Thursday, September 24, 2015

Argument Culture

There are around three ways I generally see arguments progress in the culture around me, and none of them seem to really produce anything useful. The first kind are the kind of arguments had when two people who already agree with each other get to talking about a subject, and in order to affirm their own opinions feel the need to argue against a theoretical person who disagrees with them. For instance, as a young college aged person I encounter a lot of people with the same political views. As a result of this anytime an election or political policy is brought up it tends to give rise to an echo chamber of ideas in which people argue against no one and hear their own ideas back. This results in people feeling like they’re arguing their ideas and having them critically reviewed, when in fact the person they are talking to is unlikely to be very critical because both people already agree. In this situation people never really learn anything because they aren’t being presented with well thought out arguments against them. This isn’t to say that people in the culture around me don’t have any legitimate arguments at all, however many of these arguments are also of the second type which end just as they get going.  The culture of a college campus is very oriented towards being inoffensive and this leads to many people being more willing to back down and diffuse an arguments before become too confrontational. So when controversial social issues related to race, gender, religion, economics, etc. the conversation often peters out as soon as people start to cement themselves in opposing opinions so as to not cause trouble or discomfort.  The final way that I see arguments progress around me is the more traditional, but still ultimately futile way. These are the more intense arguments in which people staunchly disagree and argue with only the goal of proving themselves superior in mind. When I see two students arguing between the traditionally republican and the traditionally democratic stances on an issue this is the way things usually go. Both sides begin the argument already so incensed that they would never admit to losing the coming debate, and will dogmatically deny any arguments presented to them that risk undermining their current opinion for the sake of self-esteem. People are usually in these types of arguments to have themselves proven right, instead of arguing to have their ideas critically evaluated and to do the same for others. There are surely some productive arguments that take place around me, but they are sufficiently scarce to leave the impression that arguments in the culture I see don’t tend to produce anything useful.

1 comment:

  1. So you're saying that if people's arguments are well thought out, then they'd be arguments? Can you elaborate why you believe arguments are unhelpful?

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