Is the art of polite debate truly lost in this country?

I recently received an email from a friend with the subject heading, “So how mad are you at me really????” The thing that really surprised me about this email was that I wasn’t angry with her at all, and it never occurred to me to be mad at her. I wasn’t even annoyed with her. I didn’t even know we had an issue.

Luckily, it turned out in the end that there wasn’t any issue at all. The email was based on an assumption, and the friend is a polite person who wanted to avoid a potential conflict. Both of us serve as board members for a local organization, and we had differing opinions on whether the organization should give a small bit of money to support an upcoming event. It doesn’t matter who was for or against what in this case—we disagreed on the issue. But what still mystified me about this email is why my friend would think this would be an issue to possibly put a rift in our relationship. She wasn’t even at the meeting (being unable to attend, she sent a statement that contained her thoughts on the matter), and we never spoke about the matter, let alone argued about it.

While I very much appreciate the email and the offer of letting me yell at her, and the fact that she didn’t have the urge (or at least didn’t tell me she had the urge) to yell at me, there just didn’t seem to be a cause for conflict at all. In any case, I never even saw the potential. It never occurred to me this could become a yelling issue at all.

In dealing with an ongoing family emergency, I’ve spent a bunch of time in medical waiting rooms recently. I cancelled my cable subscription a little more than three years ago, so I don’t see much TV, but having been subjected to the “second-hand smoke” of TV blather in these waiting rooms, I’ve begun to notice a trend.

It started one day when I was forced to watch (or at least listen to)“The View.” About a month and a half ago, there was a show in which the panel supposedly attempted to debate some of the issues surrounding the war in Iraq. The reason I say “supposedly” is because it was clear to me that the show was heavily scripted, even though this was supposed to be an impromptu debate on the issues.

The issue was brought up by one of the middle-aged panelists, and heavily “debated” by the younger panelists, who ended up practically screaming at each other. Every so often, the matriarchal type in the bunch would attempt to calm things down in an ‘intellectual” grandmotherly fashion, which basically came across as, “There, there children, don’t bicker. Play nicely.” By the time the segment was over, the panelists verbally came to the conclusion that the issue was “too emotionally charged to possibly debate civilly and intelligently.” Oh, and one young panelist brightly proclaimed that the entire panel was at a disadvantage, since they were all women and had a tendency to get more emotional than men about these issues anyhow.

Also, since the decisions are out of our hands, we shouldn’t get too worked up about it.

The next segment in the show was about how to properly choose colors for your living room, if I remember correctly.

If it weren’t offensive enough that the fruits of decades of fighting for gender equality was being eviscerated on a show that supposedly depicts modern, liberated women, the idea that an issue facing this country—the country that first proclaimed that government should be by and for the people—is too emotional for the common people to intelligently think about and debate is even more offensive.

But the more I was disgusted by what I saw, the more I thought about it. When was the last time you saw a good example of intelligent debate?

You certainly won’t find it come election season. A “debate” on national television these days seems nothing more than a carefully written speech written by professional speech-writers designed to be its best when sound-bitten. Carefully gathered supporters comprise the live audiences, in most cases, to provide live applause for their guy on cue.

Gone seem to be the days when intelligent people gathered to discuss the issues of the day. Believe it or not, once upon a time (before television, of course), people used to gather for political debates, as well as other forms of debate. They even considered it entertaining.

But today, it seems, if two or more parties don’t see exactly eye-to-eye, that’s a conflict, and debate is unlikely. Mediation, perhaps, if the matter is big enough to become a legal issue, is possible, but talking without agreeing is apparently now taboo.

I have to wonder if this is political correctness gone too far.

Will it come to the point where anyone who says anything that offends anyone, anywhere, or has the potential to, will be considered horribly gauche? And who is to say what is offensive?

The fact is, that in the case of any disagreement or potential disagreement, communication is essential to resolution. And if we find ourselves getting so touchy that we can’t talk about issues, they WILL become actual conflicts.

I definitely appreciate that email. My friend was actually more astute than I to see the potential for conflict in today’s climate.

But I find myself wishing it weren’t like that and thinking that while humans have always been irrational, touchy creatures, in some ways, we may have been a bit more politically correct when people could still debate, occasionally disagree, be accepted for who they are and not worry about having to apologize for their beliefs—and then go out for coffee or a beer afterwards, without having to make sure their friends are still their friends.