The Struggle with Debating
And how different Japanese argument structure and logic is.
If you ever get the chance to get into a debate with a home-grown Japanese person, you’ll quickly realize it’s not the most exciting experience. Culturally there is an overarching expectation to avoid confrontation, which means that it will be tough to get a strong opposing opinion to whatever topic you’re trying to discuss. If you do find someone who has mustered up the courage to take the other side of the podium and tell you outright that they disagree, their reasoning of the why and how may be so unclear that you’ll probably leave the conversation feeling that you had the better and more convincing argument anyways, without too much reflection on the fact that maybe they weren’t able to fully convey what was really going through their minds.
This disconnect in debating happens because Japanese are taught to construct their arguments using a totally different logical flow from what we take for granted. Understanding this key difference may help not necessarily to win debates, because I’m sure you would have won anyhow either by presenting a valid argument and genuinely getting the other side to agree, or because the poor Japanese person simply gives up trying to explain his or her view that they succumb to your wills and ways (at least on the surface).
When we think of “debate”, I think for many of what first comes to mind are the political debates we watch on TV, like the Presidential Debates, or our memories of debate class from high school. In either case, opposing sides are expected to give sound arguments to a set of questions or issues, and to be able to explain these logically, and the “better” team is awarded with more votes at the polls or a piece of paper with some signatures and a gold star. But how do we come to agree on who is better? The logic behind debate is developed much earlier on in our education, through our study of the essay.
Introduction — Body — Conclusion. We learn this in primary school, and it’s so simple we take it for granted. Now if we slightly build on this principle in the context of debate, we know that debating means arguing, so we construct an argumentative essay. So going forward a couple of years in our scholastic education we have the structure: Introduction — Argument 1 — Argument 2 — Opposing Argument — Conclusion. Now you must be thinking, oh my god, this is so basic, why are you talking about this? Any my point is, Japanese are not taught this! Our foundations are fundamentally different.
The ideal structure for an argumentative essay in Japan is based on a structure called Kisho-Tenketsu (起承転結). This roughly translates to: Introduction — Development — Twist — Conclusion. As you can see, there is no explicit “argument” in the argumentative essay. That’s not to say writing in this format doesn’t make a point. The argument is still there, but the emphasis is to ease into convincing the reader, rather than our “Argument 1, Argument 2…” style where we in a sense pound the table with reasons why we are right.
This contrast is probably best understood with a very simple example. Let’s say we are asked to debate on whether we should ban gasoline cars, and we take the affirming side.
Method 1:
Introduction — Argument 1 — Argument 2 — Opposing Argument — Conclusion
Introduction: We need to protect the environment. One of the most important ways is by banning gasoline cars.
Argument 1: Gasoline cars are bad for the environment because they emit CO2.
Argument 2: We already have zero-emission electric vehicles available in the consumer market.
Opposing Argument: It’s true that newer gasoline car models emit less hazardous materials, and that electric cars don’t perform as well as gas cars, but the environment is suffering so it is imperative we strive for zero emissions as soon as possible.
Conclusion: We need to protect the environment, so we must ban gasoline cars.
Method 2:
Introduction — Development — Twist — Conclusion
Introduction: There are two types of cars in the consumer market, gasoline cars and electric cars.
Development: Gasoline cars emit CO2 and perform well. Electric cars emit nothing, but can’t travel as fast and as long as gasoline cars.
Twist: We know that protecting our environment is an increasingly important issue. Therefore, we must consider the difference between these two types of cars, even while gasoline cars become more efficient.
Conclusion: Banning gasoline cars is a decision which must be considered.
Completely different right? There are some key differences that I think are particularly important. One is that, in the Japanese method, there is no clear divide between arguments. Argument 1 and Argument 2 are equally important in making the point of banning the cars, so they are stuck together in the Development section. Another point is that, you have no idea what the essay’s stance is until the very end! This is a great reflection of Japanese society and culture, where people are very indirect in stating their opinions, forcing you to search for clues. The argumentative essay is no different. In fact it’s the same case in Japanese grammar, where the verb falls at the end of the sentence. So like this essay, you won’t know for sure what’s going on until you hear them out. Last point is, did the Japanese essay structure kind of sound like a story to you? The logical flow is so smooth that it’s almost kind of like reading a short story… Excellent observation for anyone who picked that up, because the word Kisho-Tenketsu is in fact a Chinese principle, which was designed to help structure scholars write poetry. It’s very interesting how that ended up being the foundations of essay writing in Japan.
As you can see, the very principles that we think are universal are in fact not. Given we learn our logical flow so early in our education it may be hard to comprehend that others with a non-Western education can think otherwise. Hopefully the above juxtaposition will help you to be more understanding of others when they are expressing an opinion which may sound incoherent or like no opinion at all.
And as a side note, for those with some knowledge of Japan, yes, Japanese are not oblivious to our basic argumentative essay structure. But it is taught as logic for debate, not logic for argument. Debate classes are available in college, and only very good high schools will frequently include debates in their curriculum. So the logic of presenting and refuting individual arguments is not internalized in Japanese thinking as it is with us, which if you are not considerate of can lead to some unfortunate miscommunications.
