Argument Culture Moving From Debate to Dialogue

I teach and write on critical thinking, and a branch of this discipline is interested in the role of dialogue in the process of truth-seeking. Discovering this book was huge for me because it discusses in depth so many of the impediments to constructive dialogue that I (and most of us) have encountered. Its subject is the motivational and cultural bases of disagreements and how we value and manage them, and there are of course some sound recommendations for how we can do better by shifting from what has become an automatic adversarial approach to one of ‘meaningful dialogue’.

If we want to avoid unproductive arguments with people we care about, then we need to know why arguing has replaced dialogue. Today, many experts describe our current communication climate as the argument culture where we respond to differences of opinion as if we were in a verbal fight. How did this toxic climate come to be? Though written by a linguist, this accessible book allows us to see how argument replaced healthy communication in the realm of education, politics, and religion. What I find most helpful is how the author helps us diagnose if we enter conversations as a… show more.