The New York Sophist

I love technology and computers and all that, but I will never be able to give up having a paper diary to keep my day-to-day life organized. I took some time over Christmas and New Year’s to chill out, and after that took this planner I ordered off the shelf and started filling it in.

The first thing I put in there are the important university dates. After that, I will put in some personal goals in the form of dates with some reminders (2 weeks from finishing X on a date 2 weeks ahead of when I wanted something accomplished). This has been my strategy for so long I wonder if I will ever move to using Google calendar or anything like that.

I do use the digital calendars to help coordinate with other people, but I do not use it for “me to me” communication. I would miss every appointment. Likewise, Google calendar often gets things wrong, inappropriately correcting the date or time of a meeting based on where someone else is in the world.

As far as notes, I move back and forth between options. Sometimes I will write on paper or in a notebook, other times type directly into Google Documents, which is the best program for note taking as it’s searchable and easy to copy and paste into more formal writing.

I wonder what it is that keeps me using paper planners. One thing I think it might be is being able to open it up and seeing the whole week written out there. This helps me every morning as I’m waking up become the sort of me I need to be to do all that stuff. If I see every day that there’s a meeting on Thursday, I’m in a better spot in my head for participating in that meeting when it comes around. Not sure how true this is, just a feeling.

Also something more permanent is conveyed when I write something down in the planner, it helps me accept the reality of what needs to be done. I don’t get that feeling from the computer.

In terms of drafting and writing though, the computer is where it’s at. There’s nothing that works as well as opening up a blank document and going to town on it. This I can’t really do with a paper journal, although I can write fragmentary lines or notes in one.

I have a seperate blog for my podcast, In the Bin, but maybe I shouldn’t. I feel like my audience is the same for both, or at least people who read my writing here would also like my podcast.

In this episode we talk to Dr. Ian Reyes about music and argument (he knows a lot) and wonder about the relationship between music, purity, quality, industry, and of course, communication. Have a listen!

Got a great question along with a great article from a friend last month, now I’m finally getting to it.

The simple response is, yes of course! But the more complex response is to examine how we should determine what debates are not worth having, and the criteria for this choice should be based not on debate’s limitations, but debate’s strengths.

Deborah Tannen’s best-selling book The Argument Culture might be somewhat dated now (it came out in 1999 I think) but it holds up thanks to people’s addiction to cable tv news programs, even if they are on YouTube.

The argument of the book is simply this: Bad models of debate are harmful to our ability to construct meaningful and useful social policy. Somewhat like the idea that taking too much or too little of a helpful medicine will kill you, debate, poorly dosed out will indeed destroy our ability to reason collectively, think through complex issues (which often requires more than one human mind I’m afraid), and make sure we have the appropriate perspective on whatever it is we are trying to sort through, evaluate, judge, enact, or any number of other verbs.

Tannen’s criteria is what we hope to avoid here. We don’t want to prop up reasons to not have debate based on debate’s weaknesses. We want to be able to say that debate’s strengths are why we should not engage it on every issue that seems like it would fit in the debate slot. Very much like kitchen equipment designed for certain purposes, using debate to make something that it’s not meant to make will render something inedible. This simple realization is lost on debate-critics who think that debate ruins what it touches no matter what you try to make with it.

In the article from Psyche Malcolm Keating provides an excellent explanation of how Naya philosophy in the 10th century did exactly what I’m looking for: Established a conception of choosing to debate because of what debate can provide, not in spite of debate’s limitations, faults, or nature. Naya philosophy prescribes some very good reasons to debate because of what debate provides or forces upon us when we agree to do it.

One of these is being open to changing your mind. Debate absolutely requires this, and the Naya philosophers accept this too. This isn’t simplistic zero-sum gaming, but the idea that what is said in the debate should influence how you articulate your views and hold your views from that moment forward. Douglas Ehninger in my field of rhetoric wrote beautifully about this in his essay “Argument as Method” which was published in 1970 (this definitely still holds up).

In that essay Ehninger isn’t discussing debate, per se, but he sets up exactly what you’d want in a debate to make it work. His model of the “corrector” versus the teacher or the authority figure is essential to the model. He argues that debating someone else must be predicated on the idea that you are as susceptible to quality reasons and believable evidence as the person you are engaging. In short, the rules apply to everyone. If something is convincing either way, it should be accepted by both. Please note how Plato’s Socrates seems to lampoon this model in most of the dialogues. We never see him alter his point of view although he does pretend to be surprised quite well like you would in front of a jury or something.

