Don’t exaggerate

It seems everything I hear and read about politics is a doomsday scenario.  The media have discovered that their ratings increase when they exaggerate.  They seem to seed the conversations around me that say: “If so and so is elected, it is the end of … fill in the blank.” Or perhaps the people I am listening to are just pessimists.

I try to be aware of both political sides, but am exhausted by all the emotion and the hyperbole. I don’t think I am alone. And I am not convinced by any of it. When you exaggerate, you lose any credibility with people who aren’t already with you.

This hyperbole is an example of what is called a strawman argument.  A strawman argument technique is one in which the arguer creates a weaker version of the other side’s argument and then uses those weaknesses to attack it.  It isn’t convincing, but it can exhaust the listener, which is how I feel now.

There is another way that debaters use to create more convincing arguments that are also less exhausting to listen to. A steelman argument is where you take your opponent’s argument and make it better. You do that by summarizing the other’s points, identifying points of agreement, mentioning anything you have learned from the other. Only then do you bring up points where you disagree.  This is the type of argument that comes up with solutions and leads to people coming together.  It doesn’t rely on exaggeration to make a point. It may sound familiar if you have read others of my newsletters but takes it a little bit further.

Here’s a website that explains it in more detail. 

It’s harder to do (especially when you can’t avoid listening to the exaggerations!) but it does help.

Can you construct a steelman argument for the other side of the political divide?  What did you learn?