“Everyone seems open-minded until you get to know them.”
Understanding behaviours and attitudes at a debate.
In the foggy morning of mid-spring at New York City, Nix family, with crates full of tomatoes in their trade boat, arrived at a city’s port getting ready to import their fresh harvest. After minutes of their usual routines, the port’s collector, Edward Hedden, asked to pay tax for all of their harvest under the provision of the Tariff Act legislated four years ago. Three months of hard work meant so much to Nix family that they asked Hedden if he could classify their products as “fruits” in order to avoid being taxed for their harvest. Several tries weren’t enough to convince Mr. Hedden, so the taxation led Nix family’s financial situation to reach stalemate. Several years of tries and trials escalated this case to U.S. Supreme Court titled “Nix v. Hedden.” Today, this case is internationally recognized as the great tomato debate of 1893. It is an infamous debate, which hinged on whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.
see — http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/149/304/case.html
Today, there are still some groups of people debating on whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. According to botanists, a vegetable is defined as a plant with virtually all of its parts being edible, which includes leaves, stems, roots, bulbs, and buds (e.g., lettuce, celery, cabbage, cauliflower, onion and the like). And fruits are defined as a plant with seeds developed from the ovary at the base of a flower, and as a plant with juicy, sweet and fleshy parts surrounding its seeds. Under this definition, tomato is a fruit, but what about sweet peppers, cucumbers, corns, eggplants and the like? (which also have seeds!) Under such definition, these are considered as fruits as well? No — according to experienced farmers — because tomatoes “like vegetables” grow on stems, stalks or roots! At the end of the extended debates deconstructing food categories, U.S. Supreme Court (as always pragmatic then as they are now) classified a tomato as a vegetable, based on its use by cooks and its product at the dining table.
When we look at a hundred year old debate like this, to some of us, it sounds laughable and insignificant. But it was so important to Nix family that it required scientists, linguists, experienced farmers, botanists, and chefs to settle the dispute. When we look at this from the grand scheme of things, did the truth about a tomato as a fruit or a vegetable really matter? One can easily argue that Nix family is simply arguing for the sake of avoiding the duty to pay tax, and not because they are genuinely interested in tomato as a fruit. Amongst many other attitudes, this kind of attitude towards any debates is blatantly evident in almost all of the intellectual arenas and academic fields; hence, I’m going to be critiquing bluntly and rigorously about some of the attitudes at a debate.
1) Pointing Fingers — When I observe someone arguing or ‘argumentatively’ debating, the motif I notice in a debater is ‘the table-turning tactic.’ It usually happens when a person looks mildly frustrated by another person. It can be said as a defence mechanism at a debate, but it’s also seen as a quick wit. e.g., “if relativism is true, then the claim supporting relativism is relativized under its own provision”; “if a belief in a god is a religious act, then a disbelief can be said to be a religious act as well;” and “if opinion is a product of a worldview cultivated by cultural upbringing, then that claim can be said to be the product of cultural upbringings as well.” It’s quite easy to unveil the debater’s double standard with this effective tactic, but also it brings a dialectic to stalemate. A person “X” can easily accuse a person “Y” for interrupting X’s stream of thoughts or a state of peace, and Y can also accuse X by saying that X is failing to cooperate at a discussion. This is the case of two people quarrelling with each other about who’s right and who’s wrong; they are, in the end, immaturely pointing fingers at each other and not rationalizing anything. The table-turning tactic is a trivial matter and at best it’s a quick wit in a debate; however, there will be neither educational nor progressional result arriving from it.
2) Shooting His Own Foot — Talking against vegetables as a carnivore, talking against a home country as a foreigner, and even talking against sexual exploitation can not only insult its supporters but also a third party who shares no similar belief. Nowadays people get offended by anything and everything even if they are not the proponent of an “intellectually victimized” community or a belief. (just watch the debate on the topic of homosexuality) When I was in undergrad, I had a discussion with the president of York University, Dr. Mamdouh Shoukri, regarding the underprivileged and the victims in the third world countries. When I mentioned the fact that there are a lot of victims in the middle east countries due to a plethora of violence caused by politically minded groups of people, he responded by saying that I was being racist and I (somehow) offended him. At the time, I was confused, because I thought that racism has to do with the colour of skin or the people from specific heritage, which was not the part of our discussion. I didn’t understand how it was racist and offensive to state the fact, which is currently occurring. Should I be offended by his lack of comprehension skill? Should I be insulted by his inability to understand the standard, by which to accuse a claim to be racist? I can clearly detect something being wrong in this discussion, and it’s definitely not my factual statement. Shooting himself in a foot to induce my sense of guilt, and cause an end to my unfinished thoughts is just as rude and offensive as his offended feeling induced by his poor comprehension skill. This mostly has to do with the lack of focus in the topic of discussion or the inability to relate ideas accordingly. A lot of people do not realize that a listener has a greater responsibility than a speaker.
