Zeal For Truth

Before I take a look at the meat of this article, I want to use a situation common to most of us to try and lay out my argument.

When I get upset with other drivers on the road, regardless of how “legitimate” my case is, and I actually become angry (as opposed to simply annoyed) it is often because:

• I am not merely upset at the other driver, but am engaged in part of a universal quest to educate/set straight the mass of bad/discourteous drivers ruining the roads for others.
• I question the ability of the driver in question (this is especially true of the very old and the very young - and sometimes the female gender) and wonder how they have managed to get licensed, let alone insured.
• I am ticked off directly by what they have done.
• I lack empathy for people who have circumstances which require them to drive slowly (transporting breakables, they have medical issues, they are enjoying the scenery).
• I forget that there is actually a driver in the other car.

In many ways, this is a microchasm for human interaction when it comes to debate in general - especially intellectual discourse. Our base instinct, in discourse, if often to act like this with people with whom we are arguing. As the debate wears on, the chances of seeing the implosion of the discussion increase as instinctual techniques begin to take over and our very own words and ideas start to lose the argument before we begin.

I want to lay out a few common ways to sabotage your argument (this often happens early in the argument) by way of tactics I have seen on this site, other sites and mistakes that I myself have made over the years. Feel free to add your own thoughts on items I have missed or not explained well enough.

Not Understand What “Winning” and “Losing” Mean in Debate
In some ways, this is starting with the basics. What is the point of debate? If it is to convince others that I am right and they are wrong, then I’ve already “lost.”

The point of debate is not intellectual conquest, or the winning of hearts and minds to your cause. Debate should be a cooperative exercise that discovers, communicates or clarifies truth between individuals. When I am arguing about capitalism, or if I am witnessing to someone who is sceptical, it should not be my hope to decimate their current thinking and replace their conclusions with my own. Rather, I hope that I am contemplatively leading them to understanding that they were yet unaware of, while, at the same time being aware that I don’t know everything myself, and can learn from their counter-points.

Winning a debate doesn’t mean that each side comes away agreeing with the other side. But in a “won” debate, each person has new information to add to their own frame of reference, and hopefully has made a meaningful contribution to the collected  knowledge of another.

Make Your Argument an “Us Versus Them” Battle
At times, I do feel like I am on a crusade when it comes to debating about certain ideas about which I am passionate. Take Ron Paul supporters in 2008. I felt a lot of solidarity with these people and I found myself more agitated over certain issues than I normally am. I was so zealous about what I viewed as my “us” (big-tent libertarianism - from the libertarian GOP to newly converted democrats supporting Ron Paul) that it became easy to believe that those who were arguing against me were part of a “them” (Neo-Cons, Compassionate Conservatives, Theocrats, etc…). But the moment that collective motives and group activism are attached to our debating - are we really sharing the intellectual road to discovery with someone, or are we stereotyping, classifying, dismissing and attempting to “war” with them as if defeating an “enemy” rather than working with an ally, albeit one very different than ourselves.

A tale-tell sign of this is ad hominems and other demonisation tactics. The second I begin painting my opponent with broad brush strokes is the moment where I’ve stopped seeking truth, and started zealously proselytising and regurgitating some kind fo party line.

Ascribe an Entire Ideology to Your Opponent  Because of One Point, Line of Reasoning or Word
This could be viewed as a sub-point of the”us versus them” problem because it uses the same categorisation, stereotyping and dismissal - but it is different. Allow me to explain.

We all have certain words, phrases and concepts that conjure up past experiences (perhaps even traumatic ones) or simply evoke knee-jerk reactions based on philosophical or intellectual dislikes. Some of these for me are:

• friendship evangelism
• tithing
• gossip
• freedom isn’t free
• free X (where X is healthcare, school or some other social good)
• global warming
• credit crunch

There are lots of different reasons that these words are more likely to reveal argumentativeness in me. But the point is that when someone uses these phrases (and others) I get a quasi-instinctual urge to correct them in ways that vary - from merely making a face, to opening a canned lecture and going on for half an hour.

But worse than that - it is part of that process of making uninformed conclusions and ascribing entire ideologies to your opponent because they’ve used language that triggers something in you. In other words, they may have meant something completely different (and the unique perspective of each individual almost guarantees that this is the case) but in one fell swoop, all of your own prejudices have been heaped onto their argument.

Aside from my own blunders in this area, I see this a lot with traditional hot-button issues for people such as abortion, feminism, supporting the troops and drugs. I think there are a lot of people in the academy, for example, who can accept my classical-liberal economic views. But if I spoke very loudly about my views on abortion or feminism, I might be practically blacklisted. By the same token, there are a lot of left-leaning bible-believing Christians who have trouble finding places in conservative churches because they might be anti-war or for universal healthcare.

Belittle/Disparage the Credentials/Lack Thereof of Your Opponent
I hope to do a whole piece on this soon, but one place where I see this being commonly practised is in the pulpit and some churches. Because of the heresy coming out of the academy (this has been a problem for thousands of years, by the way - it is hardly a “post-modern” phenomenon), it has become fashionable to broadly criticise education, theologians and academics.

A PhD doesn’t automatically make someone arrogant, proud, idolatrous, humanistic or a heretic (among other words I’ve seen). It simply means that someone has spent a lot of time specialising in a certain area of a specific field. If an academic (perhaps even one who went to a bible college) who researched Israel in 750-735BC wants to then go and talk about why Jesus didn’t exist and all religions lead to God - it says nothing, absolutely nothing about formal education, other academics or academics and Christianity. By the same token, I have seen some well-educated clergy and church leaders dismiss men who, with little formal bible education, were able to do great works from God, start large churches and write edifying books.

But the broader point is this - the other side in an argument has education and experience that is different that yours - and this is going to lead them to different conclusions. Rather than judgementally classifying and then dismissing their experience and education, try to come to grips with thier findings and consider that they might have an angle on things that you have missed. Where their experience and education are misinforming them - correct it.

In the second half of this series [go to part 2], I hope to look at more ways to sabotage an argument, including issues of motives, practising versus preaching, self-righteousness and the fact that were are debating with people (which may seen self-evident, but you’ll see what I mean).