Eva, prodding me to be a better barn-raiser ;-) with such delicate subtlety,
put me on to the following www article by Tannen, with the text reproduced
below. It seems like something to share. Perhaps it can be a tool to unravel
the rope of academic conditioning that pulls us toward contentious discussion.
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/tannend/chronicle033100.htm
Agonism in the Academy: Surviving Higher Learning's Argument Culture
By DEBORAH TANNEN
The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 31, 2000
A reading group that I belong to, composed of professors, recently discussed a
memoir by an academic. I came to the group's meeting full of anticipation,
eager
to examine the insights I'd gained from the book and to be enlightened by those
that had intrigued my fellow group members. As the meeting began, one
member announced that she hadn't read the book; four, including me, said they'd
read and enjoyed it; and one said she hadn't liked it because she does not like
academic memoirs. She energetically criticized the book. "It's written in two
voices," she said, "and the voices don't interrogate each other."
Quickly, two other members joined her critique, their point of view becoming a
chorus. They sounded smarter, seeing faults that the rest of us had missed,
making us look naive. We credulous three tried in vain to get the group talking
about what we had found interesting or important in the book, but our
suggestions were dull compared to the game of critique.
I left the meeting disappointed because I had learned nothing new about the
book or its subject. All I had learned about was the acumen of the critics. I
was
especially struck by the fact that one of the most talkative and influential
critics was the member who had not read the book. Her unfamiliarity with the
work had
not hindered her, because the critics had focused more on what they saw as
faults of the genre than on faults of the particular book.
The turn that the discussion had taken reminded me of the subject of my most
recent book, The Argument Culture. The phenomenon I'd observed at the
book-group meeting was an example of what the cultural linguist Walter Ong
calls "agonism," which he defines in Fighting for Life as "programmed
contentiousness" or "ceremonial combat." Agonism does not refer to
disagreement, conflict, or vigorous dispute. It refers to ritualized opposition
-- for instance,
a debate in which the contestants are assigned opposing positions and one party
wins, rather than an argument that arises naturally when two parties disagree.
In The Argument Culture, I explored the role and effects of agonism in three
domains of public discourse: journalism, politics, and the law. But the domain
in
which I first identified the phenomenon and began thinking about it is the
academic world. I remain convinced that agonism is endemic in academe -- and
bad
for it.
The way we train our students, conduct our classes and our research, and
exchange ideas at meetings and in print are all driven by our ideological
assumption
that intellectual inquiry is a metaphorical battle. Following from that is a
second assumption, that the best way to demonstrate intellectual prowess is to
criticize,
find fault, and attack.
Many aspects of our academic lives can be described as agonistic. For example,
in our scholarly papers, most of us follow a conventional framework that
requires us to position our work in opposition to someone else's, which we
prove wrong. The framework tempts -- almost requires -- us to oversimplify or
even
misrepresent others' positions; cite the weakest example to make a generally
reasonable work appear less so; and ignore facts that support others' views,
citing
only evidence that supports our own positions.
The way we train our students frequently reflects the battle metaphor as well.
We assign scholarly work for them to read, then invite them to tear it apart.
That is
helpful to an extent, but it often means that they don't learn to do the harder
work of integrating ideas, or of considering the work's historical and
disciplinary
context. Moreover, it fosters in students a stance of arrogance and
narrow-mindedness, qualities that do not serve the fundamental goals of
education.
In the classroom, if students are engaged in heated debate, we believe that
education is taking place. But in a 1993 article in The History Teacher,
Patricia Rosof,
who teaches at Hunter College High School in New York City, advises us to look
more closely at what's really happening. If we do, she says, we will probably
find that only a few students are participating; some other students may be
paying attention, but many may be turned off. Furthermore, the students who are
arguing generally simplify the points they are making or disputing. To win the
argument, they ignore complexity and nuance. They refuse to concede a point
raised by their opponents, even if they can see that it is valid, because such
a concession would weaken their position. Nobody tries to synthesize the
various
views, because that would look indecisive, or weak.
If the class engages in discussion rather than debate -- adding such
intellectual activities as exploring ideas, uncovering nuances, comparing and
contrasting
different interpretations of a work -- more students take part, and more of
them gain a deeper, and more accurate, understanding of the material. Most
important,
the students learn a stance of respect and open- minded inquiry.
Academic rewards -- good grades and good jobs -- typically go to students and
scholars who learn to tear down others' work, not to those who learn to build
on
the work of their colleagues. In The Argument Culture, I cited a study in which
communications researchers Karen Tracy and Sheryl Baratz examined weekly
colloquia attended by faculty members and graduate students at a large
university. As the authors reported in a 1993 article in Communication
Monographs,
although most people said the purpose of the colloquia was to "trade ideas" and
"learn things," faculty members in fact were judging the students' competence
based on their participation in the colloquia. And the professors didn't admire
students who asked "a nice little supportive question," as one put it -- they
valued
"tough and challenging questions."
