Due to the upcoming election, naturally, I have been seeing much more political turmoil and strife. Politics is not something I choose to spend a lot of my time on, but after watching a video today the state of our argumentative culture is at the forefront of my mind.

I looked around online for more information on this and I came across an essay by Deborah Tannen called “The Argument Culture” written in 1998. As the name suggests, it was exactly what I was looking for and I want to share her 4-paragraph introduction with you:

“Chapter One

Fighting for Our Lives

This is not another book about civility. “Civility” suggests a superficial, pinky-in-the-air veneer of politeness spread thin over human relations like a layer of marmalade over toast. This book is about a pervasive warlike atmosphere that makes us approach public dialogue, and just about anything we need to accomplish, as if it were a fight. It is a tendency in Western culture in general, and in the United States in particular, that has a long history and a deep, thick, and far-ranging root system. It has served us well in many ways but in recent years has become so exaggerated that it is getting in the way of solving our problems. Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention — an argument culture.

The argument culture urges us to approach the world — and the people in it — in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as “both sides”; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you’re really thinking is to criticize.

Our public interactions have become more and more like having an argument with a spouse. Conflict can’t be avoided in our public lives any more than we can avoid conflict with people we love. One of the great strengths of our society is that we can express these conflicts openly. But just as spouses have to learn ways of settling their differences without inflicting real damage on each other, so we, as a society, have to find constructive ways of resolving disputes and differences. Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument — as in having a fight.

The war on drugs, the war on cancer, the battle of the sexes, politicians’ turf battles — in the argument culture, war metaphors pervade our talk and shape our thinking. Nearly everything is framed as a battle or game in which winning or losing is the main concern. These all have their uses and their place, but they are not the only way — and often not the best way — to understand and approach our world. Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition overweighted. In this book, I show how deeply entrenched the argument culture is, the forms it takes, and how it affects us every day — sometimes in useful ways, but often creating more problems than it solves, causing rather than avoiding damage. As a sociolinguist, a social scientist, I am trained to observe and explain language and its role in human relations, and that is my biggest job here. But I will also point toward other ways for us to talk to each other and get things done in our public lives.”

Deborah directly summed up my main points on this topic. I would add that arguing is simply a matter of human nature, but this issue has gotten exponentially worse with our recent advancements in technology.

To wrap up–I wrote yesterday about the late Morrie Schwartz, citing a piece of advice from the book Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. I couldn’t find a place for this in my post, but I want to put it here. Morrie says:

“The culture we have doesn’t make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”

– Morrie Schwartz