Stephen Fry gets into an argument about global warming (which is a good read in itself) but also starts off with this gem of an observation. when I get into a debate I can get very, very hot under the collar, very impassioned, and I dare say, very maddening, for once the light of battle … Continue reading “This explains a lot.”
Stephen Fry gets into an argument about global warming (which is a good read in itself) but also starts off with this gem of an observation.
when I get into a debate I can get very, very hot under the collar, very impassioned, and I dare say, very maddening, for once the light of battle is in my eye I find it almost impossible to let go and calm down. I like to think I’m never vituperative or too ad hominem but I do know that I fall on ideas as hungry wolves fall on strayed lambs and the result isn’t always pretty. This is especially dangerous in America. I was warned many, many years ago by the great Jonathan Lynn, co-creator of Yes Minister and director of the comic masterpiece My Cousin Vinnie, that Americans are not raised in a tradition of debate and that the adversarial ferocity common around a dinner table in Britain is more or less unheard of in America. When Jonathan first went to live in LA he couldn’t understand the terrible silences that would fall when he trashed an statement he disagreed with and said something like “yes, but that’s just arrant nonsense, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense. It’s self-contradictory.†To a Briton pointing out that something is nonsense, rubbish, tosh or logically impossible in its own terms is not an attack on the person saying it – it’s often no more than a salvo in what one hopes might become an enjoyable intellectual tussle. Jonathan soon found that most Americans responded with offence, hurt or anger to this order of cut and thrust.
This honest trashing of an opponents argument I’ll refer to as virtual spittle. Not a derogatory thing but the act of arguing vehemently that were you face to face no doubt you would exchange mouth liquids and pieces of your last meal in the defence of your stance and the systematic unravelling of the opponent’s.
I found this to be especially true when debating points of importance in arguments on RPGnet and also in the daily grind. I get passionate about certain things, the way Stephen does. Global Warming, Operating Systems, doing the right thing the right way and other topics are areas that, to be honest, I avoid arguments in. I try hard not to get pulled into them not because my devotion to one or other side is all-consuming but because I have found that the recipients of my virtual spittle and verbosity are simply not up to the muster. I love a good debate, especially in a pub; we argue, we go red, we express exasperation and then we order another round. There’s no harm and no foul.
On RPGnet, a community I don’t love, any virtual spittle is received with the immediate shut down of the argument. The debatee is the first to hit the buzzer and cry foul. They produce the Passive Aggressive trump card. They don’t understand that it is possible to tell someone to “fuck off” and still be friends. It’s hard to explain that I’m not Passive Aggressive, I’m just Aggressive because they don’t know the difference. “Passive Aggressive” as an accusation is just a way they can get out of the losing side of an argument and not lose too much face. They’re just not ready for debate.
In the daily grind, I try to fix things that are so terribly terribly broken and it seems obvious to me that the process is so mangled and the supposed contributors are so wrapped up in their own way of doing things that they cannot conceive of anything better. Arguably I might be just their mirror counterpart but the difference is that I was hired to fix it. It so happens that my colleagues in EMEA are embracing the new way of doing things because they have had the benefits explained face to face and, perhaps more as a testament to my debating ability rather than the value of the points I was raising. In North America, however, the case is not the same. They’re agreeing to everything on the various conference calls and give lip service in emails – but when it comes down to fixing the things that are broke they’re like a classic Romero Zombie, mindlessly replaying the actions of their former life. When we Europeans correct them there are two definite approaches. One is typified by my manager, a political animal who has dealt with the Americans in the company for more than a decade and the other, well, it’s mine.
- Subservient – where you accept what they say and calmly try to work around the issue, use vague terms, ry not to get their backs up and finish the conference call with a couple more assurances and nothing actually changing
- Assertive where you actually say what’s wrong.
Yes, I tend to be Assertive in these cases because, at the end of the day, they’re paying me to come in here and fix the problem and I don’t want to waste my time or their money. If they’re happy with me being generally ineffective and nothing changing then they should let me stay at home with the kids and still pay me because I’d be achieving about the same.
So I’ll continue the way I am. Being aggressive, being forthright, honest about the issues and not afraid to trash another argument. But it’s not personal, it’s just impassioned debate.
And yes, it’s my round.