Is there a good way to handle a toxic argument? Life Hacks by Charles Assisi

What was intended to be a debate among friends got ugly the other day; swear words were hurled and voices raised until finally a truce was enforced when our respective spouses intervened. What got this going was a policy announcement by the government. There were those for it, and others against it. For the record, I was against.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that the raised voices and name-calling were uncalled-for. I ought to have walked out of the conversation. Instead, I chose to remain engaged in what I thought would be healthy debate.

Why did I make that choice? I think it had something to do with my oft-stated stance in favour of freedom of speech. By staying engaged in a conversation that had spiralled out of control, though, I now feel like I was failing myself and those ideals.

It’s true that I consider myself a liberal. I’m always light-heartedly quoting Voltaire’s: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Given how often I’ve said those words, if I walked out, the opposition argued, I would lose the right to call myself a liberal.

It’s the same kind of bait certain ‘news’ anchors use on television, to great dramatic effect.

How could I do better to avoid the ugliness the next time around? In order to answer that question, I decided to dig a little deeper into the origins of some of our contemporary notions of free speech. Most of them can be traced back to the 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill. He didn’t concern himself with what governments did or thought. Instead, he was concerned with how we behave as individuals, in our daily lives. And some of the questions he raised in his book On Liberty, published in 1859, feel more relevant than ever, in our age of fake news, WhatsApp, Facebook and social media.

These can be brutish places where the crassest voices prevail. Here then are some notes from Mill, paraphrased, that I found to be fairly sound for our age.

1. Someone’s idea may seem controversial today. It may currently be a minority opinion. That doesn’t make it any less worthy as an opinion. Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton were both once thought of as insane.

2. It is impossible for any one individual to know the full truth. By listening to everyone, it is possible to capture portions of a truth that may otherwise elude you.

3. Never attack a person — only an idea.

Now that I look back on the ugly argument, I realise that all of Mill’s prescriptions were violated. Why did this happen? For answers, I turned to Jason Stanley, philosopher and professor at Yale University. He’s pointed out that Mill’s rules work in an ideal world where you agree to disagree upon “a shared set of presuppositions about the world. Even duelling requires agreement about the rules.”

In this case, the debate I got drawn into devolved into personal attacks. The weren’t attacks being mounted against my arguments; rather, they were intended to either deflect (rather than respond) or attack (rather than respond). And so it was noise more than words. I now know what it must be like to be on certain prime-time TV news shows, heckled and trolled rather than talked to. Textbook obfuscation, mangling of the truth, endless whataboutery.

What I’d like to know is, how does the other side feel it went, once all the rage has simmered down? There must be some recognition that no argument was made, perhaps even some recognition that no argument could be made for some of the hateful opinions being voiced.

Is that considered a win? Or is the noise such a constant that there isn’t really space for free thought?
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