The following is adapted from a talk I gave during a virtual service at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Second Life, on how schools have become harbingers and bastions of intellectual adversarialism.
Juanito[1]
was a bright little boy whose school decided to introduce debating as a
learning approach. The topic of ‘racism’ was chosen, but no student wanted to
take the position of advocating it. Finally Juanito consented to do it,
although having been raised a Bahá'í, with the belief in the oneness of the
human race, it went against everything he had been taught. After all, it was
just another meaningless academic exercise, like so many other school
activities... or was it?
Being a diligent student, Juanito prepared carefully,
and on the day of the debate left for school assured and confident. However, when
he returned home he was clearly distressed. His parents assumed he had lost the
debate, but he assured them he had won. What was the matter then? With welling tears
he asked, “How can a lie to win a debate?” Not only had he betrayed his beliefs
and shamed his friend in the contest, but now he faced the existential crisis
of seeing how falsehood could prevail over truth through skillful rhetoric.
So what’s the big deal?
To someone raised with the Western attitude
that “winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing,”[2]
Juanito’s concerns may sound childish, naive and silly. However, for the non-Western
culture he was brought up in, they conveyed a depth of perception that only
seeing the world anew through the eyes of a child might reveal:
principle-centeredness, putting people first, concern for the feelings of
others, commitment to the truth, and other beautiful qualities.
We have become so used to what Tannen calls
“The Argument Culture”[3]
that we have come to expect it, to see it as natural. After all, hasn’t it always
been the way of the world? Isn’t it inherent in human nature itself? This
belief is based on the fact that in some cultures – especially in the West – argumentativeness
is seen as a positive thing. It has become essential to our politics,
economics, courts, media, gender relations and even religion.
However, anthropology shows that many cultures
see arguing and confrontation as unacceptable behavior, and replace it with
careful, thoughtful listening, courteous, respectful responses, and dialogue
instead of debate, thereby enhancing communication, cultivating more positive relations
and achieving greater social cohesion.[4]
What has led some Western cultures to be so
contentious and quarrelsome? Some blame the rating-hungry mass media, especially
talk shows, where dumbing down of complex issues, either-or polarization of nuanced
public opinion, and false dichotomies are the norm, where uninformed ‘deniers’
masquerade as ‘the other side’ on equal terms with subject-matter experts in phony
debates to provide a pretense of ‘journalistic objectivity’.
Others point to today’s political system
based on polarization of interests into parties, with their heated debates,
smear campaigns, and electoral contests. Still others fault the adversarial judicial
system of accusation and defense, which is not about discovering the truth of a
matter, but only about winning a litigation at all costs, even if it means concealing,
twisting or outright lying about the facts.
However, I propose that this love affair
with controversy began long before mass media, politicians and attorneys started
exploiting it to boost their ratings, constituencies and fees. Its roots are embedded
deep in the earliest formative stages of the academia, from where it grew and
spread until it permeated all levels of society, finally giving way to today’s
ubiquitous culture of adversarialism. As Tannen says, “Our schools and
universities, our ways of doing science and approaching knowledge, are deeply
agonistic… and it is there that the seeds of our adversarial culture are
planted.”[5]
Back to the Roots
The roots of intellectual adversarialism can
be traced as far back as the oppositional dualisms of the Semitic and
Zoroastrian cultures, but more recently to the ancient Greeks, who thought in
binary terms of polar opposites. Every aspect of life, from sports to war, from
politics to economics, was characterized by the struggle between opposing forces.
There was no idea of win-win. Every victory necessarily required someone else’s
defeat.
At the center of Greek life was the ‘agora’,
a political forum, public market and meeting place where citizens gathered to
debate politics, haggle over prices and argue about philosophy. The root of ‘agora’
means contest or struggle, as in antagonism, agonistic and agony, which says
much about its purpose and the Greek worldview.
Sophists, being masters of rhetoric, developed
a formal logic based on oppositional models for generating knowledge, which was
systematized and by Aristotle. They established all-male academies where these
methods were taught as essential tools of intellectual work. Here, young men
were trained to further the Greek political, economic and military systems,
thereby strengthening the culture of adversarialism from one generation to the
next.
This is the culture that was eventually
handed down to Christian Europe through the Roman civilization, whose ascendancy
was also based on political, economic and military power. As the Roman Empire
weakened, it was invaded and plundered by barbaric peoples of Northern Europe.
All of this provided abundant historical material to produce the adversarial
worldview that became the predominant influence in many aspects of Western
society and culture.
Academic Adversarialism
Against this backdrop, it is easy to see
how Medieval Europe’s educational approach was modeled after the Greek
academies, first in all-male monasteries, then in “cathedral schools” from the
9th century AD, next in ecclesiastic schools from the 12th century AD, and
finally in secular schools strategically sponsored by aristocrats from the 17th
century AD on.
