Debate

…or not. As in, no thank you. I have not and will not subject myself to what has devolved into bad reality TV. So if you were hoping for my take on it, my take is… don’t watch. But even if it hadn’t turned into something totally ridiculous, I still don’t think that debating has served us well as a…  I’m not sure I can call it a democratic society, but perhaps a society that aspires to be egalitarian at least in some way, or so we thought. Oh, snap. Now I’ve said something utterly sacrilegious. Here we go!

I’m not talking about the democratic part either. If you have yet to figure out that we do not live in a democracy, then you haven’t been listening to the Republicans. They are by no means hiding the fact. It’s right there in their name for crying out loud! Republicans are correct when they say that this country was founded as a republic, not a democracy. Incidentally, if you ever wondered why Republicans are called Republicans and Democrats are called Democrats, it’s because the former believe we should remain a republic and the latter believe we should become a democracy. It’s as simple as that. Ha! I was just being facetious in case you didn’t notice.

But I am not here to talk about whether or not we should be one or the other, not that I don’t have an opinion on that subject matter that you no doubt can guess. If you have never read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers or at least gone to see Hamilton, then I will direct you there to get clear on what each side was fighting for in the founding of this country. In the end they came up with something of a compromise, which is why it isn’t as simple as I joked above. But the sacrilegious thing that I want to talk about is the process of how the founding fathers came to their decision, the process upon which this country was founded – debate.

Now maybe some of you have been trained in the art of debate. Maybe you participated on the debate team of some institution of lower or higher learning. Maybe you even went through the holy grail of all debate education, law school. I did none of these things. Yet regardless, debate is baked into a liberal arts education. Trust me, it is, for all of you doubters who think that a liberal arts education is about becoming brain washed by liberals. It isn’t. Even as we debate what should and should not be respectfully allowed into our debates in such institutions, the process of learning is still very much based on debating the various ways of seeing an issue. 

The goal, of course, is to win the debate. That is to say, to prove that you are right and the other side is wrong. We practice this quite a lot at such places like my alma matter, Princeton, where large lecture courses are broken into small preceptorships of 10 or so people who meet once a week to, you guessed it- debate! Well, technically the term was “discuss.” But we all knew what that meant. Incidentally, I had the good fortune (sorry, I am particularly feisty these days) of ending up in a preceptorship for a course called American Political Thought with none other than my classmate Ted Cruz. Yes, yes I did. Ted, as you may or may not know, is a masterdebater. He’s a champ, actually, dating way back into his high school years, continuing through college, and right up into the holy grail of all holy grails, Harvard Law. Go, Ted. 

Or not. I never really understood what all of the hype was surrounding Ted’s debating skills, or anybody’s really for that matter. I am sorry all of you debaters out there. I just have to honestly say that I do not feel that this mode of communication is serving us well. In fact, I think it has a whole lot to do with what has led us to this complete, utter breakdown of communication that has us at an impasse that no amount of debating will ever get us out of. The only thing that it is going to get us into is an all-out war followed by extinction. Go, debaters. 

Not that I am immune from this disease. Yes, I just called debate a disease. I’m sorry. Those are fighting words, and I am finally, finally getting to this huge, critical, what I know will be a life-altering thing on my self-improvement, educational To Do List. I have started down the path of Nonviolent Communication (NVC for short). A couple of Marshall B. Rosenberg’s books just arrived a few days ago. Shannon and I each picked up one of the books and are in the process of swallowing them whole. If you have not studied or have never heard of NVC, please, please buy this book and/or sign up for an NVC course in your area:

Nonviolent Communication, Marshall B. Rosenberg

So while I am clearly no expert on this subject, I know enough to know that NVC can and should supplant debate as our process of decision making. Want to revolutionize education? Replace debate teams with NVC teams for starters. Why? Because debate emphasizes division and leads to either outright domination or life-numbing compromise, otherwise known as lose-lose decisions and outcomes. This country, for example, was founded on a compromise. We have always celebrated that fact and that process, until we finally got sick of it and decided that compromise is for the birds. And that much is true, metaphorically speaking- birds surely know better. Compromise sucks. Compromise, by definition, leads to devolution of the system. As in, it makes everything worse. 

The opposite of compromise is reconciliation. I’m sure I have talked about this before, but as a reminder, all decisions and hence actions are subject to the Law of Three. The Law of Three says that there is always an activating force and a restraining force at play in each and every decision. When those two forces move forward through a compromise, both sides lose, which is to say that neither one gets what they truly want. In NVC terms, each side has real needs and in the compromise nobody’s needs are met. Sound about right? When nobody’s needs are met, everything just gets worse. 

Reconciliation is the answer. Reconciliation of the activating and restraining forces causes the system and everyone in it to evolve. It does so because in reconciliation, everyone’s needs are met. They must be by definition. The solution, or strategy in NVC terms, must be a win-win. Let that sink in. Everybody must win. Does that sound like rocket science given the moment we are inhabiting? Don’t answer that. Just, please, please, PLEASE, go buy the book. No, scratch that. Let me practice a little NVC:

When we debate it makes me feel irritable, self-protective, self-righteous, and outright angry. What I need is connection, understanding, support, trust, empathy, emotional safety, and consideration. I further need the space to live into my own authenticity and autonomy. In short, I need to be surrounded by conditions that support my self-actualization so that I may give my gifts to the world, so that I might contribute to the actualization (evolution) of my ecosystem in a way that helps me to experience the connection that I needed in the first place (full circle). I need connection, people! Sorry, that last line wasn’t very NVC of me. 

Eh-hem. As I was saying, would you be willing to join me in studying and transitioning to Nonviolent Communication so that we might figure out a way of moving forward that will meet each of our needs in such a way that all of our lives are enriched and our most wonderful dreams come true? (Not being facetious, sincerely asking.)