The point is that this model of debating excludes all topics that one couldn’t imagine holding up to that standard of conviction. There might be some issues we feel so strongly about that we would be unwilling to change our mind about them even given a lot of great evidence. In cases like this, we can soften that feeling by engaging in “switch-side” debating (as it’s called in the United States) where you are assigned a side of a topic and are supposed to craft arguments for something you might not believe or (even worse) don’t care about that much. This practice helps us make a stronger connection to the ideals of Ehninger-style argument as well as inform us about the various things going on in a number of controversies worldwide.

Keating does fall into the philosophical norm of viewing debate through a Platonic lens as a given, not a choice. Rhetoric, sophistry, and debate are all dismissed as packing materials for philosophy’s fine and delicate pieces because of these deeply held Platonic ideologies; there are very few who would consider the Sophists philosophers of any kind, even educational philosophers, because of this deeply held bias. Here we see it in characterizations of “unreflective” debate being ironically this very clever attempt to deceive, trick someone, or score points (all of which involve a lot of planning and strategy, so I never really get how or why these assumptions are made about it). To decieve someone you really have to get to know them, or get them to place a lot of trust in you, which requires at the minimum a workable model of human motives based on acute and accurate observation and study.

Philosophy’s attitude to debate is always, “We can debate in spite of the failings that people have.” The rhetorician’s attitude is, “Let’s talk about all the different ways we can debate.” It seems to me that without the Platonic ideology framing the Naya discussion of types of debate, these philosophers are perhaps more rhetorically inclined. Who else would come up with different kinds of debate for different purposes, then tell us to either do it or not based own what we think the value of the exchange might be? Keating seems to miss that truth is not a prerequisite here, but something that may or may not come out of one of the various modalities of debating these philosophers practiced. These are not opposed models, but different levels of practice that serve the purpose that all debate practice should have: To prepare the mind to change given the appropriate conditions.

Debating any topic at all with no conditions does not prepare the mind for much, only fuels the anger and frustration that we inappropriately aim at debating itself. As far as what topics do not qualify for debate, those we cannot subject to the ethics of good debate, i.e. “I’ll change my position if I find really good reasons to do so” are off the table. We can soften up that conviction by practicing the rival conviction, that of rhetorical reasoning, through doing some of the “lesser” forms of debating as Keating seems to want to call them, which give us a lot of insight into how human motives, language, and speech are intertwined in complex ways. This combination of various moving parts help us understand the complexities of commitment, and further our desire to hold the principle of rhetorical reason through debate as primary, and being right second. That’s the only way we can ensure that a topic will be treated appropriately and fully.

Keating’s essay has made me want to investigate these thinkers more as I think they can offer a very complex, necessary, and wonderful discrimination of modalities of debate that all serve the same purpose: To answer the question of what to debate and why to debate it. There’s no hierarchy here, only different modes of speaking for different purposes and people. This is the heart of the Sophistic position. It’s also a very human-centered ethic about how to change minds, given that it forwards how complex people are in their attitudes and beliefs.

So how do we know a topic shouldn’t be debated? I think we have to first get comfortable with the idea that there’s not just one “debate” out there, and we can thank Keating for that in this great essay. Secondly, we need to be honest about whether we are debating for the benefit of the topic and our own minds. Are we debating to correct course, or are we giving orders? Topics that we feel don’t require a course correction are difficult to debate unless we do a lot of low-stakes practice frequently with one another (which seems to be what the Naya philosophers were doing from what little I glean here). Low-stakes practice helps you see how wrong you can be and how often it can happen, encouraging an increased faith in the method of debate. Finally, there are topics that we might not want to debate that come up so often because we are bored, or tired, of having those debates. Audiences are good indicators of whether this is true or not. Often once we have engaged a topic many times we feel there’s nothing left to explore. But this is indicative of failing to uphold the debate ethic. We can only feel we’ve fully explored a topic if we think of the reasons and topic as being “out there” somewhere and not “here with us” in the form of audience. We also fail to uphold the debate ethic if we feel we have it right and couldn’t have it better through a re-articulation of our reasons before others who are mulling over those reasons, or who have a stronger hold on their convictions rather than on how they got to those convictions.

Over the holidays I watched two films that were strongly suggested to me: The Rise of Skywalker and Wonder Woman 1984.

I thought both were pretty good. I don’t usually have a lot to say about movies. I’m not really into them. It’s not my thing to sit and watch a movie. I’d much rather read or play a video game. Most of the time movies just don’t really capture my attention; I can just walk away at any point.

