The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue - Hardcover

Tannen, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679456023 ISBN 13: 9780679456025

Publisher: Random House, 1998

Synopsis

In her number one bestseller, You Just Don't Understand, Deborah Tannen showed why talking to someone of the other sex can be like talking to someone from another world. Her bestseller Talking from 9 to 5 did for workplace communication what You Just Don't Understand did for personal relationships. Now Tannen is back with another groundbreaking book, this time widening her lens to examine the way we communicate in public--in the media, in politics, in our courtrooms and classrooms--once again letting us see in a new way forces that have been powerfully shaping our lives.
        The Argument Culture is about a pervasive warlike atmosphere that makes us approach anything we need to accomplish as a fight between two opposing sides. The argument culture urges us to regard the world--and the people in it--in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to explore an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover the news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as "both sides"; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to oppose someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize and attack.
        Sometimes these approaches work well, but often they create more problems than they solve. Our public encounters have become more and more like having an argument with a spouse: You're not trying to understand what the other person is saying; you're just trying to win the argument. But just as spouses have to learn ways of settling differences without inflicting real damage on each other, so we, as a society, have to find constructive and creative ways of resolving disputes and differences. Public discussions require making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument--as in having a fight.
        The war on drugs, the war on cancer, the battle of the sexes, politicians' turf battles--in the argument culture, war metaphors pervade our talk and shape our thinking. Tannen shows how deeply entrenched this cultural tendency is, the forms it takes, and how it affects us every day--sometimes in useful ways, but often causing, rather than avoiding, damage. In the argument culture, the quality of information we receive is compromised, and our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention.
        Tannen explores the roots of the argument culture, the role played by gender, and how other cultures suggest alternative ways to negotiate disagreement and mediate conflicts--and make things better, in public and in private, wherever people are trying to resolve differences and get things done. The Argument Culture is a remarkable book that will change forever the way you perceive the world. You will listen to our public voices in a whole new way.

About this title

Review

Do Americans argue too much? Deborah Tannen, author of You Just Don't Understand and That's Not What I Meant!, is an expert on miscommunication. In The Argument Culture she posits that misunderstanding is endemic in our culture because we tend to believe that the best way to a common goal is by thrashing out all our differences as loudly as possible along the way. Thus we are treated to a whole array of confrontational public forums, from congressional partisan politics to media circuses à la Jerry Springer and Jenny Jones, all based on a metaphor of war. What gets lost in all the shouting, Tannen says, is thoughtful debate and real understanding. Perhaps it's time to consider other methods of communication, she suggests. In addition to outlining what she considers the worst excesses of our argument culture, Tannen revisits some of the territory covered in You Just Don't Understand as she discusses the different ways in which young boys and girls express disagreement or aggression. Finally, she offers a survey of other, mostly non-Western ways of dealing with conflict, including the use of intermediaries and rituals. After reading The Argument Culture you might never again look at the evening news in the same way.

From the Back Cover

"[Deborah Tannen] is the world's most famous linguist . . . akin to Margaret Mead, who popularized the field of anthropology, or Stephen Jay Gould, who brought paleontology to a wider public."
--The Washingtonian

Praise for You Just Don't Understand:

"Utterly fascinating . . . a classic in the field of interpersonal relationships."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"People are telling Tannen that the book is saving their marriages. . . . You Just Don't Understand goes a long way toward explaining why perfectly wonderful men and women behave in ways that baffle their partners."
--The Washington Post

"Tannen's provocative book, remarkable for its accessibility amid all the complexities it explores, is sure to make people talk, and to give us hope in our struggle to be heard and understood."
--Mirabella

"Aside from the vivid examples and lively prose, what makes this book particularly engaging is that the author makes linguistics interesting and usable."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Tannen has a marvelous ear for the way real people express themselves and a scientist's command of inner structures of speech and human relationships."
--Los Angeles Times

"Deborah Tannen combines a novelist's ear for the way people speak with a rare power of original analysis."
--Oliver Sacks

Praise for Talking from 9 to 5:

"A book that everyone who has ever apologized needlessly, snapped at a subordinate, or withered from lack of praise should surely read."
--The New York Times

"Her most intriguing work."        
--The Boston Globe

Praise for That's Not What I Meant:

"We are, all of us, foreigners to each other: editor and writer, man and woman, Californian and New Yorker, friend and friend. Dr. Tannen shows us how different we are and how to speak the same language."
--Jack Rosenthal, Pulitzer Prize winner and editor-in-chief, The New York Times Magazine

"Offers intriguing insights into where we go wrong with language--and how our problems get started."
--Mademoiselle

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0679456023
• ISBN 13: 9780679456025
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 348