In 2018, we desperately need to change the way we disagree
2016 was a year full of bitter controversy as a contentious election between two clowns incendiary candidates brought a lot of very sensitive issues to the forefront, and 2017 only intensified it. More often than not, right now I tend to stay away from commenting on political posts, but I’ve seen people get in vicious arguments over political opinions that literally ruin friendships.
It’s pretty insane just how polarized we’ve become. According to this poll, nearly half of liberal Democrats find it difficult to even be friends with people who supported Donald Trump — even if they’re pretty cool people. A somewhat smaller but still significant number of conservative Republicans feel the same about Clinton supporters.
It’s not any harder to have civil disagreement in 2018 than it was in 2008 or 1948. But it seems that many of us these days just don’t know how to disagree. We don’t know how to present a civil, reasonable argument, and hear someone else’s. It seems like most of us prefer to be like the plaintiff in Proverbs 18:17: “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” Basically, when you present a point of view, yours might seem right before the other point of view gets a chance to be heard, but that’s it — it only seems right. Unless you hear the other side and have a productive discussion, you can only make your view seem right, but you cannot demonstrate it to be right. That’s why you need dialogue and discussion.
We can do one of two things with disagreement: We can use it productively to learn about each other and come to a better understanding of the best solutions to our problems, or we can tear each other apart and hate each other and think the worst of each other. Most of our dialogue about anything controversial lately seems to take the second form.
Debate can be great. It’s how new ideas get introduced to discussion, and how old ideas get clarified and applied anew. Sometimes those ideas are bad and need to be refuted, but sometimes they’re good and will help us better ourselves.
So I wanted to talk about what I think are the 5 biggest problems with how we argue, and what we need to change about them:
1. We use strawmen instead of actually trying to understand each other.
A strawman, for those not familiar with the term, is when you construct a caricature of the other person’s point of view — usually extremely oversimplified and exaggerated — and then proceed to refute that caricature, rather than the other person’s actual, more reasonable opinion. Strawmen are everywhere in our discourse. But when you use a strawman, the only thing you demonstrate is that you have no idea what the other person actually believes. When conservatives accuse progressives of wanting to have unrestricted borders, abolish the second amendment, and wage a war on Christmas, progressives stop listening, because very few of them actually think that. Likewise, when progressives accuse conservatives of wanting to deport all illegal immigrants, take away women’s healthcare, and not caring about the poor or the planet, conservatives stop listening because very few of them actually think that. When I hear someone present a strawman version of a position I actually hold, I find it very hard to care about anything else that person has to say because I know they have no idea what I really think. If we don’t even understand what someone thinks, we have no authority to refute it.
Action: Using strawmen instead of real arguments.
Effect: We look like we don’t understand what the other person thinks (which may be because we don’t).
Solution: Understand what people actually believe before arguing with them.
2. Attacking character instead of positions.
The name-calling in discussion these days is unbelievable. On the surface, progressives do this way more often than conservatives. Words that end in -phobic and -ist are among the most trendy words today, and often to the point where they’ve practically lost their intended meanings. People are not phobic (i.e. afraid/repulsed) of a group if they disagree with their beliefs or lifestyle. (Either that, or everyone’s phobic of everyone they disagree with.) On the flip side, conservatives may not have quite the variety of derogatory labels, but often when conservatives state their opinions, they tend to criticize what people consider their personal identity, the core of who they are — because a lot of progressive positions stem from experiences which the group they belong to has had (for example, when conservatives say that the claim that police tend to mistreat minorities is stupid). That can have a similar effect as name-calling.
Instead of evaluating arguments, we attack people. This has never helped anyone. If you really believe your position is the right one, and is worth arguing about, you would probably want to win other people to your side. Nobody has ever been convinced by name-calling. Even if the person is a racist or sexist or bigot, calling them one isn’t going to convince them they’re wrong. The only reason people use those labels is because they want to feel superior. They are a plague on productive disagreement. If I never hear the word Islamophobe or libtard again, it’ll be too soon.
Action: Name-calling, derogatorily labeling, or otherwise attacking a person’s character or identity.
Effect: You show you don’t care about making a point, but demonstrating moral and intellectual superiority.
