Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start off with a quick review of a fallacy we covered earlier in the podcast, the Pathetic Fallacy. I know, it kind of makes me chuckle, too. Try hitting pause real quick & see if you can remember what the Pathetic Fallacy is! A Pathetic Fallacy happens when someone attributes human emotion and actions to things found in nature that aren’t actually human. While it may be a thinking error, it’s also, and I would say, probably more commonly, a literary device that authors & artists use to paint interesting word pictures. The word Pathetic in this sense isn’t referring to being miserable or totally lame-o, it’s actually taken from the Greek word ‘Pathos’, which means ‘experience’ or ‘emotion’.
Most of the time, a Pathetic Fallacy isn’t really an error in thinking, it’s just used to make things sound more interesting or relatable, or to convey a certain feeling or emotion. But I’m still going to give you a question to ask yourself when you come across it: “Is that *part of nature* really feeling that way or are they trying to make ME feel that way?”
If you want to review the fallacy, go back & check out episode 66.
A few months ago, I had shared on my instagram page some pictures of my daughter doing a debate in her homeschool class and I asked if anyone was interested in me talking about teaching your kids HOW to debate well. And several of you said, Yes! Help a parent out! Because, let’s face it, they’re GOING to debate & argue. I totally remember being in this phase of my life and loving to debate about all the things, even some things that were ridiculous and totally irrelevant to most of my life, lol, but I just had this urge to argue & debate.
What I’ve learned is that it’s a normal phase of human development that we all go through where we want to debate & argue. As parents, we can squash it down by saying things like, “stop arguing” or “because I said so” but is that really the best way to handle it? I know, it can get really annoying listening to siblings argue & quarrel all day and it can get exhausting constantly having your teen push back on what seems like EVERYTHING you say. ‘Look at the beautiful orange sunset.’ ‘That’s not orange, mom, it’s a deep yellow.’ Oh good grief….RIGHT?!? Sound familiar?
BUT, what if we looked at this phase a little differently? What if we embraced it as a normal, and even good stage of development that our kids will go through, and rather than trying to get them to stop arguing & debating, we teach them how to do it WELL? Think about it…they’re already doing it. They’re in a phase when they’re excited to engage with others about their ideas and their thoughts, they want to push back, push in to try to find answers & to try to win others over to their way of thinking! These are amazing skills! So, let’s use it as an opportunity to learn how to do it well by teaching them a few basic skills!
Now, I’ll say this, I’m no expert in formal debate. My daughter & I both started learning about formal debate just last year when she was in 9th grade and it was totally new & foreign to me, as I had never learned about it when I was in school. And, no, I’m not going to be teaching formal debate, lol, because most of life is not a formal debate. Life is a series of conversations that we’ll have with the people in our life.
But what I am going to do is take a few of the principles I learned and share them with you in a short series on how to debate & argue well. We’ll keep this super simple & do-able! I’m going to give you 5 essentials to argue well, and we’ll start with #1 today.
1. Learn both sides of the issue. For every debate my daughter does, she has to prepare an argument for both sides. Yes, even when she’s arguing for something she strongly believes in, she has to research & understand & prepare an argument for the opposite side! And as you can imagine, she doesn’t like it very much. It’s hard to try to see & even argue FOR something you disagree with. So why do it? Well, in formal debate, they do it because they don’t know which side of the argument they’ll be called on to defend in the actual debate. But, the principle still holds in real life, too. The biggest benefit to researching both sides of an argument is b/c it’s impossible to argue well if you don’t know all the arguments the other person is going to bring up! You have to be able to see why they’re saying what they’re saying in order to argue against it. You have to know their points so you can find evidence to refute it. You have to put yourself in their shoes to understand their motivation behind their arguments. Most people can’t do this, so they resort to emotion & name-calling.
One tool you can use to help you look at both sides of an argument is a Pro-Con list….*explain*...try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and see things from THEIR perspective & viewpoint!
For instance, let’s say the argument you’re going to have is with your parents and you’re trying to win them over to your viewpoint that your family should get a dog. In order to do that well, you coild start with a pro-con list. What are all the wonderful things that could come with having a dog? That should be easy since you’re the one who wants the dog, but you’ll want to go beyond just the things that are wonderful to *you*. Maybe you want a dog b/c they’re cute & cuddly and you want to snuggle it or play fetch in the back yard. But what about your parents? What could be a possible motivation for THEM to let you get a dog? This is where you could point out that caring for the dog will help you become more responsible and learn how to take care of an animal. When it comes to the cons side of the list, you’ll need to think about the things that your parents would consider a con such as, what will we do with the dog when we go on vacation? Who’s going to walk it and clean up the poop in the yard, etc. When you can brainstorm the pros & cons and do it from both your own and the other person’s perspective, you have a much stronger chance of winning them over b/c you’ll be able to make a much stronger argument.
Ok, that’s it for today, join me in tomorrow’s episode where I’ll give you the 2nd thing you need to do to argue well.
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
