(The computer accessory, not the rodent. Unless you’re a terrible person.)
The problem is that what passes as an argument in the age of digital media and cable news isn’t always an argument. Confused?
Well, let’s say that I believe butter pecan is an excellent and delicious ice cream that should be enjoyed by everyone. (Which happens to be true). However, if given the choice, some people would rather eat vanilla ice cream. I feel this is wrong on a gut level, but to convince others, I need to provide reasons. Clearly, some sort of argument is called for.
Here’s one way I could approach it:
Butter pecan is a better ice cream than vanilla, due to the sophistication and complexity of its flavors. Whereas vanilla merely offers a single tone to the tip of your tongue, butter pecan is a veritable orchestra of flavor. One key difference between the diets of humans and lower animals is that while animals almost always consume one single item at a time -- grass, an antelope, etc. -- humans are capable of combining and blending multiple ingredients with multiple flavors. This ability to understand and appreciate complexity is a bedrock of civilization. A single note does not a melody make, and likewise, a single brush stroke doesn’t form a complete painting. To choose butter pecan ice cream is not only to enjoy a better dessert -- it’s to be more human.
This argument isn’t airtight, and other people could easily disagree with some of my premises. (We're talking about ice cream, for crying out loud.) But it is an active attempt to explain why I believe my position is the correct one. Delivering an argument, even a good one, won’t result in instant victory. It should, however, make your opponent think about what they believe, and come up with a response that deals with your assertions in a substantive way. The end result is that players on both sides of the argument are forced to develop their ideas with increasing complexity, and perhaps even cede certain points, if they must.
Unfortunately, all this complexity can be mentally exhausting. It’s almost, like, you have to think about things. This is where a second strategy comes in. A very popular strategy. This method of argumentation relies on proving something’s badness (or goodness) due to its mere association with a certain time period or group of people, and makes frequent references to either inevitable progress, or an idealized past. The “progressive” version of the argument would go something like this:
Lovers of vanilla ice cream want to send us back to the 1800s with a regressive flavor that reeks of a paternalistic society. In the last few decades, we’ve made strides toward a greater diversity of flavors in our ice cream, but the persistence of the vanilla crowd frequently makes me ashamed to be an ice cream eater. When our almost-certainly-butter-pecan-loving grandchildren look back at this moment in our history, they’ll wonder why it took us so long to give up the hatefully mono-flavored dessert that plagues us today. Stand up for butter pecan. Stand up for the truth.
The tone of this argument suggests that its author is very passionate about something, but doesn’t know why. So, reason is substituted with outrage, in an attempt to disguise the fact that there are no substantive arguments being offered. Rather than trying to attract a strong response from its opponent, the goal of this statement is to make people who agree with it feel righteous, and opponents feel ashamed about their life choices. Arguments like this also tend to be based on a painfully cheapened view of history that can only be accepted if you’ve never studied it.
In other words, it’s not really an argument at all. It’s noise.
I think it’s reasonable to believe that some things people did in ye olden times were wrong. Olden-times-people, like modern-times-people, were a little messed up, and sometimes had bad ideas. However, the very fact that a certain view was held by people in the past doesn’t make it wrong. Conversely, the fact that a certain view was held by people in the past doesn’t make it right.
So, if a liberal tells you that conservatives are wrong because they want take us back to the 1950s, or some other sinister time period, you should politely tell them that this isn’t an argument, and make them restate their case in terms of actual reasoning.
And if a conservative tells you that something is right because our leaders in the 1700s said it was, you should remind them that politicians in the 1700s were still just people, and they would probably be disappointed in such a shoddy argument.
After all, this is the 21st century! People who lean on chronological snobbery or golden age thinking will end up taking us back to the Manchu dynasty. Instead, we should return to the perfection of classical Greece, where reason and virtue reigned on jewel-studded thrones.
And we should all eat more butter pecan ice cream. It rocks in a big way.
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