There are exceptions to this of course, but this is what I get about 90% of the time I watch a movie. It’s just really not for me, particularly the recent deluge of superhero films which are like confectioner’s sugar compared to standard films. People who enjoy talking about these movies sound to me like they are trying to be sommeliers  of canned frosting.

However these two films got me thinking about how to represent desire, how we represent desire, and our frustrations with the limits of desire, i.e. that it can only be presented to us, and through us, as human beings. Both films investigate the concept of desire if it were possible to articulate it beyond the “limited” human experience.

I’m not a fan of talking about human experience as limited, unless making a point that we just haven’t been able to imagine fully the possibilities of our limited existence here with one another. There’s an unlimited capacity for people to limit themselves to the “realistic,” which is one of the dark sides of rhetoric and debate teaching. We teach people how to do this to other people for various purposes that we keep off the table for the most part in our pedagogy (and rightfully so; the public speaking teacher probably shouldn’t be offering a crash-course in ethics on the side, although these conversations do come up quite a bit in class if you are doing it right).

These two films really show the limits of human conception as something to be celebrated, a source of strength for human beings (or human-like beings as it’s not clear if either protagonist is a ‘human’ per se). These limits are offered as positive goods through the way the films handle the idea of want.

Wonder Woman 1984 had a very Full Metal Alchemist feel to it where the law of exchange was in full effect. Alchemy, in that anime series, is something that allows for infinite possibility as long as you are willing to pay the price of “equal exchange.” If you don’t offer it up, the act of alchemy will take it – and it won’t be equal in your conception.

I thought the film was very touching on the question of mourning and grief, and how differently everyone handles that. This wasn’t directly explored, but there were little hints here and there about it through the way the film was shot, and what we see Diana up to in the opening third of the movie. She tries to have a good time here and there, but is pretty much obsessed in her work (as a superhero, not really at the Smithsonian). Diana is experiencing melancholy, in the Freudian sense, where she just doesn’t really move past the loss of Steve and is very much committed to the loss, so to speak.

The movie is sort of mysterious for the characters as they try to figure out what’s going on – they don’t seem too bothered by the incredible changes that have happened in their lives until the midway point – but the movie quickly becomes a canvas of the horrors of getting exactly what you want. Wishing for things to be other than they are is to wish for a very different world, and one that might not be comprehensible without the long, slow, uncertain process of moving through it over a period of years. Your fantasy coming true is a nightmare, as Lacan and Freud have tried to demonstrate. Even the big bad guy would rather have his horrifically imperfect life than his every desire coming true on demand.

The best moment in the film is the conversation about flying and how Diana is always mystified by it but Steve doesn’t really think about it much – he just does it because he enjoys it. What I didn’t get is the essential tension (that was unresolved) between the opening sport contest scene and the value of truth as taught to young Diana there, and this scene, that seemed to indicate that truth was a matter of perspective – with the right point of view, flying isn’t a problem. “Truth is all there is an all you need,” seems to be seems tough to accept along with merely adapting yourself to the wind and air – in the first, adapting to the situation is cheating, in the second that’s all there is.

Diana makes the right call and surrenders to Steve’s sophistic thinking and learns to “fly” literally and interpersonally – although the movie didn’t really communicate how she was adapting to the situation of Steve being gone again in that one last scene, but hinted that something was different. It would have been stronger had it been another person she ran into, but wearing that same outfit. Her openness and willingness to engage would have felt more of a change I think rather than more melancholy over Steve rather than the final chapter in mourning his passing. Flying is a very obvious, very telegraphed metaphor for “true freedom” and might have been better used as indicating healthy acceptance for change, loss, and imperfection. This film ran the risk of being like that terrible X-Men film with the blue guy where he tried to eliminate both nuclear weapons and capitalism and was defeated because the X-Men couldn’t imagine having friends or valuable relationships without the nation-state brokering those relationships in some way (particularly Xavier and Magneto, who are not role models of how to deal with illness, trauma, disability, and other such issues that the X-Men purport to address). Instead, the film shows that any counterfactual desire made real also comes with a huge amount of unconsidered difference. Wishing a good into the world comes with wishing all sorts of terrible other things.

