You and political rhetoric

[paulbaxter]

Been thinking about this for the last couple of days, and decided I'd post it here as well as on facebook. Not meant to reflect on anyone in particular.

Various and sundry recent issues have prompted me to reflect on the way that we (and that "we" is meant to include me and any one of you reading this) discuss politically divisive issues, or any other type of issue in which there is the possibility of serious disagreement.

Discussions of these issues tend to fall into two rather different types. Type one, which I will call "preaching to the choir" is when we assume that those reading or hearing our words are of much the same opinion as we are. This seems innocuous in itself. After all, aren't our friends people a lot like us? Of course in many cases this is true. Whetever the issue is, it's likely that a lot of your friends hold to the same opinion you do. This type of discussion can be useful fo trying to rally people to action: "our candidate for office may very well be defeated unless we all turn out on election day", etc.

There are a couple of problems, though, with this sort of rhetoric. One is that it has a tendency towards being sloppy about particulars. If we are all agreed about our issue, then surely small details of the discussion can be overlooked or forgiven, right? The second problem, which I consider of more importance, is that it inherently marginalizes or alienates those who are of a different point of view.I should point out that this is nearly always an unintended result, but it is one I have observed with some frequency.

The other sort of rhetoric is one I will call "preaching to your enemies". This sort of rhetoic is extremely rare, and for good reason. First, it involves speaking specifically towards those who who to an opinion you don't care for. For example, in his now forgotten book, Race and the Renewal of the Church, Will Campbell argued that if the church wants to deal rightly with the issue of racism, then we need to be having conversations with racists. Second, it requires much more care in presentation and research. When debating with people on the opposite side of an emotional issue, they will be sure to point out any errors of fact or logic.

The advantages, though, to this sort of rhetoric are manifold. First, it will cause you to understand the issue you are talking about much more deeply. If it is an issue of importance, then this can only be a good thing. Second, you stand the possibility of winning over someone who had been opposed to you. Third, even if you cannot win over your opponents, you will gain much more respect in their eyes by engaging in a more reasoned and listening way. And finally, you also open up he possibility of finding out that you may have been wrong yourself all along. I know that has happened to me in many cases

[Isgrimnur]

This NPR story might be pertinent to your interests.

[Pyperkub]

Increasingly political rhetoric and actions are treating politics as a zero-sum game. I win, you lose.

It doesn't need to be.

[LordMortis]

I don't know if it actually has increased or if it just feels like it has increase. I do "know" the telecommunications has given people platforms and balls that they've never had before. For me, seeing pricks righteously hiding behind their keyboards started with MNet and then Battle.net and it just keeps getting worse and worse. As people seem less respectful more people become less respectful. I just don't know if the zero sum game has gotten any worse or if people are just more up front about it being the same zero sum game it's been for possibly my lifetime, possibly longer.

[paulbaxter]

This NPR story might be pertinent to your interests.

Good example. Thanks!

[YellowKing]

What we really need is an alien invasion so that we would be forced to band together to save humanity.

[Kraken]

I'd add a third argument type: Faith/belief vs. evidence/logic. Whether in religion or in politics, it inevitably leads to the two sides talking past one another with little hope for agreement, never mind conversion. Ideologues don't "preach to the choir" or "preach to the enemy," they just preach, by which I mean they regurgitate orthodox talking points as if they are given truths that needn't be supported.

As political issues become more polarized, they produce more ideologues on both sides. I try to avoid engaging with true believers in anything, because it's frustrating when evidence and logic are useless. The process of rebutting can be useful in honing one's own arguments, as in your "preaching to the enemy" case, but it's ultimately pointless if even the most ironclad argument won't change your opponent's mind.

[paulbaxter]

I'd add a third argument type: Faith/belief vs. evidence/logic. Whether in religion or in politics, it inevitably leads to the two sides talking past one another with little hope for agreement, never mind conversion. Ideologues don't "preach to the choir" or "preach to the enemy," they just preach, by which I mean they regurgitate orthodox talking points as if they are given truths that needn't be supported.

As political issues become more polarized, they produce more ideologues on both sides. I try to avoid engaging with true believers in anything, because it's frustrating when evidence and logic are useless. The process of rebutting can be useful in honing one's own arguments, as in your "preaching to the enemy" case, but it's ultimately pointless if even the most ironclad argument won't change your opponent's mind.

I'm not at all convinced that belief vs. evidence is an actual dichotomy. In my experience, more often what is in play is 'whose evidence' or 'what sort of evidence', or personal history or any of a number of other things. But I think what you are getting at is more along the lines of "how to listen to rhetoric", which is another topic for another day (at least for me).

[Holman]

I would like to be someone who is able to speak reasonably with the opposition, but I'm not particularly good at it. I used to indulge in much more aggressive political rhetoric at OO (of both the "preaching to the choir" and "wading in against the other side" types), but I believe I've toned it down. I wasn't particularly good at that either.

For an example of the OP phenomena, I just look at my Facebook: leaving aside a few incidental acquaintances and work-related connections, my FB population is divided just about evenly between family and old friends (most very conservative, some of them militantly so, some of them Social Conservative activists) and my later cohorts from grad school and from private-school teaching (most very liberal, some of them militantly so, some of them Progressive or LGBT activists). These people don't talk to each other, but I see their rhetoric passing in the night on my FB page in ways that reflect how difficult it *would* be for them to talk to each other if they maintained the tones they keep up when talking to their own side.

I do think dialogue is our only way forward as a civil society, but I think it's going to be very difficult. I'm not even sure how a reasonable dialogue between (say) a secular punditry and a religious punditry could even find a home in contemporary political discourse, since the political/media/poll-number profits are always at the extremes, not in the middle. Without such a dialogue, we probably won't have a Civil War, but we'll splinter into oppositional factions that each try to game the system against the others. It won't be the best America. (American context here, obviously.)

[LordMortis]

For an example of the OP phenomena, I just look at my Facebook: leaving aside a few incidental acquaintances and work-related connections, my FB population is divided just about evenly between family and old friends (most very conservative, some of them militantly so, some of them Social Conservative activists) and my later cohorts from grad school and from private-school teaching (most very liberal, some of them militantly so, some of them Progressive or LGBT activists). These people don't talk to each other, but I see their rhetoric passing in the night on my FB page in ways that reflect how difficult it *would* be for them to talk to each other if they maintained the tones they keep up when talking to their own side.

Way true. I hate that I like to use Facebook for social planning and even for hearing the rambling bored thoughts of people I don't take the time to talk to otherwise. But 100s of bumper sticker picture forwards every day or political/religious/secular dogma only makes me thank pancake that I never was on any of their email lists. And then I'm so spineless I don't ignore or unfreind them on the off chance that one day they'll do something other than act as some sort of failed inflammatory propaganda machines.

One day I will learn how to corral the them into one group whose posts I never read.