by Aaron Zlatkin
I have to be honest with you: I am conflicted about guns, and I think that might be a good thing. From a personal standpoint, I mean. And not because there is any uncertainty in my mind about the need for what the political left calls “common sense gun reform,” but because the debate over how, how much, and why is always so limited and incomplete. We talk past each other in plenty of important debates, but the right to bear arms is a ridiculously hot button issue in this country. I have many friends who own them, who use them for hunting, or for self-protection, and who conceal carry (and I never feel unsafe around them, even when I remind myself of that fact). So I can’t help but wonder if I’m missing something, some aspect of the debate, some too compelling reasoning that might allow me to understand fully the arguments being made on the other side. But I think the problem goes deeper than that.
The problem with our current approach to cultural and political discourse is not that we are missing some trump card of a talking point that will open our eyes. The problem is that we talk past each other, and call it a conversation.
There is no real debate about guns, gun control, or gun violence in this country that I have seen. There is no real debate about anything.
I suppose the term for the thing that I feel is missing is dialectic. Generally, a dialectic is any dialogue used as a means to discover truth through reasoned argument. The term dialectic is often used to refer even more broadly to any conflict or tension between two forces or concepts in search of a resolution, and is usually considered to apply to perceived opposites, such as good/evil, liberal/conservative, freedom/captivity, etc. Jon Stewart famously carpet bombed the set of Crossfire in 2004 with a critique that at its core was a demand for a true dialectic to replace the false dichotomy for which that cable show was famous.
To be honest, when I say “a true dialectic” I’m probably expressing my own prejudice here; apart from the obvious lack of any resolution on those cable shout fests, the presentation is as much a dialectic as any other put forth by Hegel, Socrates, or Bakhtin. What Stewart was pleading for was a more constructive dialectic. And that is what I am pleading for now, not just in the context of a culture grown complacent about weekly gun massacres, but also in the context of our daily interactions with one another. Talk about anything need not be the polarizing exercise to which we accustom ourselves.
Imagine if you will a conversation about favorite bands between two guys from my generation: one says U2 was their favorite, the other insists on R.E.M. If you’re older than this, imagine the same debate over Beatles vs. Stones; if you are younger, well, your bands are terrible. (Ha ha! Dialectics!)
What would the potential arguments be for one band over the other? You might look at the total number of chart topping singles or total album sales; or perhaps staying power, the catchiness of their songs, how much each artist had been repurposed in pop culture, or any number of other potentially influential factors to make your case. You might also criticize the other band, pointing out the annoying quality of the vocals, the lack of musicianship, the formulaic chord structures, the political grandstanding, the clearly egotistical front man, or how, yeah, they were okay...until they sold out in 1991, not like my guy oh wait I see what you did there.
Because what is really happening during that debate is a combination of (among other distractions) willful blindness or cognitive dissonance. Maybe you think Bono’s voice is more pleasant than Michael Stipe’s. But this is an aesthetic preference, not an objective truth, and deep down you know this. Maybe the song structures of R.E.M. were formulaic (Justin Lynch and I spent the better part of our 20s making good use of that fact), but they were simply using a different formula than the equally formulaic lads from Dublin. That is, at least, until the formulas began to change over the years, because nobody wants to hear 200 variations on Driver 8, and there aren’t even 3 variations of With Or Without You anyway, even if you include playing it backwards. The point is, you have to live with a certain amount of cognitive dissonance if you insist on making the case for your band, and even after all that you won’t “win” the argument. The truth is simply that you have a preference, and it is not the preference of your friend.
