Why Argue? (Chapter 1)

OPENING THE DOORS, FREEING THE PSYCHE

THE LOCK: I don't like to argue and I don't like people who do. So why not try to get along? Besides, when I argue I lose.

   We were born to make the winning argument just as we were born to walk. We don't need the silvery hair and the booming voice of the great orator. We can speak quietly in our kitchens—and win. We don't need speech lessons. We don't need the vocabulary of a Harvard professor. We can speak with our employers or our children in ordinary English—and win. We can win our arguments in the courtroom and the bedroom. But locked in our psychic closets we can never make a winning argument.

   Sometimes we've been locked in our closets by parents and teachers. Sometimes we've locked ourselves in—it makes no difference, the doors are locked just the same. Some like their closets very much. Some know no other world. Some know no spiritual space. Still others pound at their doors and beg to be freed.

   How did we get so bound up, so hunkered down, so mute? From the moment we were born we have been conditioned to avoid confrontation. If we opened our tiny mouth to cry, a bottle was hastily used to muffle our cries. We've been taught, as puppies are taught: Don't bark! Thoroughly domesticated, we have been conditioned to comply, to remain silent, to plod on. We deem it barbaric that some Chinese, less than a century ago, should have bound the feet of their baby girls to conform to the Chinese idea of physical beauty. Can't you see the horror of it, a child with her little feet bound so that as she grew, her feet became ugly stubs? Can you see the child wanting to run and play and dance but holding back, shying back, because her feet were shrunken and crippled? What a greater sin to bind the souls of our children.

   We've been taught not to let our emotions show. We cherish logic and disparage passion. Real men do not cry. Doctors do not suffer with their patients. Lawyers must not care for their clients, not really. Businesspeople are cold and calculating—impersonal, as if the world were populated by robots. By the time young lawyers face their first jury they have doubtless had the winning argument crushed out of them by professors who have never tried a case. In the same way, one day we awaken into adulthood only to discover that the sole source of our winning arguments has been smothered by parents and peers—those who hold power over US.

   By the time we become adults the word argue calls up dark, negative feelings. Parents and teachers and preachers and priests have unleashed immense pressures upon us. They have forced us to accept their ways, their religion, their philosophy, their values, their conventions, their politics, their wisdom. The power of community norms creates boundaries of mind and spirit that stand intolerant of challenge. Early on we have been molded into walking, lumbering, laboring, mostly trouble-free machinery. We have been assembled and fabricated into well-behaved students, predictable consumers, and obedient citizens. Most of what is feral has been domesticated. We suffocate in an amorphous glob of sameness. We have learned it is better to conform than to be. Argue?

   Masses of men and women, their eyes long ago dulled by disillusionment and disappointment, live their miserable, diminutive lives in quiet Thoreauvian desperation. Many feel so petty, so paltry, so picayune as not to warrant the wasting of a whit of reverence for their own perfect uniqueness. How dare we argue?

   But the human spirit is like the dandelion growing in the garden. Chopped off at the ground, it will spring back up from a single hair root. True, what peeps up may be weak and tender. But it is alive. By God, it is alive and it will grow! The trick is to discover our own hair root, to cherish it, that blessed succulent amputated little root that's searching for the sun. That's me, that's you, that's us!

   And how? The key to our freedom is embarrassingly obvious.

THE KEY: We need only give ourselves permission. We need only unlock our doors.

   It is a curious sight, these people—we ourselves—locked in our closets with the key to our freedom clasped tightly in our fists. The key, of course, is permission, our permission to peer out of our closets, to step out—one step—to look around, to ask questions, to demand respect, to share our creativity, our ideas, to speak out, to search for love, to seek justice—to be.

THE LOCK: I'm afraid to argue. It just causes trouble.

   How do we argue with people we love? Our arguments turn sour, the words ugly, the passages to the heart close, and the feelings of love are replaced by hurt, then anger. How do we fight the bullies on the block who have always won and who now, as our employers, have the power to throw us and thousands like us out of our jobs—usually at Christmastime? How can we argue with anyone? How can we alienate our families, aggravate our friends, antagonize our fellow workers, anger our employers, and isolate ourselves from the community? "You only lose when you argue." Our experience affirms that. Haven't we learned by now that silence, that bowed heads, that dead tongues are safe? Do we not hear ourselves echoing the words of In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat, the great leader of the Nez Perce’, better known to us as Chief Joseph, who, on surrender, proclaimed through his tears, "I will fight no more forever"?