Solution: Start out by assuming the person you disagree with is just as intelligent and rational as you. Show some respect, even if you don’t think they deserve it. Engage their positions without resorting to insults and accusations of stupidity, bigotry, ignorance, or hatred.
3. Thinking you can discern the other side’s secret and nefarious motives.
This is an offshoot of the strawman, but so egregiously counterproductive that it needed its own entry. It seems we’ve turned into a society of mind-readers lately. Some progressives seem to be able to discern that conservatives actually advocate trickle-down economics is because they hate poor people and want to line the pockets of the rich, and they advocate against abortion because they want to control and subjugate women’s bodies. Some conservatives seem to be able to discern that progressives dislike tax cuts because they are secretly communists, and they advocate for gun laws because they want the people to be at the mercy of a tyrannical government. Hardly anyone thinks this, certainly not the average conservative or progressive. It seems to be popular in our culture to be offended nowadays — one should be offended at this kind of character attack. Again, no one who actually wants to make a point is going to make their point this way. You can’t attribute motives to people that they don’t have and expect to be taken seriously.
Action: Attributing villainous motives to people who support policies you don’t like.
Effect: You show that you both don’t understand the other person’s position and you want to demonstrate moral and intellectual superiority.
Action: Assume that other people want what’s best for the country and for humanity, too.
4. Declaring the apocalypse instead of finding solutions.
It’s true that some of these debates concern issues that affect the long-term security of the world. But it seems like just about everything is the apocalypse lately. Since we have a Republican President, the loudest of the apocalyptic prophecies are being made by Democrats who disagree with his policies, but both sides have been doing it for a while — if a Democrat were in power it would certainly be the opposite. There’s just a lot of complaining and posturing from the politicians without much productive discussion, and the reason they do it is because they know it’s what will stir up vehement support from their own side. And many of us follow their example. Statements of panic and doom are not productive arguments, and as with the other issues, people stop listening when they hear such exaggeration. When you use realistic and measured criticism of a policy, pointing out very real problems with it, then its advocates won’t be able to laugh it off but will be compelled to answer those criticisms or lose the support of reasonable people. And if they have reasonable answers, then maybe the best action is to just adapt to the new policy and hope it works contrary to your expectations.
Action: Acting like a policy you disagree with is going to somehow bring about apocalyptic disaster.
Effect: You rile up the emotions of those who agree with you, but those who disagree or are neutral don’t listen.
Solution: Talk realistically about the negative effects of a policy, how you’re going to fight the policy, and/or what solutions you’re going to seek under the new terms.
5. Engaging in wholesale tribalism.
Undergirding all these problems is a prevailing and growing spirit of tribalism. We are very sharply divided into tribes of kinship based on ideology. And we will do just about anything to support our tribe. This has never been clearer than with the recent political scandals that have embroiled Congress, when so many Republicans, including evangelical Christians, leaped to support Donald Trump and Roy Moore (a few with some of the most creatively asinine arguments I’ve ever heard). At the same time, Democrats were quick to condemn those two while (both now and historically) being reluctant to do the same to some of their own.
This has led to a climate where American Christians are associated with patriotism and capitalism and gun rights as much as, if not more than, with love and charity, because the former three happen to be among the prominent values of the Republican Party that most evangelicals support. It’s also led to a climate where, for example, pro-lifers are automatically considered anti-feminist, because they support a position that tends to be associated with the “opposing” traditionalist “tribe.”
Tribalism is killing us. Ultimately, it doesn’t lead to productive discussion of ideas, just personal animosity toward those not of the same tribe as us. And we need to remember that the only tribe we are in is the tribe of Jesus, and that holds true no matter what earthly tribe — ideological or physical — you belong to. We are obligated to uphold the values of Jesus and to associate with fellow Christians despite disagreements. But when we do have disagreements — and if we are seeking truth, we should have disagreements — we need to disagree the right way, not so we can tear each other down, but so we can find the truth.
Action: Dividing into tribes and backing up your ideological tribe on everything, good and bad.
Effect: It pits both tribes against each other, and moves away from the focus on ideas into focus on personal animosity.
Solution: If you find yourself agreeing with a position just because your side does, do some research.
Hopefully we can learn how to disagree better this year. Disagreement is an opportunity to make great progress; hopefully we won’t turn it into the opposite.
