steals the other’s teddy bear and throws it into the front seat. Will they sort out their differences by an exchange of reasons? Even the most limited observation of young children will make you aware that reason rarely plays a part in such exchanges. People are not wholly rational creatures and their arguments are seldom based purely on reason. Of course, human beings know how to use reason and may well do so when trying to justify their actions but that is a far cry from acting consistently in a rational manner. Most human arguments are conducted in an atmosphere that reeks of emotion, manipulation, self-interest, false reasoning, bigotry and propaganda. This book aims to show you how to survive that jungle.
In America there is currently a great vogue for analysing and teaching negotiation skills. The business section of every bookshop and library has handbooks offering to improve the reader’s negotiating technique. University courses are offered to those hoping that their business careers will be enhanced by a talent for negotiating. Harvard boasts the distinguished Harvard Negotiation Project whose aim is to ‘develop and disseminate improved methods of negotiation and mediation’. This morning’s newspaper even contains an advertisement for a twenty-page report which for £19.70 promises to reveal ‘38 of the dirtiest tactics used by professional negotiators’ and ‘… how to handle them’.
However, although negotiation is one part of the area we shall be discussing, it is by no means the whole of it. There is a fundamental difference between negotiation and argument.
In a negotiation, both sides, however much they try to look detached and disinterested, are searching for an agreement. Naturally they want the most advantageous settlement they can get and during the course of the discussions they will try all manner of stratagems to achieve that aim. If they feel that there is no possibility of getting a sufficiently favourable settlement then the negotiations may be broken off for some time, but still deep down they want agreement. They may even need one desperately. Take a look, for example, at the war that has followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Much of the time peace seems impossible and repeatedly the various factions have met to negotiate and have then parted without reaching a settlement. Yet all the parties are well aware that no state can exist in a condition of permanent civil war and therefore, at some stage, a negotiated settlement will have to be found. Similar situations exist in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, Rwanda and many other world trouble spots. However bitter the differences that divide one side from another, there is always a need for people who live in close proximity to get on with each other. Since human society is impossible without that element of cooperation, in the end negotiation must always be the answer. Even the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which have persisted for twenty-five years and are based upon disagreements hundreds of years old are at last being settled by negotiation.
Argument is fundamentally different. In an argument the parties may not want a settlement at all, ever. For example, where two rival politicians are debating a point on television it is a forgone conclusion that neither will change his or her position or make any concession at all to the other. That was never the point of the argument. The aim of each contestant is to convert as many voters as possible to his or her own point of view. Similarly, there are many cases where the only point of an argument is to chasten and humiliate an opponent by scoring a victory in a battle of verbal skill. The substance of the argument is purely secondary to the emotional battle that forms the subtext. Take as an example a couple about to divorce who are trying to decide who gets custody of the children. We have all heard of cases where concern for the children’s welfare is outweighed by a desire to score an emotional and legal victory over a former spouse who has become a hated opponent. Couples have been known to inflict enormous mental and emotional damage on themselves and their children in such a struggle.
Negotiation experts who offer advice like ‘separate the people from the problem’, or ‘deal rationally with irrational people’ are missing the point. Frequently people enjoy being irrational. There are many areas of human life where arguments exist for their own sake and are tied up with issues of power and status, not to mention sheer bloody-mindedness.
The American psychologist Eric Berne described arguments as a clash between the images we all carry in our minds. He explained that none of us has an objective view of reality but instead we perceive things through the filter of our own personality. With time these perceived images become fixed and we are increasingly loath to change them. Berne cited the instance of an able-bodied man who loses a leg. It may take some considerable time for him to alter his image of himself from that of a fit person to that of a handicapped one. He may continue to ‘feel’ the leg even though it is no longer there and, even when he seems to have accepted his altered condition there may be times when he dreams of himself as once again being able-bodied.
The problem comes when we are forced to abandon an image to which we still wish to cling. Sam had admired Katie for about six months before he got up the courage to ask her out. He was not especially good-looking or well off and she was remarkably pretty and vivacious. To his surprise she accepted. The date was a great success, they found they had a lot in common and before long they were going steady. However, Sam’s best friend Joe was unhappy with the situation. Once he and Sam had spent much of their leisure time hanging around together. Now Sam was usually too occupied with Katie to devote much time to his old friend. Joe heard gossip that Katie was well known for amusing herself with someone for a while and then dumping him in favour of a new conquest. Eventually Joe spotted Katie with another man and felt he had to warn Sam that his girlfriend was unfaithful. Sam was in no mood to hear Katie slandered. In his eyes she was just about the best thing that had ever happened to him and it was not hard to guess that Joe’s motive was simply jealousy. An argument developed, became quite heated and soon the two friends split up and ceased to speak to each other.
Who was right? We don’t know. From our point of view it doesn’t really matter. Probably there was some truth in the accusation that Joe was jealous but, all the same, he may have genuinely thought that he had a duty to save his friend from what he saw as the clutches of a devious woman. That is the point about arguments. The ‘real’ facts are often extremely hard to discover. What is much more important is how people feel about the facts. Sam felt strongly attracted to Katie. Most people are lucky enough to have had the experience of liking someone so much that they can’t bear to hear him criticized. Joe was trying to let what he saw as the cold light of reality break into his friend’s romantic dream. It was the fundamental incompatibility of the two men’s images of Katie that caused the row.
If we think about this tale a little further another interesting point emerges. Surely the strength of a particular image must have a bearing on the situation. If Sam’s faith in Katie had been completely rock solid he would have been able to dismiss Joe’s advice with a pitying smile. He might not even have felt much offended. Imagine, for example, that someone accused your mother of being a spy for a foreign power. The idea would seem so ludicrous that your first reaction would be to laugh it off. Your confidence in her innocence would be so strong that it would take tremendous pressure to crack it. So we can see that one of the first lessons to be learned in argument is confidence in your own cause. As long as you are firmly convinced that your image is the one that best describes reality you will be very hard to budge even when, to all other eyes, you are in the wrong.
Richard, a scientist friend of mine, is a convinced and passionate Christian. He is also a brilliant speaker with a tremendous natural gift for oratory. I once organized a conference about the developments we could expect to see in the next millennium. To add some excitement to the proceedings I asked Richard to debate the notion that in the coming century Christianity would die. As a matter of interest we asked for a vote at the beginning of the debate to establish the beliefs of the audience and found that we had about forty atheists, fifteen Christians and twenty agnostics.
In the debate Jim, another scientist, put the case for the death of Christianity with great panache. He was a witty, practised speaker and completely familiar with all the pros and cons of this argument (it was a personal favourite of his and he had gone over it with many opponents in the past). Then Richard spoke. Intellectually his speech was not a patch on Jim’s and, to a non-believer, it sounded far too personal and emotional, but he had one great advantage. Richard felt he knew God personally. He spoke with such utter rock-solid conviction that, by the end of the debate, the subject of