Tough Love Friday/Saturday: Five Questions for Potty-Mouthed Debaters and Put-Downers

Debate is a fun and enriching experience.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I find myself in them every day, picking on the tiniest of things that people say and bringing them to a crystal-clear projection of their overall worldview.  That really is, I think, the point of informal debates at least:  we want to understand why someone disagrees with us, and then seek using our logic (and, for the more sophisticated of minds, theirs) to persuade someone that they are misguided.  The point is not abrasion, but persuasion.  Through debate we gain intellectual respect and admiration for our counterparts, whether we agree or disagree at the end, and build friendships based on common interest.

That being said, there comes a time in someone's life when they feel that their knowledge has surpassed that of those around them.  This advancement leads to the assertion that the aforementioned budding intellectual now has exponentially higher levels of cognition and empathy than those around them, and that it no longer follows that one can reasonably disagree with them.  If only that person across the table or bar understood everything I learned or studied in college... if only he/she read who I read or listened to who I listened to... if only he/she wasn't a backward thinking, f**king r****ded caveman, maybe I'd be able to stomach him/her.  This is the conceit of intelligence:  that it brings an air of superiority that entitles one to respect that they, in turn, do not have to share with others who do are not perceived to be of the same intellect.

Let me start with a basic assumption:  some of you will agree with me, others will disagree.  I assume that people who use profanity and insults display a lack of intelligence.  Coach Bob Knight (Youtube clip here, obvious warning for foul language) once famously quipped that "f**k" captures more forms of expression than any other word in the English language, and on balance I think he's right.  What better way to accentuate, in a vulgar and crude fashion, how you feel about a given situation?  People use it when they're happy, when they're upset, when they want to strengthen a point, the list goes on.  However, what doesn't change in my brain is the acrimony that I feel every time someone blurts it out in a relaxed, intellectual atmosphere.  There are so many words in the English language that can be substituted for it, yet some people feel the need to verbally batter their counterparts by utilizing it.  Today's Tough Love post is a list of five simple questions to the person who feels the need to embarrass their friends and colleagues by using the "f-word" in intelligent conversation and call names.

1.  (Puzzle) You've presumably spent most of your professional life attempting to earn respect from your peers.  Why, then, should someone who disagrees with you be expected to respect your view if you bash theirs with foul language?

2.  Do you expect to persuade anyone by shrieking or using foul language?  

3.  Do you believe that your catharsis, best manifest through the frequent dropping of F-bombs or calling someone stupid, has any impact on the strength of your case?

4.  How would you feel if someone returned the favor and started swearing at you?

5.  If you feel that tolerance is a virtue, and that we should coexist in a world where people acknowledge their differences and get along, do you believe after a particularly emotional rant that any of your audience should take you seriously?

My advice/inspiration for today comes from the brutality and barbarity that we see in fistfights, especially when intelligent men and women resort to physical violence in the chambers of a government building.  A majority of the developed world lives in representative democracies and constitutional republics, and we naturally recoil when we see our representatives and senators engaging in violence where they are supposed to persuade in order to pass legislation.  I encourage my intelligent and/or argumentative friends to take a step back and truly ask themselves what are their aims when they enter into a debate or intellectual conversation.  Sometimes our emotions just get the better of us, and I understand that we all get frustrated.  However, seek to persuade before you demean.  Seek to convince before you batter.  Seek to respect your peers, even if they don't walk away sharing your worldview.  My mother always told me that "You get a lot more in life with honey than you do with vinegar," and I take that to heart when I speak to people I disagree with.  I can't expect that my words (in particular, this post) are going to fall on receptive ears, but I can establish at least where I come from.