   This fear that so disables us—how do we deal with it? I feel it squalling in my belly whenever I stand up in the courtroom to begin an argument. I feel it whenever I begin the cross-examination of an important expert witness who is armed with a much greater knowledge of the subject than 1. Will I fall? Will I be seen as incompetent? How do I dare argue with him? Will I find myself slinking out of the courtroom, the jury watching, witnessing my shame, my opponents leering, mocking my misery?

THE KEY: Fear is our ally. Fear confirms us. Fear is energy that Is convertible to power—our power.

   Fear is friend and foe alike, adversary and ally. Fear is painful. I hate its frequent companionship. Yet it challenges me. It energizes my senses. Like the sparrow, watching, watching, in the presence of fear I become alert. In the forest, the great buck with the majestic presence runs at the first snap of a twig. Fear has caused him to bolt. How else did he grow so grand? It is the two-point buck, who was not afraid, who now adorns the fender of the hunter's car, the young buck who only stared with large, blinking eyes at the hunter, and did not run.

   I have learned not to be ashamed of my fear, but to embrace it. One cannot be brave without it, for is not our bravery merely the facing of our fear? How brave is the soldier who does not understand the danger as he charges? How brave is the madman? The fool? And who is the more brave—the small boy standing on the stage singing his first solo before his Sunday school class, or the great opera diva singing at the Metropolitan Opera?

   Fear confirms that, at my heart-core, life, not death, is the authority. The dead are not afraid. Fear is the painful affirmation of my being. To affirm myself is to experience the courage to make the argument—for all argument begins with me. To affirm myself is, as Paul Tillich once argued, "the courage to be." Once we have embraced fear, once we have felt it, accepted it, we have also proclaimed the imperative I am!, and the argument may now begin.

   In the courtroom I sometimes carry on a silent conversation with myself about my fear, while the jurors look on wondering, as they must, what occupies this strange man who stands silently before them looking down at his feet. My conversation with myself most often sounds like this:

   "How are you feeling, Gerry?" I ask.

   "The jury is watching, waiting for me to begin my argument," I reply. "I can't just stand here saying nothing."

   "I asked you, how are you feeling?"

   "You know how I feel.

   "What is the feeling?"

   "You know what the feeling is."

   "Are you afraid to say it?"

   "All right. I'm afraid."

   "Well, you should be. Big stakes. The prosecutor wants to destroy your client. He wants to destroy you."

   "I don't want to think about it. Not now. Not standing here."

   “It's all right to be afraid. You should be afraid. Go ahead. Feel it.”

   "But the jury's watching."

   "They can wait a few seconds more. Fear is energy. If you feel your fear, you can also feel its power, and you can change its power to your power."

   Suddenly I look up at the waiting jury. I hear myself address them in a clear, quiet voice, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury." Suddenly I am vaguely aware that something is happening to my fear. I have looked it in the eye. I have stared it down. It retreats like a whimpering cur that is now afraid to face me! The pain of it recedes. I feel a new power well up. And my argument begins.

   To argue in the face of our fear brings on the magical "yes," the simple affirmation of our being. Argument springs out of our authority. It escapes from us as our thought and feeling, as our sounds, our music, our rhythms. When we give ourselves permission, the argument bursts out of our lungs, out of our throats, out of words formed and caressed by our lips, out of words born of our hearts. When we give ourselves permission, we rediscover our will to win—may I say it?—we become born-again gladiators.

THE LOCK: Even so, why argue? Why experience the pain? Why take the risk of losing?

THE KEY: The art of arguing is the art of living. We argue because we must, because life demands it, because, in the end, life itself is but an argument.

   In important ways argument is a gift—a gift of ourselves to the Other. Without the gift of ourselves, we can ever succeed as persons or parents. Without the gift of ourselves to the Other we can never achieve acclaim as artists or respect as employees. We can never win the cases of our clients or the love of our mates. In short, our victory in this life depends upon our ability to give of ourselves, and by such gift, to awaken in others their own knowledge. When I am convinced by someone else’s argument the experience is often the awakening of what I once knew and accepted and have since forgotten. Such are these so-called earth-shaking epiphanies, which cause one to slap one's head at the sudden insight. As I see it, we engage in an intrapersonal archeological dig. The magic comes when, by argument, we unearth a bit of ourselves, and, thereby, we likely discover something about all others who inhabit the universe.

