Conversational Lessons for American Idiots

Dear America: stop.

Please stop yelling at each other, insulting and belittling your fellow citizens, all under the misguided notion that you’ll somehow win your opponent over by shouting them down. After two years abroad, it was disheartening to come home to such polarized nonsense. In response to what I saw/heard in numerous conversations and on each and every news channel (not just FOX before you pin the pinheads), I’ve prepared a little reflection on how to maintain civil discourse with someone you disagree with.

This is loosely based off of a “conversation” I found myself the victim of this weekend. I’d hoped to leave this kind of exchange behind when I left the country again, but it followed me to France.

This is how a conversation should start, especially when one party is still in the midst of forming their opinion.

Conversations start when someone listens, and the best way to listen, America, is to ask questions. Another good example would be “What issues are the most important to you?” You can’t properly inform someone of your views if you have no idea what theirs are, or what roadblocks stand in the way to them understanding what it is you believe.

This is how it actually happened this weekend.

For starters, yelling at someone who’s expressing a genuine desire to make an informed decision is not a good way to make friends. In fact yelling at people in general is not a good start on the friendship train, nor does it make for any form of coherent articulation that will be listened to. Realize that this is literally the first conversation I’ve ever had with this person.

The entire conversation was also loaded with logical fallacies. This one was a loaded question that doesn’t advance the debate so much as make the “opponent” look guilty of being a misogynist should he answer that yes, in fact, he wants the candidate who plans on rejecting women’s right to birth control. Granted it misses the point entirely as our victim is uncertain as to who he’s voting for in the first place, but let’s just go for the jugular. It’s also gearing up to create a straw man in case things progress. They don’t.

This is simply a dismissive insult, but you could classify it as ad-hominem. Why? Because it’s attacking the character (in this case intelligence/ignorance) of the “opponent.” What’s interesting here is that our victim (in this case, yours truly) is clearly offering up an opportunity for discussion from a position of honest uncertainty. When your “opponent” says something like this, the proper response is to either ask more questions, or to offer to enlighten them (VERY POLITELY) rather than insinuate that they’re clearly an idiot for not knowing (or assuming they must disagree with you for no apparent reason).

But this brings me to one of the more annoying and devastating fallacies that I heard used over and over while I was home.

Appeal to emotion.

The number one emotion to manipulate, of course, is fear. Fear is incredibly powerful, and when you don’t want to substantiate an argument (or you simply can’t) it’s a pretty handy tactic when no one is paying attention. Just get them scared, and they’ll have to agree with you.

I will say this, if one of these guys did eat a baby it would make the selection process go much more quickly for a lot of us. The thing is that if you want to convince people of your own points, you have to do two things: understand their viewpoint, and communicate kindly and effectively why you believe what you believe. This isn’t about convincing or converting the other person (I got a long lecture on religion recently too). This is about educating someone honestly, and being open to learn as well. You’d be surprised just how few of us actually have all of the answers (the answer is none of us do, in case you’re wondering).

If you find yourself yelling a lot, or no one ever wants to talk with you again after a conversation, there are lots of books on how to properly converse.

To be honest I swing back and forth quite a bit on who I want to vote for, and I remain uncertain. I don’t even want to talk about it now. Why? Because I don’t like getting yelled at.

I would be tempted to write in Jon Stewart or either one of the Mario Brothers on my ballot, but if I do there’s a good chance I’ll lose friends on both sides of the “debate.” And that’s what’s so concerning for me, and I think should concern you too. We’ve lost the ability to talk amongst ourselves, and our national “discourse” has devolved into screaming matches and an unwillingness to compromise or admit that it’s even possible we could be wrong.

We’re tearing ourselves apart. Please, America, try to remember that we’re all in this together, we’re all humans and we need each other. Please stop yelling, and start listening.

As for the girl who yelled at me, please print off this poster of logical fallacies and pin it up over your bed for all of our sakes.