Asymmetrical Debate?

[This question arose on Study Groups for Objectivists in discussions of Yaron Brook's and Onkar Ghate's insightful "Cultural Movements: Creating Change" lectures (available on the website of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, under the headings Participate/Activism).]

Here is a problem for students of the history of ideas, intellectual history, or cultural history: Reason is difficult and rare, but mysticism--in all its many forms--is easy and common. How can reason ever win?

Reason is difficult because it requires effort to be aware, to define a problem, to select a method, to persist in seeking information, to check the results for contradictions with already-held knowledge, and so forth. Mysticism is easy. If it is subjectivist, ideas are whatever the mystic wants them to be, regardless of facts. If it is intrinsicist, ideas simply arrive, either from the subconscious as intuition or from God as revelation.

In debate between advocates of reason and mystics, those who support reason do research, think about their results, formulate answers to essential questions, consider the nature of their audience, and so forth. Mystics need only blurt out whatever they feel.

Consider a contemporary example. In general, the conservative and leftist enemies of a culture of reason are mystics of one sort or another. They do not offer reasoned arguments. If I say I am pro-choice on abortion, a conservative may show me a picture of a dead fetus. A picture is not an argument, that is, not a reasoned process leading from facts to conclusions. It is an appeal to emotion. If I am to win the debate (held before a worthy audience) then I may need to go through a step-by-step argument identifying the problem underlying my opponent's last statement and offering a solution. My conservative opponent, if typical, next responds by screaming that I am a baby-killer. This is mysticism vs. reasoning--in debate.

(Intellectually, no debate is possible between mystics and advocates of reason, but socially such debates occur frequently before audiences that are, one hopes, at least mixed: Some members of the audience are at least implicitly advocates of reason but may not yet agree with a particular pro-reason position on a particular issue.)

Consider another contemporary example. You try to explain a principle of economics--that state interference (aggression) in the home-finance marketplace has long-term destructive consequences--and why. Your opponent responds with a bizarre false-dichotomy based on unspoken hints of egalitarianism and altruism: "But we are just using this bailout as a way of protecting Main Street against Wall Street!" You then must (1) determine what he is talking about in reality, if anything; (2) prepare your conclusions in terms and in a form that a rational but ill-informed audience listening to the debate would understand; and (3) offer an objective alternative based on principles you want to disseminate.

At first sight, the odds seem stacked against advocates of reason ever winning in their struggles with mystics. Yet, advocates of reason have won issue after issue, in some places and in some times. How can that be true when the odds against them seem so high?

I do not have a fully integrated answer to this problem yet, but I can suggest elements. First is the fact that in some societies there have been enough decision-makers and decision-influencers who were rational enough (in most areas of their lives) that advocates of reason and its products had a chance to win enough support, or even merely acquiescence, to at least make progress. Galileo lived in Italy. His ideas were censored there, but he managed to smuggle his writings out to lands where they met an eager audience. Perhaps the political fragmentation of Europe--from the Greeks up to the European Union--usually provided a refuge somewhere for advocates of reason.

Second is the fact--at least in Western culture--that rational people creating rational products have always had an effect far beyond their public numbers. Think again of Galileo. On the short-term he lost in his struggle with the Church in Italy in the mid-1600s. But his ideas ultimately did win wide acceptance among intellectuals. His ideas were presumably persuasive to dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of often nameless individuals in the following decades. In this manner, Galileo's ideas won. The people advocates of reason need to reach are not only the tiny number of Galileos and their peers, but also the thousands (out of millions) of rational individuals who will integrate and propagate, if not originate, rational ideas. An advocate of reason does not need to reach everyone or even a majority.

Only a few people set the direction of a culture. If advocates of reason can persuade, or even just neutralize, half of those people, then the advocates of reason can start making cultural changes within one generation. I have seen this process of changing the views of the powerful minority happen in business. On a committee of twelve people, two to four people either directly make the decisions or influence decision-making. Most of the others on the committee swivel their heads back and forth as each debater in turn presents his case pro or con.

In summary, I do see that reasoned presentations can indeed win support from rational members of one's audience, even in a "debate" against a mystic--but only in a culture already accepting a philosophy of reason to some extent; and only over the long term, which is the time required to analyze problems, develop solutions, figure out the best way to present the solutions, and actually make one's case to the intended audience (narrow or broad).

As a long-term student of history, I would love to have the time to investigate at least one case of such a victory: Galileo's ideas on astronomy, Darwin's ideas on evolution, Locke's ideas on politics, the idea of freedom of speech, or others.

Burgess Laughlin
Author, The Power and the Glory: The Key Ideas and Crusading Lives of Eight Debaters of Reason vs. Faith