He attacked every weak point in my argument.
His criticisms were right on target.
I demolished his argument.
I've never won an argument with him.
You disagree? Okay, shoot!
If you use that strategy, he will wipe you out.
He shot down all my arguments.1
"The identification of argument with war is so complete that if you try to suggest some alternative way of thinking about what argument is - It's an attempt to achieve mutual understanding; It's a means of clarifying our views - you're almost certainly going to be denounced as a wishy-washy, namby-pamby sissy-britches."2
"So yes: argument can indeed be war, or at least a contest in which it is possible to lose. But there's another side to this story: what is lost not in an argument but through passive complicity with that militaristic metaphor. Because there are many situations in which we lose something of our humanity by militarizing discussion and debate; and we lose something of our humanity by dehumanizing our interlocutors. When people cease to be people because they are, to us, merely representatives or mouthpieces of positions we want to eradicate, then we, in our zeal to win, have sacrificed empathy; we have declined the opportunity to understand other people's desires, principles, fears. And that is a great price to pay for supposed "victory" in debate."3
Assumptions don't take much time and effort. Thus it is easier to make blanket statements about our opponents and stereotype them. But are people no more than the categories we reduce them to? Is there a certain level of respect that we owe even those we disagree with because they are made in God's image like us? Conscious or unconscious, this dehumanization merits some pushback in my opinion. Offered with respect of course, but pushback all the same.
1. Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, The University of Chicago Press, 1980, pg. 4. Jacobs cites a newer edition of this book.
2. How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds, Alan Jacobs, Currency Books, 2017, pg. 97.
3. Ibid. pg. 98.
Yikes. Guilty. Sometimes.
ReplyDeleteSame here. Thus the need for community that isn't afraid to give and receive pushback.
Delete