Things get a lot trickier – and heavier – when the topic turns from 80s college rock to gun control. There are a number of important factors that need consideration before any real dialogue can take place, such as agreeing on the definitions of terms (shared vocabulary), the prevalence of culture bundling (using a view on one topic as a signifier for assuming other views on unrelated topics), how statistics and other facts are sourced, and basic logical fallacies. This post from last year by Ken White has a good description of where to begin. All of this is in addition to the very real problem that we don’t always recognize when we are being intellectually dishonest in a debate. Since I do not see the gun control issue resolving anytime soon, I plan to explore some of these aspects of discourse in future posts in the hope of beginning a conversation about practicing a more constructive dialectic in our nation’s discourse.
The problem with our current approach to cultural and political discourse is not that we are missing some trump card of a talking point that will open our eyes. The problem is that we talk past each other, and call it a conversation.
There is no real debate about guns, gun control, or gun violence in this country that I have seen. There is no real debate about anything.
I suppose the term for the thing that I feel is missing is dialectic. Generally, a dialectic is any dialogue used as a means to discover truth through reasoned argument. The term dialectic is often used to refer even more broadly to any conflict or tension between two forces or concepts in search of a resolution, and is usually considered to apply to perceived opposites, such as good/evil, liberal/conservative, freedom/captivity, etc. Jon Stewart famously carpet bombed the set of Crossfire in 2004 with a critique that at its core was a demand for a true dialectic to replace the false dichotomy for which that cable show was famous.
To be honest, when I say “a true dialectic” I’m probably expressing my own prejudice here; apart from the obvious lack of any resolution on those cable shout fests, the presentation is as much a dialectic as any other put forth by Hegel, Socrates, or Bakhtin. What Stewart was pleading for was a more constructive dialectic. And that is what I am pleading for now, not just in the context of a culture grown complacent about weekly gun massacres, but also in the context of our daily interactions with one another. Talk about anything need not be the polarizing exercise to which we accustom ourselves.
Imagine if you will a conversation about favorite bands between two guys from my generation: one says U2 was their favorite, the other insists on R.E.M. If you’re older than this, imagine the same debate over Beatles vs. Stones; if you are younger, well, your bands are terrible. (Ha ha! Dialectics!)
What would the potential arguments be for one band over the other? You might look at the total number of chart topping singles or total album sales; or perhaps staying power, the catchiness of their songs, how much each artist had been repurposed in pop culture, or any number of other potentially influential factors to make your case. You might also criticize the other band, pointing out the annoying quality of the vocals, the lack of musicianship, the formulaic chord structures, the political grandstanding, the clearly egotistical front man, or how, yeah, they were okay...until they sold out in 1991, not like my guy oh wait I see what you did there.
Because what is really happening during that debate is a combination of (among other distractions) willful blindness or cognitive dissonance. Maybe you think Bono’s voice is more pleasant than Michael Stipe’s. But this is an aesthetic preference, not an objective truth, and deep down you know this. Maybe the song structures of R.E.M. were formulaic (Justin Lynch and I spent the better part of our 20s making good use of that fact), but they were simply using a different formula than the equally formulaic lads from Dublin. That is, at least, until the formulas began to change over the years, because nobody wants to hear 200 variations on Driver 8, and there aren’t even 3 variations of With Or Without You anyway, even if you include playing it backwards. The point is, you have to live with a certain amount of cognitive dissonance if you insist on making the case for your band, and even after all that you won’t “win” the argument. The truth is simply that you have a preference, and it is not the preference of your friend.
Things get a lot trickier – and heavier – when the topic turns from 80s college rock to gun control. There are a number of important factors that need consideration before any real dialogue can take place, such as agreeing on the definitions of terms (shared vocabulary), the prevalence of culture bundling (using a view on one topic as a signifier for assuming other views on unrelated topics), how statistics and other facts are sourced, and basic logical fallacies. This post from last year by Ken White has a good description of where to begin. All of this is in addition to the very real problem that we don’t always recognize when we are being intellectually dishonest in a debate. Since I do not see the gun control issue resolving anytime soon, I plan to explore some of these aspects of discourse in future posts in the hope of beginning a conversation about practicing a more constructive dialectic in our nation’s discourse.