Scholars such as Noble,[6]
Moulton[7]
and Ong[8]
studied these institutions in depth and found them to be highly adversarial in
many ways through the late 19th century. They describe them as masculine and
misogynistic, women being perceived as worldly and sinful, to be avoided in
order to preserve the purity of body and soul. They were highly militaristic,
with rigid discipline and war-like regimes. Students saw themselves as
‘warriors’ in training to fight battles both spiritual (as missionaries) and
physical (as crusaders and inquisitors).
Some universities divided classes into
‘nations’ that fought ritualized battles. Sometimes these ‘soldiers’ went out
at night to terrorize the local population, especially women. There was a
ritual enmity between professors and students, adversarial methods of teaching
and evaluation, and frequent physical punishments. The primary methods
consisted of academic disputes and intellectual contests, so subjects that were
best suited to this approach were favored over others.
For almost 2000 years, these breeding
grounds for the culture of adversarialism trained generations of leaders who made
and wrote ‘world history’, designed the institutions and practices that became
today’s adversarial social structures, and taught the diverse scientific
disciplines of the West, all of which coincided in portraying the world to the
next generations through the dark lens of adversarialism. Even today, the
predominant Western model makes the generation of knowledge as a contest among competing
ideas and individuals. As one student described it: “Grad school was the
nightmare I never knew existed… Into the den of wolves I go, like a lamb to the
slaughter.”[9]
Adversarialism Spreads
Since the 15th century, European conquest
and colonization firmly planted this culture of contest throughout the world in
structures of governance and educational systems, thereby strengthening adversarial
thought. Even after colonial rule, most newly independent nation-states styled
their social structures––schools included––after Western models. This is how intellectual
adversarialism was reproduced globally as the predominant educational model,
especially in colleges and universities, but also in schools and high schools. Hence
Juanito’s dilemma.
Intellectual adversarialism is not limited
to schools, however, but has permeated all aspects of society. When someone
states an opinion, others will almost instinctively point to flaws in it, like
vultures spying out any little slip-up to pounce upon. In the name of being
thought-provoking, we have become just plain provocative. If 99% of what is
said is true, and only 1% false, the 99% is ignored and the 1% emphasized. even
if it is a side issue. The Socratic Method of helping others discover truth for
themselves has been deformed into a means of forcing opponents to admit they are
wrong. The uniquely human need to seek after knowledge has fallen into a
cut-throat competitive sport.
If someone does understand subject enough to
recognize any mistakes, they will simply say “I am not sure I agree with
everything you just said,” which has the effect of putting in doubt “everything
you just said” without actually having to say anything intelligent about it.[10]
Critical thinking has been replaced with unthinking criticism. Others will put
words in their ‘contenders’ mouths to pressure them to retract, with “So you are
saying that…” followed by some absurd misrepresentation of what was said. Although
purportedly to ‘stir things up’, such intellectual adversarialism only stirs up
sediments that obscure the very issues it was supposed to enlighten. This is no
longer ‘for the sake of argument’, but merely for the sake of arguing, as an
end in itself.
Devil’s advocates abound. The original Advocatus Diaboli was hired by the
Catholic Church to point out weaknesses in proposals so that they could be
strengthened. It was a collaborative role, meant to anticipate and avert
potential problems. Now, however, it implies disputing the ideas of others
while neither committing to the opposite stance nor exposing any thoughts of
one’s own, thereby remaining immune to similar attacks. This is often combined
with across-the-board cynicism––believing in nothing and no-one––or complete
relativism in which everything goes and reality is merely what you believe it
to be. Either extreme can act as an easy copout, as neither requires any real
thinking or taking any actual stand on an issue. And the list of
confrontational strategies goes on…
In such an environment, people often feel it
is safest not to speak their minds. Those who shun competition avoid discussing
potentially controversial topics altogether, while others limit themselves to reviewing
facts and events, or to citing the ideas of others as ‘interesting’. So the
adversarially-inclined minority tends to be the most outspoken, while those
repelled by such attitudes––predominantly women, ethnic minorities, and both
the young and elderly––sink into the false peace of a silent majority. As a
result, intellectual adversarialism seems more prevalent than it really is, and
society as a whole is deprived of valuable contributions from the bulk of the
population. Once again, win-lose decays into lose-lose, as we saw in an earlier
discussion on Social Dilemmas and Cooperation Theory.[11]
Alternatives
The pressing needs of today’s beleaguered
world have no easy answers and demand thoughtful dialogue among diverse
segments of society. On this path, intellectual adversarialism is not a stepping
stone, but an stumbling block. Overcoming it will require the
concerted efforts of all, especially educational decision-makers, to build a
culture of inclusive, synergistic dialogue. Creating a new paradigm of
mutualistic education will not be easy, but will require profound
transformations, both individual and institutional. Tannen found that teachers
often prefer debate to dialogue simply because it is easier, and that “showing
students how to integrate ideas and explore subtleties and complexities is much
harder… but more lasting.”[12]
We need to train students to search for
truth, not seek after the falsehood in what others say, but like miners digging
for gems of understanding among mountains of rubble, like farmers able to see
the potential greatness in even the smallest seed. Peter Elbow proposes a “believing
game” – hearing and reading the first time as
if we believed what was being said – to replace the old “doubting game” of
immediately jumping to what is wrong.[13]
Such methods can go a long way towards healing the damage done, for example, by
teachers who delight in building up student’s belief in a theory, only to cut
it to shreds, until yet another generation of scholars takes up the torch of
abject cynicism, which spells the death of the curiosity and creativity upon
which our collective future depends.
