To America: Learn to Argue

Just the other day, we had an argument, Carmen, Dave, Kris and I – a loudvoiced, passion-pushing barnburner. It was in McDonald’s. At one point Dave was defending his position at a loud volume, loud enough to embarrass Carmen and Kris. That was my favorite part (because every other time, it’s Carmen snorting until the kitchen has to ask if there are any loose swine they missed for the pork sandwich special ). Dave made his points forcefully and defended them well. I was on the offensive, drawn out by Carmen’s challenge to state my position on an issue, tackling a subject we have touched before but left on the surface, like an onion waiting to be peeled so its potency can be felt.

What were we arguing about? It doesn’t matter. The point is that we each had a different take, we deeply believed we were right (but not so much we can’t learn) and we never came to full agreement. And we were in the studio the next day, on the show, interacting personally as if it never happened, only with a deep respect for the complexity of each individual and a deeper praise to Jesus for choosing to bring us together as a team and as beloved brothers and sister. I think our country could learn something from our argument.

The political posturing and power plays that followed the tragic shooting in Arizona that left six people dead and thirteen wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is a sign that we-the-people no longer know how to argue. Let me offer a few principles that apply to argumentation in general in the hopes that they will add a sprinkle of sanity to our public discourse:

1. The principle of fairness – You can’t have a good argument if you are only interested in besting your opponent, no matter who gets slaughtered along the way. A decent argument begins by refusing to caricature your opponent’s position, by granting him or her an interpretation that tries to make sense of the position they are stating. To do this, you should practice re-stating your opponent’s position in a way he or she would agree with: “Yes, that’s what I am saying.”
   
   
2. The principles of sound reasoning – Good arguments can’t be built on passion or rhetoric (verbal flare), so we have to guard against arguments that make points based on:
   
   

   a. The threat of force – If we feel strongly, we may express ourselves loudly or in a physically demonstrative way; that is fine, but taking advantage of an opponent by trying to dominate him or her with your voice or body is unfair and unreasonable. (Dave didn't violate this!)

   b. The popularity of the position – It’s easy to take a stand on the majority position, which is why it was so hard for Christians to stand against the Holocaust in Germany. A position is right if it’s right, regardless of how many people think otherwise.

   c. The popularity of the speaker – If this were the basis for making a reasoned argument, Carmen would win every time. She doesn’t (always). Who makes the argument has little to do with how sound the argument is, unless that person is an authority on the subject. Even then, his or her popularity doesn’t make the case.

   
   
3. The principle of arguing for truth, not victory – Jesus argued with the Pharisees. Paul argued with the philosophers in Athens. Arguments are good and godly, provided they are battles waged to bring BOTH you and your opponent closer to the truth rather than blitzkriegs designed for total destruction, where only you are left standing. Whatever I feel about Dave’s position, a perspective he and Carmen share on the issue we attacked, I learned a lot about the strengths and weakness of my own position, and I was driven back to my need to be able to articulate and defend why I believe what I do.

With these principles in place, individuals and groups (like Democrats and Republicans, for example) can argue loudly and forcefully, passionately disagreeing, and we will all come out the victors with the country still intact.

In terms of democracy, the worst thing that can come from the Arizona shooting is a new “politically correct” carefulness (read: censorship) rather than vigorous, even passionate public debate. I do find that very few politicians, entertainers or media commentators take the time or make the effort to argue fairly, reasonably and truthfully. Most are Machiavellian, preferring power to the pursuit of pure, precise propositions. And I don’t really think this blog post will change anything; still, I know things can change. I saw a living example in the argument my team and I had just the other day.

Independence: A Thing of the Past?

"What (do you think) is necessary for a nation to maintain its liberty?” I threw that question on the family lunch table on Independence Day.

This is dad’s idea of fun.

The teenagers, as you might expect, seized the opportunity for sarcasm with retorts like, “a Taco Bell on every corner” and “less of these kinds of questions!” But then Kimberly chimed in with, “How about people willing to pay the price for freedom?” and the conversation took on a more serious cast. Freedom, as we should all know, isn’t free.

But beyond the consideration of the price of freedom, my question had to do with maintaining independence. This question is important because every generation faces the opportunity to improve what is inherited. I worry that the America my children inherit and leave to their children may be less free, less independent than the America I inherited from my fathers. And it’s partly my fault.

I was taught the values and virtues of freedom and independence, which were inextricably American. America was “the land of the free and the home of the brave” precisely because we all loved freedom as much as life and had something worth being brave for. We knew we weren’t beyond reproach (this was the era of Vietnam and Nixon), but we still saw ourselves as the best experiment in liberty in world history, as possessing something that needed to be defended and preserved for the good of the world, not just ourselves.

My children are not learning the same lessons or inheriting the same values. Neither are yours. Our universities and academies have turned the self-critique of our democratic society into the rhetoric of self-hatred. My generation is staying silent while the flag of anti-Americanism is daily raised, anthemed and pledged in the media and in the halls of higher learning. The newly-enlightened oligarchy seem to be shifting the foundation-stones of our whole country. Hollywood is helping, by supplying the erosion of constant amusement together with destructive narratives condemning American institutions of both God and country (supply your own list of examples by visiting Blockbuster).

After a bit of reflection on the whole matter of maintaining independence, it seemed to me that I could identify at least three large ideas on which America as a free and independent nation rests. First, the kinds of foundational freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights seemed fundamental to our forefathers and should be considered the same by us. Freedom of speech, assembly, religion, etc. cannot be sacrificed without our independence being lost. Yet today, with various laws and proposals as well as the new bigotry and prejudice of political correctness, we have caused some of these fundamental freedoms to collapse under their own weight, exchanging rights for guarantees.