3) A bait in debate — In every debate, there is at least one moment when you know for certain that he or she is debating for the sake of debating. It is happening not only when a debater is begging the question, but also when he or she is subtly injecting flattery into his arguments to win the hearts of the audience. A basic trick from a marketing business is sometimes used in academic arenas in order to recruit the hearts of the superficial and intellectually impatient audience. And sadly, audience, with a pretentious attitude towards a debate (thinking that they are the best judge between two sides), is too quick to judge an argument without carefully considering the debater’s additional expositions and specified contexts. Usually when accusers throw a bait (a curve ball) to catch and to show the weakness of their opposition, the accusers ask questions or assert statements that show less personal interests and more interests in ‘predictably’ the weak responses from their opposition. e.g., “do you agree that the religion, you subscribe to, caused a lot of violence in the past?” ”What do you think is your best option now, after you demonstrated all of the failures you committed over the past 10 years?” ”How can you honestly believe that, given that your political belief is valid, a good result will come out of it?” These cases are also known as “cornering-a-person” at a debate. To me, it seems like it is used to raise the credentials and one’s status in debating arenas.
4) An emperor of the room — “The onus of proof is always in a theist’s hand,” “I’m not satisfied with your well-supported presentation,” and “I don’t think you meet the criteria for validity with that kind evidences.” We’ve all met those pretentious students or fastidious speakers who are expecting to be intellectually satisfied from others rather than satisfying others with their rationale. Some of those people essentially talk their way into such “high-and-mighty” position, which is an intellectual and a social position above everyone else in the debate room. He or she tend to talk as if everyone must somehow rise up to his or her level of understanding in order to be considered by him or her. Even those who are subtly climbing up to such position, they tend to appear obvious when they ask rhetorical questions. Whenever I get the impression that such person is being intellectually arrogant, I try to fix his or her attitude by being dismissive towards any assertions they posit (Or brush off their assertions as an insignificant statement). In the back of my head I’m asking, “who do you think you are, carrying such a high expectation from others.” We are now past the days of the defenders, being used to sit at the dock of an academic court room. In this information age, majorities are exposed to so much knowledge from internet and media that there are few people who delude themselves as an expert in a field they know nothing about in details. Those who take pride in an instantaneous-expertise are convincing themselves to think that they are no longer in the dock, but rather fastidious emperors judging everyone’s rationale excluding their own as an exception.
5) Assuming a victory — Near the end of a debate session, there are at least few people who talk amongst themselves as if their side has already won. They failed to realize that the topic of discussion is debatable, which means that such concept or belief is neither ready to internalize nor ready to believe without finalizing its conclusion. They tend to posit statements in such ways that they sound like they have been right all along. E.g., “They are living sad lives. I feel sorry for them! They are so stubborn to understand neoliberalism (assuming that neoliberalism is right and everyone needs to agree with it),” “These religious believers are so delusional! They are not opening their eyes to the facts of reality (assuming that the position of unbelief is the absolute truth and disagreement to it prevents a person from ‘opening-his-eyes’),” and “I guess we can never know the truth about this universe. Staying with this belief keeps us intellectually humble enough to learn more about the mysteries of this universe (assuming that ignorant and agnostic position is blatantly obvious and right).” People who assume the victory of their position tend to think that their opposition is either stubborn, closed-minded, living a sad life (as if they know the objective standard to a good life), delusional, and/or extremely ignorant. However, the reality is that those who think those irreverent thoughts about their opposition are in fact stubborn, closed-minded, delusional, and ignorant to see the fault in their own belief system (whether it is political, economical, religious, cultural, or any other topic of issues). I find that there are a lot of intellectually impatient people who are not self-reflective, self-observant, or self-analytical about their position in any debate topic and in their belief system.
Based on the assumption that human beings are emotional, paradoxically both rational and irrational, impatient, selfish, egotistical, divisive, defensive, and stubborn creatures, I know for a fact that almost everyone is arguing or argumentatively debating for the sake of winning in an intellectual arena and being glorified for their presumably “a large effort” they thought they contributed to a debate. I believe that these five attitudes at a debate is just a surface to what these human beings are trying to hide. I haven’t expounded on ‘sarcasms,’ ‘acting-tough,’ ‘faking confidence,’ ‘ridicule,’ and many other debate tactics, which are used to hide the weakness of the debater. Many modern intellectuals do not understand that the idea of debating was largely influenced by the ancient Greeks’ pursuit of knowledge and actualization of truth. Throughout history, motivations at a court of justice somehow amalgamated with motivations at an academic setting assuming that winning is more important than the pursuit of truth and knowledge. I believe that the modern intellectuals and the potential intellectuals should be more patient and understanding, because we can argue without being argumentative, and defend without being defensive; however, sadly, it is pointless to argue with people who simply want to win at a debate.
“Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” — G.K. Chesterton.
written by James L. 09/2013
