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PART FOUR

Current Issues: Occasions for Debate

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Debates As an Aid to Thinking

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Throughout this book we emphasize critical thinking, which — to put the matter briefly — means thinking analytically not only about the ideas of others but also about one’s own ideas. As we often say in these pages, you are your first reader, and you should be a demanding one. You have ideas, but you want to think further about them, to improve them — partly so that you can share them with others, but also so that they can help you build a thoughtful, useful, satisfying life.

This means, as we say elsewhere in the book, that you have (or at least try to have) an open mind, one that welcomes comments on your own ideas. You are, we hope, ready to grant that someone with differing views may indeed have something to teach you. When you hear other views, of course you won’t always embrace them; but at times you may find merit in some aspects of them, and you will to some degree reshape your own views. (We discuss the importance of trying to find shared ground and moving onward and upward from there in Chapter 10, A Psychologist’s View: Rogerian Argument.)

Much of the difficulty in improving our ideas lies in our tendency to think in an either/or pattern. To put the point in academic terms, we incline toward binary (Latin, “two by two”) or dichotomous (Greek, “divided into two”) thinking. We often think in terms of contrasts: life and death, good and evil, right and left, up and down, on and off, white and black, boys and girls, men and women (men are from Mars; women from Venus), yes and no, freedom and tyranny. We understand what something is partly by thinking of what it is not: “He is liberal; she is conservative.” In Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, one of the characters sees things this way:

I am an intellectual chap,

And think of things that would astonish you.

I often think it is comical

How nature always does contrive

That every boy and every gal,

That’s born into the world alive,

Is either a little Liberal,

Or else a little Conservative.

We have our liberals and conservatives too, our Democrats and Republicans, and we talk about fate and free will, day and night, and so on. But we also know that there are imperceptible gradations. We know that there are conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, and that although day differs from night, we cannot say at any given moment, “We have just now gone from day to night.” True, there are times when gradations are irrelevant: In the polling booth, when voting for a political candidate or a particular bill, we must decide between X and Y. At that stage it is either/or, not both/and or “Well, let’s think further about this.” But in much of life we are finding our way, acting provisionally — decisively at the moment, yes, but later we may modify our ideas in the light of further thinking, which often is stimulated by the spoken or written thoughts of someone who holds a different view. Elsewhere we quote Virginia Woolf on the topic of writing about complex issues, but the comment is worth repeating:

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When a subject is highly controversial . . . one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. One can only give one’s audience the chance of drawing their own conclusions as they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker.

What we’re getting at is this: The debates in the next five chapters present sharply opposed views, usually of an either/or, day/night sort. Each essay sets forth a point of view, often with the implication that on this particular issue there are only two points of view — the writer’s view and the wrong view. Some of the writers in these debates, convinced that only one view makes sense, evidently are not interested in hearing other opinions; they are out to convince—indeed, to conquer.

The very word debate (from Latin battere, “to fight,” “to battle”) implies a combative atmosphere, a contest in which there will be a winner and a loser. And, indeed, the language used to describe a debate is often militant. Debaters aim their arguments, destroy the arguments of their opponents by rebutting (from Old French, boter, “to butt”) and refuting (from Latin futare, “to beat”) them.

We urge you, however, to read these arguments not in order to decide who is right and who is wrong but in order to think about the issues. In short, although the debates may be reductive, stating only two sides and supporting only one, you should think critically about both sides of any given argument, and allow the essays to enrich your own ideas about the topics. Above all, use the cut and thrust of debate as a device to explore the controversy, not as a weapon to force the other side into submission.

See, too, what you can learn about writing from these essays — about ways of organizing thoughts, about ways of presenting evidence, and especially about ways of establishing a voice, a tone that the reader takes as a representation of the sort of person you are. Remember, as E. B. White said, “No author long remains incognito.” Authors reveal their personalities — belligerent, witty, thoughtful, courteous, whatever. If an author here turns you off, let’s say by using heavy sarcasm or by being unwilling to face contrary evidence, well, there is a lesson for you as a writer.

In reading essays debating a given issue, keep in mind the questions given below, “A Checklist for Analyzing an Argument.” We list them again below, with a few additional points of special relevance to debates.

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