Second, being a nation of laws, organized around a constitution rather than a personality or a dynasty makes America one of the greatest political experiments in history. The conditions for such a nation to work have included a sense of personal morality and responsibility, along with the presumption of an adequately educated and informed population. We need to meet these conditions in every generation if we are to remain free and independent. Leaders and followers today place way too much emphasis on popularity and individual charisma. What we get, then, is snake-oil salesmen rather than statesmen. No wonder we elect them, then we want to stone them, a bit like the crowd who wanted to crown Jesus, then a week later shouted, “Crucify him.”

Finally, we need to remember that our sovereignty is derived, not intrinsic. We have the right to be independent because we have been “endowed by our Creator” with inalienable rights. Though the Declaration of Independence stops short of articulating a fully Christian perspective at that point, its language can be (and clearly was) read and understood in a Christian framework. Admitting the Christian character of colonial America is not, however, where the argument ends. For the genius of America is in informing an Enlightenment vision of liberty and freedom with the industry, morality, and shared culture of a godly people. That is why I cringe when I hear Christians responding to questions of liberty and maintaining independence with answers like “elect only Christians” or “get prayer back in schools.” Those are theocratic answers, not democratic ones.

Of all people since the first generations of Americans, we need to refresh the values and vision of Americanism in our own minds and in teaching our children. Americanism is not a term of intolerance and backwards bigotry, but rather of true independence and personal ideals. We are a nation of humility before God, laws over kings, and fundamental freedoms. If we can understand these things, embrace them and pass them on, then maybe there is hope for the next generation.

Back To Your Corner!

Interesting off-air experience on The Morning Cruise this morning: Dave and I picked up the phone during a song, just after a break we did on some remarks made yesterday by President Bill Clinton. Seems that the former President was quoted as recently throwing out a hypothetical: "Suppose you're a voter, and you've got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don't think that candidate can deliver anything. Candidate Y you agree with on about half the issues, but he can deliver. Which candidate are you gonna' vote for?" I paraphrased this, then suggested a universal experience. You know how you listen to something as it comes out of your mouth, and a half second later you say, "Whoops, that might be taken the wrong way!" Apparently, that happened to Clinton, who, realizing Senator Hillary Clinton was about to make her speech at the DNC said, "This has nothing to do with what's going on now." To me, the mishap seems very human and slightly humorous. Not so to our friend on the phone.

Phone rings, we answer: "Hi, The Morning Cruise."

"Hey. I've been listening to you guys for a while now. You really should stick to your mission and not talk about politics!"

"Uhhh..."

Click. Drone.

Oh well, it was a critical call. We get those from time to time. No worries. I do wish the guy had engaged us in conversation, though. Instead he threw the grenade and bolted (a common tactic in spousal communications, by the way, and not very effective). I don't know if he was angry, in a hurry, driving or just dropped the phone. Anyway, while I have no problem with this gentleman's distaste for our content, I do have a problem -- a big one -- with the underlying pre-supposition that a "religious" station should avoid certain topics of conversation. Now, I've been doing this job for a while, and I know there are certain topics that our target audience finds so distasteful they should generally be avoided. Politics is one of them. So why did I do this, and what's my problem with the caller's criticism? I did the story because while the content was politics, the subject was the universal experience of foot-in-mouth moments. My problem with the criticism is the implication that our mission disallows us to share an observation or opinion about what's going on in the world of U.S. politics, or any other "secular" subject, for that matter.

That mentality illustrates what's been wrong with American Evangelical Christianity for the last 80 years. Rejecting our call to arms in the culture wars following the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies and the embarassing 1925 Scopes trial, we built ourselves a religious ghetto, safe from the messy conflicts in the real world "out there." I had a small opportunity today, as part of our mission, to counter that isolationist tendency. If you heard the break (around 9:25 A.M.), you know I was very careful to use the honorific titles President and Senator, I did not voice any partisan position and I used President Clinton's faux pas to illustrate something "we all do."

Don't you think we need Evangelical Christians to model respectful, engaged interaction with the real world machinations of our democratic republic? I thought Rick Warren did an excellent job of it with Senators Obama and McCain during the Saddleback Civil Forum. True, he was "civil," and roundly criticized for it in the unimaginative media. Yet hundreds of comments I read highlighted the beauty of a discussion with two political rivals that did not focus on rhetoric and rivalry, but substantive issues like character flaws, personal and national values and the dynamics of world leadership. I couldn't even tell if Rick was a Democrat or a Republican. I just knew he was interested and engaged. He had a platform, and he used it to benefit humanity -- everyone, not just the activist crowd.

There really is no interest on The Morning Cruise, or The JOY FM for that matter, in more political content or commentary. There are plenty of media outlets that can supply political news, views...bruise and snooze, whatever. What I am scrapping for in this rant is the right to perform our mission, "encouraging people and strengthening the church," by refusing to stay in the "religion" corner. The day any subect of real life in the real world (suited for our family audience) becomes in principle off-limits is the day we fail to fulfil our mission. Chuckling at our shared humanity encourages people. Demonstrating respectful, aware, engaged interaction with the leading news of the day equips Christians for dialogue with the real world and thus strengthens the church.

I only wish the gentleman who called would have been willing to have this conversation rather than simply relegate us to the well-marked, easy to manage corner of his mind reserved for "religion." God help us if we have to stay there.