Debating the Question: When is a Debate an Argument?
As G.K. Chesterton observed, “People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.” In this age of political correctness and emotivism, engaging in honest debate is often frowned upon as something rude. We have lost the art of argument, stultifying public discourse.
At the time when separate playgrounds for boys and girls were abolished in New South Wales primary schools in pursuance of feminist notions of achieving “equality” of the sexes, my sister was a primary school teacher.
She observed that, as a consequence, the boys’ rough-and-tumble play, as it now impinged on and disrupted the girls’ more decorous play, became “bad” and was suppressed. Even so, the girls’ traditional, more formalised and imaginative games became more difficult to pursue because of boys’ unintentional incursions, and were less indulged in.
It seems that something similar may have happened in our parliaments and other workplaces as they have become integrated. Men’s greater vigour in adversarial verbal dispute over matters of opinion, and disagreement in argument, which they find stimulating and rewarding in itself, is being denounced by women participants as bullying and verbal abuse.
Reason vs Emotion
Women as a sex seem to be uneasy with argument (as disruptive of harmony?), even of acknowledging the word itself. We have probably all been admonished at some time to use the word “discussion”, instead.
I remember, as an adolescent on a family visit, my father engaged in a long, loud, and, it seemed to me, angry argument with his friend from university days, a some-time editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. When, afterwards, I remonstrated with him, “No, no,” he said, “we were enjoying a good argument.”
Yet he demurred at my sister’s and my manner of argument at the dinner table, saying: “You put so much emotion into it.” This alerted me to the method and value of dispassionate argument.
There is surely a place in many areas of life for good, hard, dispassionate argument as a means of truth-seeking, if not for the sheer pleasure of pitting mind against mind.
Real Debate
Should men desist from argument with women over matters of dispute in the workplace? Should they treat women, as frailer-natured, to be protected from the rigour of hearing disliked views; as innately gentler beings, as in the Victorian age? (Perhaps we all subliminally expect this.)
Is society to be denied the benefits of vigorous, but deferential debate, on issues of political and social importance? Is argument to be considered “bad”?
This is not to make a case for character assassination such as we witnessed in the lead-up to the federal election in May, which was anything but decent argument. But surely in public life, women who seek it should be prepared to accept, and if they like, deliver some degree of abrasiveness as a necessary element of public discourse, rather than just agreeing to differ.
My general attitude is that no one has to win an argument, but if you both change your position a little as a result, it will have been worthwhile.
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By Lucy Sullivan
Originally published in News Weekly.
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“At the time when separate playgrounds for boys and girls were abolished in New South Wales primary schools in pursuance of feminist notions of achieving “equality” of the sexes, my sister was a primary school teacher.”
I don’t know where this comes from. As my wife and I both attended State public schools through the 1960’s, and my wife has been a teacher at a State school for over 30 years, neither of us have ever experienced a separate playground situation. Not then, not now.
I believe that debating, must be learned – so who will teach it ? Arguing is usually learned at home and if the only other place of learning is school and the psychotic rule of “ agree with us or else “ ! It is easy to see how we arrived at this place ( in time. )
My prayer now is to do better today than I did yesterday with the help of God. To do everything I can to live in integrity and then to stand in the full armour of God.
Kaylene, I love your comment and prayer, I know you found my piece on the art of conversation. https://dailydeclaration.org.au/2023/01/09/are-we-in-danger-of-losing-the-art-of-conversation/
For me the family is where the art of debating should be taught and modeled. The more we see the learning that can come from engagement the better. The greater the chance that we can push back the anesthetic of our present age. Shalom, Jim