We are living in a terrible time for Argument. Many argue, so there is that, it’s a popular and well attended activity. Some like to argue, some hate it, almost all do it. The problem is simple, the purpose and the skill for Argument is almost non existent and almost no one knows how to effectively argue.
Argument has turned into weaponized speech and cancel culture instead of human caring and persuasion in the service of human betterment. Why is it that we can remember arguments better than we can other kinds of engagement. We may not even remember what we were arguing about, just that we had a big fight or disagreement.
Being naive as I must be, I wonder if we will ever be able to achieve a mindset of argument that does not feel like one side or the other or both for that matter is wounded, or destroyed in some way. Every day, my Social Media is pasted with Gottcha videos. Someone got the better of someone else and they celebrate it with a title that says it all. I don’t watch those videos because you already know that someone said something smarter or more clever or more damaging and took the other one down a notch. Both parties were injured in the making of the video, they just don’t realize how much.
I watched Vivek Ramaswamy at a very small gathering of folks in some town do his best to listen to someone and have a discussion/argument with someone in the audience. He did all right. I don’t think he convinced the person that he was right and she was wrong, but he didn’t seem to devolve into disrespectful speech or confrontation. Maybe in easily agitated times like this, that’s all we can ask for. If we are always trying to win the argument instead of discover the truth(whatever that may be) we will fail to collaborate and specialize in destroying ourselves and others.
Will we come to the place where we can say, no humans were hurt or misrepresented in this video or book or podcast or article. I’m fairly certain that would be a big ask, perhaps impossible.
But you can’t fault me for trying.