Dissecting discourse and discord

In times of big, important conflict, we are taught to have difficult conversations, hear each other out, and learn from each other. Specifically in educational settings such as universities, this is highly encouraged. These conversations are meant to bridge the gap, make us empathise, and humanise the other side. But is discourse always useful?

Conversations in which the sides don’t see eye to eye rarely ever lead to productive solutions. In most cases, especially among students, both sides believe that they have all the facts and have done their due diligence. Then, the discussion turns to both sides just repeating the arguments the other side is already aware of. No one comes to these conversations to empathise or to gain new insight – they come there to change each others’ minds which due to their presuppositions prove difficult if not impossible — but never their own minds. They come there to win the argument. It is not a conversation, but rather a debate.

With a debate, the goal is to deliver a logical and persuasive argument. However, in the real world, these issues are much more emotional than logical for most people. For example, the discourse about abortion is not merely a scientific argument, but an emotional argument about people’s lives, bodies and religion. The scientific arguments about the personhood of a fetus have very little impact and are just a weapon in the arsenal to attack the other side.

The conversation often makes both sides more entrenched in their positions when they argue. Usually, two sides have different starting values that inform their position. Which also makes people more polarized and pushes all of us into our own corners. If I moderately like an artist and someone tells me they hate the artist; getting into an argument would make me like the artist much more through trying to defend them. By being forced into a more radical stance than the one I actually hold because of the binary nature of debating, I justify this position and easily change into it. Instead of bringing us together, discussing would drive us further apart. I would not trust any of their music opinions after that even if we share many other artists we like.

Another trap is that when you are worried about a big issue, one that impacts human lives, maybe the lives of your loved ones, the conversation only gives you a representative to direct all your initially rightful anger towards. If you are angry about genocide, as you should be, it won’t help you to argue with someone who firmly believes that there is not a genocide, or that the genocide is justified. If they are already solid in their beliefs and not willing to hear other perspectives, you won’t change their mind. But during the conversation, most people channel all their negative feelings about the conflict into this person. It is human nature to do so. You see them as a representation of the Big Evil of the conflict, they lose their humanity in your eyes.

This does not help progress the issue. They are not going to change their mind and on a large scale, they do not have any influence on the issue. It just makes you feel more hate. It makes you feel more desperate about the world. You being miserable doesn’t benefit anyone, least of all yourself. Putting that energy into active ways to help others and support the cause you care about is both more rewarding and more meaningful. One should always talk to
misinformed or underinformed people who are willing to listen. But wasting breath on people who do not intend to take you seriously only causes harm.

The views and opinions above belong to the blogger and do not necessarily represent DUB's views and opinions.