   I argue because I must. Sometimes I argue to discover the efficacy of a thought or the validity of a plan. Sometimes I argue to tap the knowledge of others. We constantly affirm ourselves. A single corn plant growing in the basement cannot pollinate. It requires other stalks, the sun, the wind. Life—the search for truth, the pursuit of justice, the explosion of creativity—cannot bloom in isolation. Without loving argument, children can never experience the crucial gift of parenting or bring to fruition the parent-child relationship that produces the mature and functional adult.

   Without argument the nation becomes a wasteland where nothing grows, nothing blooms, nothing is created, nothing lives. Thousands of rusting factories across the land, millions of unemployed, the wholesale abdication of our nation's industry to foreign lands, the mindless destruction of our natural resources, the decline of our education system, the slums, the crowded concrete cages we call penitentiaries, the disintegration of our justice system, the moral decay we so fervently protest—all affirm the critical need of our leaders, our employers, our educators, and our people to make and to hear our arguments, and to receive from each other the gifts we have withheld.

   The art of argument is the art of living. If we are successful in our arguments we will bloom and grow. We can accomplish massive good and experience endless joy. We can prevent war and save the earth. Our success in life, our cultural immortality depends upon our ability to argue. I suspect that if we become experts at argument, we might even find ourselves arguing our way into the proverbial pearly gates. I daresay St. Peter rarely meets a candidate who has fully mastered the art.

THE LOCK: If only I could be like the great orators, at least like the preachers, at least like the guy next door who can talk his way into or out of anything—but I have no talent for argument.

THE KEY: You have a power of your own that no one else can ever match.

   We have become focused not on how to identify our own uniqueness, but on how to mimic the mark and style of others. We have been told that if we can look like others, act like others, indeed, argue as others argue, perhaps then we can be successful. Be like John Wayne or the village priest. Be like Elvis or Lincoln or Jesus or Michael Jordan. At least wear the same brand of shoes. At least eat his cereal. We are taught to strive for sameness and work hard at imitation. But do we not admit that the value of a diamond is derived from the fact that each gem is distinguishable from all others? Why then do we strive to rid ourselves of our uniqueness? Why do we imitate their way of thinking, adopt their belief systems, and accept their values as our own? Why do we dress like them, speak like them, and, having purchased their bottled scent, even smell like them? Why do we strive for their goals and their power? Why do we embrace their authority and abdicate our own? By seeking to become like them, do we not cast aside that which makes us valuable beyond all comprehension?

   The perpetual quest for acceptance as parts of the social machinery is a form of psychic self-destruction. I am repulsed at the thought of our need to conform—to give up that which distinguishes us from all others so that we may become mere impersonations! How can one argue at all if one argues not from one's own authority but from the inimitable imitation of another? When we imitate another we murder ourselves and, thus dead, are as powerless as the dead. As imitators we are, by definition, fakes, and the counterfeit is valueless. What a crime to commit against one's self!

   So, too, do we commit homicide against the self when we deliver our authority to others—to the church, to a political party, to a creed, to employers, to McDonald's, who tells us what we deserve today, to Budweiser and Toyota, who advise us what our experience of joy and the meaning of our lives should be. Having abdicated our authority to the conventional, to stylish wisdom, to political correctness—having, indeed, succumbed to anyone or any entity that proclaims its own authority—what is left of us? How dare we argue out of nothing? If we raise our voices, whatever escapes is likely no more than a limp mumble, or worse, an explosion of impotent rage. Unheard, we plod on.

   I argue that when my argument begins with me, when it emanates from my authority, it will be unique among all arguments. Do we not each possess fingerprints that can be easily distinguished from all fingerprints that ever existed? I speak of the fingerprint of personhood. That print, as well, is distinguishable from all others in the history of the world. The key to the winning argument is to understand that, and to believe it. The great quest is to find the individual "soul-print," the singular stamp that belongs only to us.

