Should We Argue?

Paul Krugman wrote about the Affordable Care Act today.

In his column, Krugman pointed out that the law is performing very well.

He also pointed out that a lot of people don't know the law is doing well. Many believe the ACA is killing jobs (despite improving job numbers) and costing absurd amounts of money (despite the bill costing 20% less than had been predicted).

Krugman pointed to what he believes is the cause, something I've been writing about for a few years on this blog. It's something a lot of people have been talking about. He writes:

At a deeper level [...] we’re looking at [...] the impact of post-truth politics. We live in an era in which politicians and the supposed experts who serve them never feel obliged to acknowledge uncomfortable facts, in which no argument is ever dropped, no matter how overwhelming the evidence that it’s wrong.

I'm not here to suggest that one party is more guilty of this than the other. I think there is an interesting discussion to be had on that question, but I'll leave that to the more political blogs.

My concern is the relationship between "post-truth politics" and our cultural love of argument. The win-at-all costs approach that's emerged has an impact on public discourse, civic engagement, and the knowledge of argument young people bring into my classrooms.

I've been a booster for teaching argument. I teach deductive and inductive reasoning, the Toulmin Method, critical analysis of arguments, and I suggest my students all enroll in a course on sentential logic. I do all of that to encourage better practices when my student engage in arguments.

I began to question my ideas on argument last week, however, when I sat in on an interview with Kathleen Blake Yancey; the interview will appear in Writing on the Edge, and it promises to be a good one.

I have tremendous respect for the contributions Yancey has made to composition studies. So when she told us that she doesn't like to emphasize "argument" when she teaches, I leaned in to hear more.

Her ideas are going to be in the WOE interview, and I'd rather let her words do the talking. But I will say this: She got me thinking about our cultural emphasis on argument.

Why do we believe any issue that isn't easily resolved must become an argument? Why don't we contemplate such issues, or engage them, deliberate over them, consider them? The list of ways to approach an issue goes on.

But we prefer to argue. We prefer to draw a line, pick sides, and see who emerges a winner.

That approach to contentious issues has certainly contributed to the rise of "post-truth politics" Krugman describes. When an issue spurs competition instead of inquiry, people are going to look for a competitive edge. Like any competition, the higher the stakes, the more likely people are to play loose with the rules.

As I ready myself for a new phase in my career, I aim to chew on the questions this poses while developing new courses.

I wonder what you think would be a more constructive approach to issues.