LiberalArtsOnline
Volume 5, Number 3
March 2005
What role does discussion play in our society and in our classrooms? Liberal arts education should encourage an exploration and exchange of ideas, not only in the classroom, but also in life. Do we talk and listen in order to understand other people’s perspectives and learn new things, or to convince them to adopt our views? Richard Gunderman, associate professor at Indiana University, addresses these ideas as he explores the differences between debate and dialogue and suggests ways to promote dialogue in the liberal arts classroom.
--Kathleen S. Wise, Editor
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Is Debate Upstaging Dialogue?
by Richard Gunderman
Associate Professor
Radiology, Pediatrics, Medical Education
Philosophy, Liberal Arts, Philanthropy
Indiana University
Is debate upstaging dialogue? In popular culture, the answer seems to be yes. When talk radio and cable news programs feature issues of the day, they increasingly seek out colorful individuals of diametrically opposed points of view. Why? Perhaps because conflict boosts viewership. In the ratings race, heat trumps light.
The participants in such contests often have little interest in promoting a comprehensive or balanced perspective. Instead, each attempts to shift the balance of opinion by presenting a radical and uncompromising extreme. In such an environment, civility and good sense suffer, and talking heads tend to morph into shouting heads.
The ascendancy of debate threatens the thoughtfulness that should characterize a liberally educated person. The word debate is derived from the Old French debatre, meaning to fight or contend. Debate implies conflict. Broadcast media did not create it. They have merely magnified it to a new level. What do the combatants seek? Not mutual enlightenment. They seek victory.
Where do debaters stand with respect to the truth? Truth is not a matter of complete indifference. After all, exposing the falsity of an opponent’s argument can score points. In debate, however, truth represents a mere means to another end: conquest. Should embarrassing facts emerge, the consummate debater can be relied on to ignore, suppress, or "spin" them into irrelevance.
This rather unflattering contemporary portrait of debate has a forerunner in the culture of the ancient Greeks: the Sophists. Sophists such as Gorgias were itinerant debate coaches who traveled the region offering lessons in rhetoric. Like contemporary high school debaters, who find out which side of a proposition they will defend by drawing from a hat, the Sophists did not care which side of an issue they were called on to argue. Wisdom was less important than victory. Making the weaker argument appear stronger? Making the stronger argument appear weaker? No problem for the Sophists, so long as their side prevailed.
There is a resurgence of the sophistic spirit in college classrooms today. Thanks in part to broadcast media, many students now think that discussing an issue means deciding whether you are for or against it and then defending that position to the bitter end. They expect a good argument, and some of us on the faculty, lured by the sirens of "lively discussion" and "energetic student participation," are inclined to give it to them. Debate, however, is not what liberal education should be about.
Liberal education should be about something quite different: dialogue. Dialogue may not produce as much heat as debate, but it generates a good bit more light. Our word dialogue is derived from the ancient Greek dialogos, which in turn derives from the roots dia-, meaning through, and logos, meaning word or reason. A dialogue seeks truth by and through words.
The parties to a dialogue aim not to defeat one another, but to enlighten one another. It is not a conflict, but a shared inquiry. In contrast to the debater’s zero-sum game, in which every victory must be accompanied by a loss, dialogue permits both parties to emerge from their discussion enriched. Both can benefit from a shared pursuit of enlightenment.
In ancient Greek culture, the paradigmatic dialogist was Socrates. Socrates possessed all the skills of a master debater. Yet he deployed them not to defeat his interlocutors, but to help them find enlightenment.
The Socratic Method does not consist of relentless interrogation, badgering, and even intimidating students in the manner of The Paper Chase’s Professor Kingsfield. The true Socratic Method is not about showing students who’s boss. Instead, it embodies the realization that true knowledge is born of discovery. Only by treating our students with profound respect can we inspire them as co-investigators.
Socrates was sometimes likened to a stingray. He aimed to produce a state of aporia, puzzlement or wonder. He did so, however, not to paralyze but to invigorate. If people supposed they knew all the answers, they would never inquire. But if the limitations of their views were illuminated, they might seek out better ones.
Dialogue is grounded in synergism. Sharing our understandings enables us to gain insights impossible to achieve in solitude. We discover that our preconceptions are not the only options. We learn to look at questions from multiple points of view. By uniting in the pursuit of understanding, we reach insights that exceed the sums of our individual arguments.
Such an attitude shines through in genuine conversation, where the goal is not to silence opponents, but fully to elucidate their points of view. In true dialogue, it is vitally important to bring our deepest thoughts and experiences into play. The sharing of such perspectives provides the fertile soil in which discovery and creativity blossom.
If wisdom could be transferred from one person to another like water flowing through a straw, Socrates might have been a conventional teacher. Because it cannot, he sought to engage his interlocutors in a dialectical process of shared investigation. He did not encourage memorizing formulae or vetting prejudices. Instead, his method would have us examine ourselves, the ideas we care about, and the lives we are leading.
Socrates was keener on asking questions than supplying answers. His method embodied the understanding that all great discoveries in the sciences and arts spring from skepticism, a readiness to question what we think we know. Money and power meant little to him in comparison to the capacity to inquire. He saw in an uneducated slave as fertile a mind as in the most urbane aristocrat.
From Socrates’ point of view, death is not the worst fate that can befall a person. Far worse is to become a "misologue," a hater of discourse. We become misologues when we get burned so many times by debate that we stop believing in the possibility of genuine dialogue.
To remain open to the possibility of genuine dialogue, we must see ourselves not as passive spectators but as active participants, vital partners in the pursuit of wisdom. We must be willing to set aside our prejudices, to push the envelope of our own understanding. The pursuit of wisdom must not be commandeered by the dictates of rhetorical advantage.
What can we do to foster genuine dialogue in liberal arts education? While the diversity of our educational environments precludes one single formula, here are some classroom discussion questions likely to play an important role in any successful recipe:
- Does every argument have two and only two sides? What do we gain, and what do we give up, by viewing our lives in such terms?
- When we win a debate, what do we win? When we lose a debate, what do we lose?
- What are the differences between debate and dialogue? How might genuine dialogue open up possibilities for victory by both parties?
- How can we promote dialogue in our classrooms and on our campus?
Our classrooms are a powerful antidote to a popular culture sometimes dominated by diatribe and indoctrination. One of the most important missions of contemporary liberal education is to remind us of the difference between debate and dialogue. Students who emerge from our classrooms confusing the two will be poorly equipped to think clearly, to stimulate genuine conversation, and to share knowledge effectively. By helping them to appreciate the important differences between debate and dialogue, we prepare them to flourish as human beings.
Direct personal responses to rbgunder@iupui.edu.
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The comments published in LiberalArtsOnline reflect the opinions of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Center of Inquiry or Wabash College. Comments may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author(s), LiberalArtsOnline, and the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College.