Rise considers the tension between what you want to do and what you think your family wants you to do. This is something everyone has had to face multiple times in our lives, so there’s a good connection here. The thing that I was surprised by most in this film was how blatant the film was about indicating that all of these obligations we have toward, for, and about family are from our own mind. We imagine them all, then act on them as if they are real. Both of the main characters here, Kylo and Rey, react differently to their desires, reconsidering what their desire means again and again, only to wind up in the same place. Their final scene together is one curious answer: Desire really just wants to desire. Once you figure that out, you can make peace with it and fade away into obscurity (either very literally or by becoming a moisture farmer).

Rise of Skywalker did show the intergalactic pervasiveness of the Jeffersonian Ideal – let’s build a free and independent government so we can all return to our small farms and work the land, know the truth. Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) shows us that even the most devout Hamiltonian theorist is a human being in the end and worthy of praise for their actions, misguided as they were in terms of power, authority and (shudder) centralized authority.

Rey desires to not desire leading the Sith, which I thought would have been a great plot twist, considering the name of the film and Kylo Ren’s mother – he could have been the Skywalker that the title refers to as he comes to terms with his parental injunction and realizes that maybe dad had it right. That would have been a cool flip, but it was not to be. Rey does serve as a nice character for us to identify with, as we all fantasize about having this sort of terrible power and doing terrible things with it to the people who deserve punishment. She realizes though that she shouldn’t want this, which makes it worse (more desirable). It seems that to become a Jedi you have to realize that you do want to be all powerful, realize that’s not something that you should do (even though you can do it) and by deciding not to do it even though you really want it, you become a Jedi master. This seems to track with why Anakin failed too.

Both films are worth seeing if you haven’t seen them (now I’ve spoiled everything about them sorry) because they give us two pretty interesting models of what our attitudes should or can be when we are faced with a terrible notion: A desire for what we really want in our hearts coming to pass. Wanting a thing is often more pleasurable than actually getting it, and seeing up close what kind of horrible nightmare unfolds once you have what you (thought) you wanted.

If I have one thing that I want to establish over the course of next year is the elimination of the phrase “public debate.”

I used this term a lot without understanding the full implications of the insidious nature of this phrase. It’s used by those who are deeply involved in the world of tournament-contest debating in order to make what they do legitimate.

You will never hear those who support tournament debate call their work “tournament debate” – they use the term “debate” for it, referring to things made for general audiences as “public debate.” This is no accident.

What this does is make debate that is created for audiences about publicly interesting topics appear to be the diminished, non-real, trivial form of debating. “Real” debating is for elites; it is for those who know what true debate looks like. It takes years of hard work to master. It’s an exclusive realm for debate experts. Not only do they know the right arguments, they know the right topics too.

This is in direct contradiction to the art of rhetoric, which is always about audiences. The measure of a good argument is whether the audience buys it. It’s a thwarting of “real” debate to totally remove audience from the picture and then claim that you are studying how to make good speeches to move minds on an issue.

The centering of the bizarre practice of tournaments-as-debate has been accepted without critique by most rhetoric and communication scholars. To resist the centering of a very limited and very anti-rhetorical practice of debate, I believe we should stop saying “public debate.” The reason why is that debate necessitates a public in the form of the audience, which serves as a synecdoche for the public.

Instead of saying “public debate,” let’s indicate that this is “real” debate by calling it “debate.” That is, any debate for an audience on an issue that most debate coaches and tournament champions would consider boring, too simple, unfair, or “played out” is what debate is, and where it lives best (bios). And yes, debate can be characterized as a living thing. More on that in a future post.

For the tournament-centric model of debate, we should push that from the center by calling it “contest debate” or “sport debate.” I don’t think there will be much objection from the tournament-centric participants as they already envision themselves as participating in something they already envision as a metaphor of American intercollegiate football. The approach says it all.

Perhaps this is a triviality or a strange bone to pick. I believe in the power of words, the power of naming. For too long we in the debate world have used the phrase “public debate” without understanding it’s full and sinister implication of removing debate from the discourse forms that everyone should be able to engage in productively. By making it something elite, something that requires the ample time and resources of privilege to master, we have done a disservice to rhetoric, to communication. Perhaps a renaming is all we need to start a revolution in conceptualizing debate where it should be: Something base, something everyday, and something that anyone and everyone should be able to practice in their daily lives. Contest debate doesn’t offer that. We don’t casually hold pick-up debates like we do with basketball and football, even though there’s an NFL and an NBA? Why? There’s a lot less insecurity there, and a recognition that practicing the art, no matter the skill level, or the reason, is valuable. Tournament debate professionals have missed that insight by dismissing debate’s place, it’s heart – the art of rhetoric.