One problem with the agonistic culture of graduate training is that potential
scholars who are not comfortable with that kind of interaction are likely to
drop out.
As a result, many talented and creative minds are lost to academe. And, with
fewer colleagues who prefer different approaches, those who remain are more
likely
to egg each other on to even greater adversarial heights. Some scholars who do
stay in academe are reluctant to present their work at conferences or submit it
for
publication because of their reluctance to take part in adversarial discourse.
The cumulative effect is that nearly everyone feels vulnerable and defensive,
and thus
less willing to suggest new ideas, offer new perspectives, or question received
wisdom.
Although scholarly attacks are ritual -- prescribed by the conventions of
academe -- the emotions propelling them can be real. Jane Tompkins, a literary
critic
who has written about the genre of the western in modern fiction and film, has
compared scholarly exchanges to shootouts. In a 1988 article in The Georgia
Review, she noted that her own career took off when she published an essay that
"began with a frontal assault on another woman scholar. When I wrote it I felt
the way the hero does in a western. Not only had this critic argued a, b, and
c, she had held x, y, and z! It was a clear case of outrageous provocation."
Because
her opponent was established and she was not, Tompkins felt "justified in
hitting her with everything I had."
Later in her career, as she listened to a speaker at a conference demolish
another scholar's work, she felt that she was witnessing "a ritual execution of
some sort,
something halfway between a bullfight, where the crowd admires the skill of the
matador and enjoys his triumph over the bull, and a public burning, where the
crowd witnesses the just punishment of a criminal. For the academic experience
combined the elements of admiration, bloodlust, and moral self-
congratulation."
At a deeper level, the conceptual metaphor of intellectual argument as a battle
leads us to divide researchers into warring camps. Just about any field can
provide
examples. For instance, many disciplines are affected -- and disfigured -- by a
stubborn nature/nurture dichotomy, although both biology and culture obviously
influence all of us. Such divisiveness encourages both students and scholars to
fight about others' work rather than trying to understand it. And those whose
work is misrepresented end up using creative energy to defend their past work
-- energy that they could use more productively in other ways.
Agonism has still another serious effect: It is one of the reasons scholars
have a hard time getting policymakers to pay attention to their research.
Policymakers
who come across relevant academic research immediately encounter opposing
research. Lacking the expertise to figure out who's right, they typically
conclude
that they cannot look to academe for guidance.
Our agonistic ideology seems so deeply embedded in academe that one might
wonder what alternatives we have. In Embracing Contraries, the English
professor
Peter Elbow calls the ways we approach ideas a "doubting game" -- a method for
sniffing out faults. What we need, he says, is an additional approach -- a
"believing game," to sniff out strengths. The two games would complement each
other. Although we wouldn't end up agreeing with all the authors we read, by
suspending disbelief we would be more likely to learn something from them.
In my view, we need new metaphors through which to think about our academic
enterprise, or to conceptualize intellectual interchange. We could learn much
more if we thought of theories not as static structures to be shot down or
falsified, but as sets of understandings to be questioned and reshaped. The
sociologist
Kerry Daly, in the introduction to his book Families and Time, suggests that
"theories should be treated like bread dough that rises with a synergetic mix
of
ingredients only to be pounded down with the addition of new ingredients and
human energy."
In the realm of teaching, Don McCormick and Michael Kahn, in a 1982 article in
Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal, suggest that critical
thinking can be taught better if we use the metaphor of a barn raising, instead
of that of a boxing match. We should think of "a group of builders constructing
a
building, or a group of artists fabricating a creation together."
McCormick and Kahn make another point that, as I wrote in The Argument Culture,
I came to believe is the most crucial and damaging aspect of the culture of
agonism. Living, working, and thinking in ways shaped by the battle metaphor
produces an atmosphere of animosity that poisons our relations with each other
at the same time that it corrupts the integrity of our research. Not only is
the agonistic culture of academe not the best path to truth and knowledge, but
it also is
corrosive to the human spirit.
After my reading group had discussed the academic memoir, I expressed my
frustration to a group member. She commented, "It turns out that book wasn't
the
best example of the genre."
"But we didn't read an example of a genre," I protested. "We read a book by a
person."
Refocusing our attention in that way is the greatest gain in store if we can
move beyond critique in its narrow sense. We would learn more from each other,
be
heard more clearly by others, attract more varied talents to the scholarly
life, and restore a measure of humanity to ourselves, our endeavor, and the
academic
world we inhabit.
Deborah Tannen is a university professor at Georgetown University. Her most
recent book is The Argument Culture (Random House, 1998; Ballantine
paperback, 1999).
=====
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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