Purity of Dialogue Is To Argue About One Thing

Apologies to Søren Kierkegaard for mangling a perfectly good and justifiably famous title. If we treated our arguments the way we treat our sporting events, everything would be much clearer. Imagine that every quarter, the referees changed from football refs to hockey refs. Or worse, the people stay the same and use different rules (football v. hockey) to call the penalties. The fan base would be drastically reduced, as would revenue and at that point, the people responsible for the officiating would make the changes necessary to restore intelligibility.

That’s really what we need—rules that would establish intelligibility.
In the course on public policy, we study policies. We also study ways to discussing policies. In fact, that is how we begin and my first interest is in distinguishing an argument framed in one way from one framed in another way. “The problem is, “says one participant, “that the parents have been cut out of the most important education decisions.” “Not at all,” says another, “the problem is that kids today are living on the ragged edge of culturally induced ADHD. These two are in a good position to have what I call an “axial” argument. Each has a favored axis. Each argues that that axis is “the real one.”

On the next pass, we will pay attention to different positions on the same axis. This comes a little closer to the kinds of arguments that actually occur, but for that reason it blurs the distinctions that were clear just a moment ago. A says, “The cheapest and most available foods are unhealthy. If they were banned, everyone would eat healthier food.” B says, The cheapest and most available foods are unhealthy, but if they were banned, consumption of those foods would go up.” This looks like a disagreement worth spending time on when C shows up and says, “Actually, recent studies show that those foods eaten in moderation are perfectly safe.”

At that point, it becomes obvious that A and B are allies so far as the favored axis is concerned. They may be bitter opponents at the meeting where a ban on junk food is being debated, but their argument is founded on an agreement about what is worth debating. They hold a single axis and differ on their position on that axis. Further probing might show that they agree even on the position, but not on the effect of a given policy approach.

The trick is to see the fundamental agreement between A and B even before C shows up. It’s a challenge. It requires some vocabulary and some self-discipline, but the rewards can be really good. You have begun the process of picking apart the levels or strands of an argument in ways that are not likely to be available to the participants. It’s a good skill and it puts you in position to make a good contribution to the discussion.