On Approaching a Hot Button

I like to ask students about the debates they try to avoid.

It's a question they always have an answer to: religion, abortion, politics, sexuality, race...

You know, the really fun debates. The delicate and dangerous debates.

These are the debates that end Thanksgiving early. They stop budding friendships cold.

These are debates that people avoid because of deeply held convictions, emotions, and issues tied to personal identity.

I love these debates because they present an interesting rhetorical challenge. How do you engage the issue without emotions clouding the field?

The latest widespread incarnation of this kind of debate is the vaccination debate.

I'll admit, I've shied away from this one (for the most part) because my emotional response is right at the surface. With a nine-month-old at home, the measles outbreak in California makes this debate too raw for me to engage.

But that hasn't stopped me from reading many of the entries into the debate.

One important point that has been made is this: If you harshly condemn your opponent's view on an issue that reaches this deep, then you are going to push your opponent away from constructive debate.

And we know this.

If you don't know this, you're being willfully ignorant. So, stop it.

When you argue that someone is stupid because they can't see things your way, you have failed to engage in debate.

Worse yet, you have failed to understand your role in a debate.

If a person can't see your point of view, blaming them is not a solution, nor a victory, nor a strategy.

If a person can't see your point of view, blaming them is a failure with excuses.

If the constructive outcome to a debate means anything, then your primary task is to find a way reach your opponent - find a way to illustrate your point in terms they can accept.

You give up when you suggest that a person is too dense, obtuse, or stubborn to understand your point of view.

So I was pleased to read Paul Offit's op-ed in the New York Times today on religious objections to vaccination. He is firm about his stance, but he presents evidence that is clear and speaks with respect to his opponents. That clarity and respect is expressed best in two parts of his argument.

First, Offit's argument is based in his very relevant experiences during the 1991 measles outbreak in Philadelphia.

Between October 1990 and June 1991, more than 1,400 people living in Philadelphia were infected with measles, and nine children died. The epidemic started when, after returning from a trip to Spain, a teenager with a blotchy rash attended a rock concert at the Spectrum. By Nov. 29, 96 schoolchildren had been stricken with the illness; a week later, it was 124; by the end of December, the number had risen to 258, and the first child had died. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent a team to determine whether the strain of measles was particularly virulent. It wasn’t. Investigators found that the deaths had nothing to do with the strain that was circulating and everything to do with the parents.

Second, the argument is expressed in a way that acknowledges his opponents' beliefs.

It seems to me that if religion teaches us anything, it’s to care about our children, to keep them safe. Independent of whether one believes in Jesus, or that the four Gospels are an accurate account of what he said and did, you have to be impressed by the figure described. At the time of Jesus, around 4 B.C. to 30 A.D., child abuse was the “crying vice” of the Roman Empire. Infanticide and abandonment were common. Children were property, no different from slaves. But Jesus stood up for children. In Matthew 25:40, he said, “Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of my brethren ye have done it unto me” — a quote that could be emblazoned onto the entranceway of every children’s hospital in the world.

I am not a religious person, but Gospel quotes like that one are what keep me from becoming anti-religious.

Offit is effectively asking people to consider what is at the core of their beliefs before considering the facts and settling on a conclusion.

It's a graceful yet very firm approach to an debate that requires this kind of skillful approach to argument.