argue please

"...we need space for peaceful yet passionate outrage."

Deborah Tannen has a beautiful discussion of civic debative involvement up at the CSM (thanks, Lily, for sending the link). Tannen writes much more coherently than I ever could on what would be, in our more ambitious moments, our collaborative effort here at Owens Rhetoric--the search for a not-stupid public discussion. That thoughtful debate over public policy has whithered into prepubescent evoking talking points vacant of logic has now, I think, reached a decent universality of agreement amongst reasonable people. What we do about that, though, has been touched on less than a hot potato in competetive circles.

Tannen, who wrote of the problems of certain argument in her book, "The Argument Culture," observes the American rhetorical crisis and calls for more argument. In detailing the method of how we should debate, she is exactly right.

Her key point is to distinguish what she calls "agonism;" that is, "ritualized opposition, a knee-jerk, automatic use of warlike formats."

Agonism grows out of our conviction that opposition is the best, if not the only, path to truth. In this view, the best way to explore an idea is a debate that requires opponents to marshal facts and arguments for one side, and ignore, ridicule, or otherwise undermine facts and arguments that support the other side.

Here is a healthy taste:

With all the shouting, we have less, rather than more, genuine opposition - the kind that is the bedrock on which democracy rests.

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Many journalists prize two types of agonism: One is the valuing of attack over other modes of inquiry, such as analyzing, integrating, or simply informing. The other is a seemingly laudable search for "balance," which results in reporting accusations without examining their validity.

Expressing passionate opposition to - even hatred for - the policies of elected officials is a legitimate, necessary form of engagement in public life.

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Attacks on an opponent's character distract attention from the issues that will be decided in the election. Attacks on an opponent's proposed and past policies are appropriate; we need more of such attention to policy.

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This downplaying of genuine opposition is mirrored in our private conversations. In many European countries, heated political discussions are commonplace and enjoyed; most Americans regard such conversations as unseemly arguments, so they avoid talking politics - especially with anyone whose views differ, or are unknown, lest they inadvertently spark a conflict or offend someone who disagrees.

As a result, we aren't forced to articulate - and therefore examine - the logic of our views, nor are we exposed to the views of those with whom we disagree. And if young people don't hear adults having intense, animated political discussions, the impression that politics has no relevance to their lives is reinforced.

In sum, we are overfocused on 'knowing' the attack-like back and forths of a public policy discussion. The sources of the problem and the focus of remedy are multifaceted. The media, of course, is rightly to blame because its irresponsible focus on stupidity and its refusal to fact check. But we really can't do anything about that save look in the mirror. To the extent we demand more thoughtfulness, we have to be ourselves more thoughtful. There is exactly one way to do this: divorce ourselves from preaching to and listening to our own choirs. Do that, and the worst of our news sources die (sorry about that, Rupert and Randi).

One more paragraph from Tannen:

A single-minded devotion to "balance" also creates the illusion of equivalence where there is none. For example, as shown repeatedly by journalist Ross Gelbspan as well as in a recent article by Maxwell and Jules Boykoff in the academic journal Global Environmental Change, news coverage of global warming actually ends up being biased because news reports of scientists' mounting concern typically also feature prominently one of the few "greenhouse skeptics" who declare the concern bogus. This "balanced" two-sides approach gives the impression that scientists are evenly divided, whereas in fact the vast majority agree that the dangers of global climate change are potentially grave.