Argument is Art; Art is Argument
No one argues anymore.
Oh, sure, we fight, we debate, we lecture and scold (“hold accountable”). We don’t argue. Maybe, if we’re savvy, we use argument to fight (debate, lecture, scold) the way one uses a bludgeon. We inflict violence on each other, slapping each other with sense, hoping we go cross-eyed from the impact so maybe we can finally see our own stupidity.
When we do argue, it’s not to resolve a dispute, but to advance a conflict. We battle, and give no thought to the war, much less to winning it. We are street fighters, always ready to fight again another day. No one duels anymore, a sportsman’s fight to end the hostility—or, hope beyond hope, resolve it for good. Now there are only turf wars, bloody turf wars, where we wrestle over the same sliver of intellectual real estate, back and forth, back and forth.
No one argues anymore, perhaps because no one knows how, perhaps because no one cares to learn, perhaps because no one sees the point.
Argument, we are told, is about persuasion, so that’s probably our first mistake. That is too simplistic, too reduced. Argument is about persuasion as sex is about procreation. Persuasion may be its designed purpose, the logic at the foundation of the act, but to simplify and reduce it to that and only that is to dehumanize and anti-socialize a profoundly creative, generative, and beautiful art.
Art is argument. There is an art to argument. All artists make arguments, claims about the world that are expressed through and embodied in their art. The artist says to the world, “this story will fill you with righteous fury” and, through their artistic choices and mastery of their medium, they make their argument through character, plot, and dialog that you should feel that righteous fury. The proof of their argument, the way they show you that what they claim is true, is in the undeniable persuasive power of that burning, that righteous burning, deep within your chest. (—if, that is, they successfully argued their case.)
Through argument, we express ourselves—who we are, what we believe, the world as we experience it, the world as we believe it should (or shouldn’t) be.
Argument is an art form, like storytelling. It crosses mediums. Novelists are obviously not the only storytellers, nor are film makers or documentarians or cartoonists. Musicians write entire instrumental epics that follow the arc of the Hero’s Journey. Visual artists abstractly illustrate the birth and death of a young love. So, too, do musicians skilled in argument make claims like “this song will make you have fun, and I’ll prove it—that beat is so infectious you can’t help but dance, and, what? —are you going to tell me you can dance and not have fun?”
Like any art form, there is a craft to it. Mastery of the medium is necessary, but not sufficient, to making good art. So, too, with argument. There is a structure, there are rules. One must be skilled with the tools: vocabulary, evidence, logic, authenticity, veracity, charm.
But, remember: the world’s greatest instrumentalist can play the world’s most beautiful song, but that doesn’t mean he can compose it.
Composing a beautiful argument is different than finding a winning argument. A beautiful argument is right, it is true. When you argue with an individual and your goal is only to win, it’s perfectly reasonable to sacrifice the truth to persuade. You might lie, you might manipulate, you might bully or frighten or coerce, all of which can be far more persuasive than argument. When you argue to the world with the same goal, you might propagandize or preach, playing the game of power. But when you argue to posterity, when you argue in the name of beauty and truth, you are playing a different, bigger, infinite game.
To argue beautifully, to aspire to truth in every argument you make, is an act of love and self-love. You are giving the respect to us and to yourself that your beliefs are worthy of explanation, that what you say is worthy of the time and effort to say it, to create a shared reality. We argue to share. To argue, artfully, cannot be done selfishly or hatefully. By definition, then, we don’t (we can’t) argue with people we see as unworthy. We only put in the effort for people we care about sharing our world with, those fellow travelers and truth-seekers we trust with our perspective.
One argues with their equals, not their lessers. One might use argument, though even when done lovingly it is like the argument of a parent to a child (which, of course, is no argument at all).
That, I believe, is why no one argues anymore. We see our neighbors, at best, as misguided fools in need of our advice. At worst, we are completely disinterested in giving them that respect, that love, because we stopped believing they deserve it. Arguing with such people seems pointless, so we never care to do it, so we forget how to do it.
This means we have it backwards: we antagonize, coerce, and fight because we don’t argue.
But we can learn to argue again. I believe more of us can learn to argue with authenticity and passion, to argue by true evidence and self-evident truths. We can stop worrying so much about persuasion, or about power, or about being less wrong. We can learn, instead, to argue like artists, taking this reality as either inspiration or cautionary tale, and inviting each other to imagine a new one.
I intend to learn how and, if you’ll let me, share it with you.
Thanks to Sasha Chapin for encouraging me to publish this piece.