Other
proposals for moving from debate to dialogue include Amitai Etzioni’s “Rules of
Engagement”, which remind us that people with conflicting ideas are still
members of the same community.[14]
The Bahá'í approach to mutual consultation promotes practices such as sharing
what our conscience dictates, even when we fear that no one else will
understand or accept what we say; presenting our thoughts with clarity,
courtesy, dignity, and moderation; showing detachment from our ideas, avoiding
stubborn insistence that others accept them; treating others’ opinions with
respect—listening attentively, and never mocking, belittling or ridiculing any
person or idea; and not becoming angered or upset when others give ideas
contrary to our own.
This
approach requires and fosters such attitudes and qualities as:
- Sincerity and purity of motives: seeking the truth of a matter, and not just imposing one’s own ideas or promoting selfish interests;
- Radiance of spirit: keeping a positive, enthusiastic outlook, and looking for what is true and useful in what others say;
- Detachment from ego: offering one’s ideas as a gift to the group, and then letting go of it, separating it from the self, and not getting upset if others oppose or change it;
- Attraction to all that is good: love of divinity and/or humankind, and commitment to higher principles such as unity, truthfulness, tolerance, compassion, and justice.
- Modesty and humility: to avoid trying to appear better than others, but humbly recognizing one’s own limitations and admiring other’s qualities and achievements.
- Patience and perseverance: when decision-making becomes difficult, keeping calm, not complaining, but also not accepting a mediocre decision out of exhaustion or boredom;
- A spirit of service: seeing oneself as a humble collaborator, and seeking the best for the whole.
In sum, a culture of peace implies
educating for, in and through peaceful relations; fostering dialogue,
consensus-building and non-violent communication; promoting understanding,
tolerance and solidarity; and changing adversarial, conflictive,
confrontational dealings to kind, compassionate, mutualistic, synergistic modes
of addressing what matters most to us all. In order to promote a culture of
peace in the world, we need to transform educational structures from breeding
grounds of adversarialism to seedbeds of mutualism. Not only should students
explore mutualistic contents through unfettered search for truth, but
educational methods should be based on approaches such as mutual consultation
or synergistic dialogue. Only then will no more Juanitos return home crying
because a lie has defeated the truth.
References:
[1] Although
this is a true story, the name has been changed to protect the innocent. Any
resemblance to a real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
[2] This
famous quotation is attributed to USCL Bruins football coach Henry Russell
(“Red”) Sanders since 1950, and continues to be used today, especially in
relation to sports.
[3] Deborah
Tannen, “The Argument Culture – Moving from Debate to Dialogue”. New York: Random House, 1998.
[4] See, for example: Harry Eckstein, Division and Cohesion in Democracy: A Study of Norway. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966; Margaret Mead, Cooperation and Competition among
Primitive Peoples. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967; Leslie E. Sponsel & Thomas Gregor, eds., The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994; and Graham Kemp & Douglas P. Fry, eds., Keeping the Peace: Conflict Resolution and Peaceful Societies around
the World. New York:
Routledge, 2004.
[5] Tannen,
p. 257.
[6] Noble,
David. A World without Women: The Clerical Christian Culture of Western
Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
[7] Moulton,
Janice. ‘A Paradigm of Philosophy: The Adversary Method’, in Sandra Hardin and
Merril Hintikka (eds.), Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on
Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Boston:
Kluwer Boston, 1983.
[8] Ong,
Walter J. ‘Agonistic Structures in Academia: Past to Present’, Interchange:
Journal of Education, Vol. 5 (1974), pp. 1-12; and “Fighting for Life –
Contest, Sexuality and Consciousness”. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1981.
[9] Tannen,
p. 268.
[10] When
countered with this non-argument, my response is often to say that I am not
sure I agree entirely with everything I just said, either, that it is merely
the best I have to offer at the moment, that I trust my thinking will evolve in
the future, in which case I may very well realize that I was wrong on several
points, and that I cordially invite them to help or accompany me along that
journey.
[11] Peter
C. Newton-Evans, “Social Dilemmas and Cooperation Theory”. URL: http://cultureofpeaceprogram.org/ ( go to Articles – Defining the Problem).
[12] Tannen,
p. 257.
[13] Peter
Elbow. Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching. New York
and Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1986.
[14] Amitai
Etzioni, The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society.
New York: Basic, 1996.
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