is that, in a certain weird, sad way, the tweetable microphone-drop or prolonged filibuster work. What can you say to move someone who is never willing truly to engage?
The real loss in this is, of course, you never actually hear out your opponent and thus you forfeit the opportunity to grow, or to help them grow. The real losses are of public civility and human empathy, and a creeping feebleness of thought.
What I long for, in the face of this trend, is a good argument: respectful, prolonged, nuanced, mutual, seeking to understand before being understood. A pastor at my church recently prayed for it so well: “God, lead us to a place beyond conservatives whose orthodoxy contains no generosity, and beyond liberals who refuse to be truly liberal.” Amen, and if anyone wants to go past outrage and troll-dom, I’ll be happy to have a real argument about something that matters.