Demise of Debate- death of oration and freedom of speech
By: Harini Gopalakrishnan
Tags: India, Greek Life, Liberalism, Debate, Politics

Credit: Picturequotes

The argumentative community

I grew up in India in somewhat conservative 80s. It was a time of transition as many kids of that generation would tell you. India was at a cusp — still holding onto its socialist past but beginning to hurl forth into the consumerist present. It was a time when children still played on the streets in sweltering summer heat before internet would gobble up them up into the virtual world. People ate dinner together, relatives flocked for festivals and annual visits to one’s native place included a gathering of cousins from different parts of the country. And in all this time, people argued. They debated. They were courteous and civil but they aired their points of view. And they did that at all locations, at your local tea shop, at marriage gatherings, at bus stops and at office spaces. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen describes the root of India’s debating history and origins in his anthology of essays which is aptly titled “The Argumentative Indian”. India was a society that thrived on debates and clashing points of view.

Growing up then, my inspiration in debates were largely drawn from the American electoral process. I loved how the two front running candidates from both parties would have a face off and express themselves articulately and respond to audience questions on their individual policies. This defined to me, an epitome of a political discourse and I aspired for this to be replicated in India. Not the two party system in particular but in what I then, albeit naively, thought was the extempore orations of the candidates in asserting their leadership.

With passing time and after starting to live in the US permanently, however, I see a simmering resistance in our abilities to raise point of views- especially those which are considered sacrosanct. There is a growing paranoia in people to say what they really think and a sense of forced political correctness in order to avoid being passed judgement upon. You cannot air an alternate point of view without being labelled a certain way. It became all or nothing. If one dare support Trump, say in matters of drug pricing, you would immediately be labeled as an islamophobe and red neck, when you would have been neither- just because supporting Trump is a representation of everything he endorses.

When did this fall occur- when did we go from a society that was able to express point of views freely to a society where another voice cannot be heard without being labelled as one way or another? Why does someone have to be left or right , a moron or an educated. What happened to the student politics in the universities where one could argue to both sides of the podium. And is this what Nietzsche prophesied when he quoted thus?

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

A journey into mediocrity

The lack of critical thought and reasoning is no less apparent today than in the mediocrity that oozes out in the modern day theaters. The theaters being the podiums with the candidates vying for presidency or the news room activists trying to make their points heard. It is an amalgamation of buzz words that are designed to capture a specific audience. Not a speech to stir the masses or to call for action but a speech to instigate one group or the other. It is but a sad spectacle of candidates chirping out canned responses. And it is the demise of articulation- the ability for individuals to express themselves without name calling.

The problem is not one sided and one cannot blame the liberals or the right for this demise. Time is too short and twitter characters are 280 though on an average it is said that one writes about 50 characters. Everyone has an opinion and everyone airs it without a qualm. And in this age of restricted characters and type spaces, age of sound bytes and short attention spans, one cannot elaborate on a point for more than what the constraints allow. It is said that the social media and news invasions emphasize the need for an accelerated ability for people to express themselves in a fast moving world. And of course our human brain has not evolved to construct a well thought out argument in a definite manner in the time span that our new society mandates. In the process we have lost the ability to reason and analyze. We have delved into what news makers call the “shoot and scout” attitude. You accuse someone, and it is left to the someone to defend themselves in another newsroom.

A historical perspective

By Lbeaumont — Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46851680

But is this march of the society away from critical arguments and towards factual brevity a more recent change? What was the place for debates in the historical schools in which ideologies clashed and evolved?

Philosophers as early as Socrates is said to have encouraged extensively, in what came later to be known as the elenctic method, a school which allows thoughts to be critically argued. As seen in the image above, Elenchus emphasized the need for one to arrive at a thought by arguing various hypothesis and eliminating each one by process of inquisition. Each question by the inquisitor, led to the consideration of a response by the interlocutor and better refinement of his ideology until one emerges where no further questions can be commonly ascertained. But this method was not left to Greek schools alone.

Adi Sankara debating Mandana Misra and his wife — Credit: Medium.com

In ancient India, schools were run based on analytical inferences or commentaries of previous of schools of thought which were commonly called “bashyams” (in Sanskrit meaning commentaries). And in order to testify the validity of one’s commentary which are essentially interpretations, there were public debates between philosophers that would open up their bashyams for questioning. This dais was called “vakya sadas” ( sadas= forum , vakya=phrase) in Sanskrit and this was where one philosophy argued the other and the arguments won the day. A leading example of such a debate having a profound impact on society is the one from Adi Sankara , the proponent of Advaitha. He went about his reformation of Hinduism which had basically delved into multiple sects and factions by debating with various groups and winning them as his disciples by well reasoned arguments. It was not war that reformed Hinduism and brought it back to mainstream life but debate and reasoning. More on such an interesting debate with Mandana Misra (image above) can be found here

Similarly southern India with its Dravidian culture , had a long running habit of “Pattimanram”, which in Tamil literally means, “debate stage”. A key topic of social relevance is argued upon by two teams with an arbitrator. The participants in both teams are generally well versed in Tamil and literature and bring forth their arguments referencing classical literature and modern medium, sprinkled with humors and innuendos. It is still done in large scale during festivals and draws a large audience. The arbitrator of these debates are equally famous and are generally household names. I think this is still one of the vestige remains of what was once a strong tradition of a debating society. However, the nature of the topics for debate have diluted in line with the political correctness stand of the modern world.

France, which one would consider as a leading beacon of light when it comes to social reforms by means of debate seems to be faltering as well(in an interesting note, the root of both the Tamil, i,e patti and French words for debate seems to come from a word meaning “beat”). France, with its flawless literary and oratory contributions where opinions clashed with ideals as they led the way to establishment of liberty, equality and fraternity, today is at a stage where opinions are no longer easy to share if not toeing the line of liberals. Not long ago during revolution and post war, there was a directness in French that bordered on political in-correctness. De Gaulle trashing the US and their hegemony over currency, Emille Zola accusing the French government over the Dreyfus affair with his famous J’accuse column, are pivotal examples of taking a stance against the majority view and one which did not win any brownie points with the liberals. They said it because they believed in what they said and it was received without resorting to name calling. But today, where is the place for one to air views on immigration reforms or the plight of working classes without being labeled “islamophobe” or a “socialist”. France seems to be following the US and US is already degenerating in its quest to be the most politically correct nation in the world.

Clip from French Revolution movie- showing an example of Robespierre's oratorical skills- skills that defined France

In conclusion

I think it is time to bring back the saddles from the past. Lets go back to school, lets go back to basics. Let there be a vocation, a forum, a platform where orchestrated debates and both the left and right point of views can be expressed. Let audience be the judge and vote. It is mandatory in school curriculum for a person to be able to talk on all policies without being labelled and character assassinated for his or her views. Only then can a society arrive at a solution collectively to the hatred that seems to simmer within. Only a society that arrives at a conclusion based on collective reason, a society that instills the ability to articulate all points of view, a society where no one is discouraged because of what he thinks, can be a society that will truly be enlightened as envisioned in the years of the past. I end it by borrowing the words of Nietzsche again and he says

“There are no facts, only interpretations”