In the essay “The Argument Culture” Deborah Tannen discusses the tendency of American culture to encourage antagonistic two-sided debates over issues. Tannen proposes that communication about issues needs to be oriented, to look at multiple sides, so that more productive conversations can occur. In the past a conversation amongst peers didn’t need to have a purpose other than to inform each other, but now conversations are presented as a standoff between two opposing parties. However when a conflict between parties occurs, it’s shocking to see just how badly people distort the tradition of debate. During debates people find it necessary to use unethical strategies, such as unfair criticism, to defend their position and forget that the debate is structured to contain the argument, and to keep all parties equal.
Deborah Tannen states that society has “plunged headfirst into the ‘argument culture’.” She describes the ”argument culture” as people taking adversarial positions in a discussion rather than using dialogue or trying to understand another person’s point of view. The “argument culture” feeds a sense in society where winning is the ultimate goal regardless of facts of the opposition or any consideration for any other perspective. Tannen alludes to the culture as becoming an atmosphere of litigation where people square off against the other person attacking them. She further elaborates this idea by saying that technology and the media has added to this problem in our culture by people becoming less personable and more argumentative. While there are times you need to stand up and fight for an issue, it can be detrimental to assume there is only a right or wrong and there is no in between. Studies have shown word choice in these two-sided situations can affect our perception. Added to this volatile atmosphere of debate, personal technology has evolved to a point that people prefer phone and computer communications over face-to-face interaction...