From innumerable living room debates, I see people not only do not know how to argue, but do not care to. Instead they leap to quarrel, so that interruptions, interjections, a raised rate and volume of speech, heightened emotion, the dismissive sneer, and the personal attack become ‘rebuttal.’
The olden days. We professed rhetoric, always including argument, the transparent combination of evidence and reasoning in the service of advocacy and a clash ideas. Words, though sometimes colorful, never rude; tone (including one’s face, body, and vocal variations), maybe robust, never strident. And always fallacies: straw man, red herring, circular reasoning, equivocation, shifting ground, avoiding the question, smokescreen, ad hominem – the gamut; an ex-ray machine exposing broken rhetorical bones. Students loved it.
Not the olden days. From innumerable living room debates, I see people not only do not know how to argue, but do not care to. Instead they leap to quarrel, so that interruptions, interjections, a raised rate and volume of speech, heightened emotion, the dismissive sneer, and the personal attack – accusatory, dismissive, or blatantly insulting – become ‘rebuttal’. I know, we should not expect the civility that reigned in Renaissance salons nor that level of wit (as cutting as it could be), but manners have badly devolved in the last two generations, along with good will and rhetorical skill.
And so social conversation is now a synecdoche – a representation-of-the-whole – of public discourse.
Examples? These are actual. To question the authority of Dr. Fauci is ‘conservative’, even extremist, they says. Just what’s wrong with Hunter Biden? a friend asks. Has he been convicted? Indicted? Trump has no achievements. (The vaccine comes from private industry.) Character counts, certainly, and just what was wrong with Edward Kennedy’s, I mean, other than Chappaquiddick? Tara Reid? Who’s Tara Reid? I never heard of her.
Andrew Cuomo kept me informed, she says, and gave me hope, and those women are crybabies. Fox News? I would never watch Fox news! That from a self-professed ‘open-minded’ person who believes everything printed in the New York Times and celebrates ‘inclusivity’ and ‘diversity’. She also believes – ex-social worker that she is – that “all people are basically good” – the exceptions being implicit.
A really smart, educated friend tells me The Wall Street Journal is for the rich. Why? Read the name! he answers, “Wall Street,” and he means it. Social Security cannot be touched because its legal title includes the word ‘insurance’; changing the title, or even that one word, is unthinkable. Will you hold your nose when you vote for Hillary? I ask. Why would I? She’s done nothing wrong.
The screening processes of selective exposure and perception are monumentally strong. Do we all inhabit only just these caves and never even visit those? Political bigotry has all the features, including toxicity, as any other.
Then there is the immigrant neighbor, educated and well off. The miseries of the desperate people who trudge across the Mexican desert, wade the Rio Grande, and often lose, not only their lives but those of infant loved ones, “have it coming.” (She also says Puerto Ricans are not part of our volunteer military because they are paid.)
I once had a conversation with a colleague dealing with a topical subject that I knew would cause her considerable cognitive dissonance. Her answer? “I can’t say, Jim. I’d have to know the liberal position before answering.” Straight face. Yes, yes, many on the right promote their actual religion to heights that determine all their decisions, but at least they know there is a difference between religion and politics.
Listening, learning, explaining, questioning, and pondering – remember Jeane Kirkpatrick on Meet the Press actually rubbing her chin for ten seconds before answering, slowly? – have been overtaken by either ‘gotcha’ or demonization: if you disagree you’re One of Them. That’s will. The erosion of skill is in the absence of the use of fundamental intellectual tools: defining a term, citing a source (other than “my opinion” or “I feel strongly”), or argument. Common courtesy, such as admitting that your interlocutor may have a point after all, is not on the map.
The demise of American public and social discourse has a long history, recently aggravated by Donald Trump. Sure, manners were devolving long before he came along, but he pointed to the precipice, jumped, and most of the talkers, public and otherwise, followed, as though to keep up on his terms (but really for fame, fun, and profit, too).
Who now tries to persuade? Instead we get a handbook of fallacies. Distinctions? Nuance? Ideas? “Make America great again” is no more an idea than “black lives matter”: bumper-sticker thinking. We have gone from talking about everything to not daring to argue about anything consequential.
I have no prescription.
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