The Need for Real Debate

Debating important issues is too often a counterproductive, frustrating pursuit. There are two fundamental reasons for this. The first being that one of the first things that happens in the minds of people who hold strong beliefs on a certain issue when they hear an opposite view proposed is to see those with the opposite view as enemies, and thus not worth listening to. If there is any doubt about this, just stop and think of one issue on which you have deep convictions—abortion, political parties/candidates, justification for war, etc. Now think of the one word used to label the opposition of your view: pro-life or pro-choice; Democrat or Republican; war-supporter or protester. Automatically walls go up, and the one who holds the opposite view is “one of those” people. If we are not careful, this process results in the demonizing of the other, usually without truly understanding what he or she actually believes. This type of thinking is easily maintained and constantly reinforced when we isolate ourselves among people of like views and fail to sincerely listen to “those” on the other side.

The second problem with debate—one too common in our politically correct, western culture—is that of the soft, artificial (and self-contradictory) attitude of agreement which many administrators try to impose on college campuses and work environments. With slavery, genocide, and large-scale war marring the last hundred and fifty years of western history, that history has often been characterized by gross abuses of human rights. The reality of these abuses are beyond question, and should never be repeated. But in what seems to be a means of absurd overcompensation, we often fall into what I like to call the warm, shallow pool of affirmation, in which the only real error is to claim that there is such a thing as error. This is a vague perspective in which all views are affirmed regardless of whether they contradict each other or not, and the ultimate expression of respect for another is to be nice and never question anything he or she holds dear.

Within such an environment, the really meaningful issues in life are rarely discussed, and when they are, they are discussed in a way that either undermines their value by affirming an idea while affirming with it something that is mutually exclusive, or they are discussed within the fortress of familiarity in which “those” on the other side are never truly heard.

As long as we recognize our equal worth as persons, we should be able to debate without it being so personal. If I am aware of the fact that I and the person with whom I disagree are of equal value simply because we are both human beings, I can safely disagree--even passionately--without abusing or demeaning. What is, in fact, demeaning is to observe some intellectual or moral error in one's self or another person and gloss over it in the name of niceness. The real issues in life--the moral and religious ones--are not going any where, even if we choose to tap them with the magic wand of political correctness. The differneces that really matter are too heavy to be drowned in that warm, shallow pool of affirmation.

MM