   I have heard many a pretty argument by many a fancy lawyer. But when the fluff and feathers fall, there is nothing left. Nothing at all. There is nothing left because the argument, at last, is recognized by all who hear it as the pettifoggery of another technically proficient parrot. The argument may cause an audience to applaud. It may reward the person who delivered it with many a slap on the back. But it will never become a winning argument.

   On the other hand, I have seen a young, frightened woman wearing a plain dress stand before a jury, her hair pulled back, mostly to be out of the way. I have watched her painful search for the right words. I have witnessed her faltering, her face burning red. I have seen the tears well up in her eyes. I have felt her caring. I have observed her stumbling, and courageously fighting back. And her argument, the faithful reflection of her uniqueness, out of her soul, became a winning argument. She had not graduated from a great university. She was not at the top of her class. When she walked down the street, no one looked at her. When she took her seat in the courtroom she blended in with the spectators. But her argument had her mark on it. There will never be another like it. It was hers, and because it was hers it became a winning argument.

THE LOCK: Why should anyone listen to me?

THE KEY' You are your own authority. That is enough.

    How can I insist that others listen to me when I possess no special education, no expert knowledge? In this country we repose a certain faith in the wisdom of the "common man," for the "common man" is familiar with life in ways of which many are ignorant.

   A certain hotel maid sits on a jury. Every day she labors long hours for a few dollars, and at night, after many hours cleaning the human refuse we leave behind, after scrubbing our toilets and changing our dirty linen, she trudges home to a small, nearly empty walk-up apartment in the other part of town. She is old. Her bones ache. When she climbs into bed exhausted, she automatically reaches over to where her husband once lay beside her. He has died. His side of the bed is empty and cold. And after she has wept silently in her lonely room, no psychiatrist listens at a hundred dollars an hour to aid her through her misery.

   Now she is on the jury, this hotel maid. She is embarrassed about her looks. She wears her best dress—the one she wore to her husband's funeral—but her shoes are old, and she does not have the money to have her hair fixed like the banker's wife who sits next to her. When she is asked questions by the lawyers about her qualifications to sit as a juror, she is shy, because she knows she does not always use the English language correctly. The lawyers speak to the other jurors. They speak to the banker's wife. They speak to the schoolteacher in the back row. They speak to the manager of a local chain store. They speak to the lineman for the electric company. But they do not speak much to her. Yet who knows more about the human condition than she? Who knows more about sorrow and poverty, and hard work and loneliness? Who is more courageous? She harbors a deep knowledge. When she speaks the other jurors will have to listen carefully, for her voice is soft and it is difficult for her to find the words. But the words she finds will come from her heart because she knows no other way to argue. And indeed, for this is my experience, at last the others will listen, and respect her because they know she speaks out of an authority they do not possess.

   Wisdom usually does not fall from high places. The mighty and the splendid have taught me little. I have learned more from my dogs than from all the great books I have read. I have learned more from my children than from all the professors who have importuned themselves upon me in the exercise of their tenure. The wisdom of children is the product of their unsullied ability to tap their innate fund of knowledge and innocently to disclose it. The wisdom of my dog is the product of his inability to conceal his wants. When he yearns to be loved, there is no pouting in the corner. There are no games entitled "Guess what is the matter with me." He puts his head on my lap, wags his tall and looks up at me with kind eyes, waiting to be petted. No professor or sage ever told me I might live a more successful life if I simply asked for love when I needed it.

   The world is overburdened with those who claim to know life's secrets and who are eager to impart their knowledge—for a price. It is as if I stand on a busy corner where the great minds of the world and their imitators pass by, where sages and impostors, geniuses and fools all claim to know the way to Disneyland. Some cannot speak my language. Some are so blinded by their own brilliance they cannot see. Most have never been to Disneyland. The directions some give are incomprehensible. When I ask, "How do I get to Disneyland?" some respond by asking me for spare change. Some point in one direction. Some in another. How do I know who on this street knows the way? Only when I have traveled to Disneyland myself can I evaluate the directions given me. In the end, I am for me, as you are for you, the only authority.

   My life has been devoted to poking around in the outer reaches of myself. In the same way that the universe unfolds as it is explored, so does my own. No sooner do I arrive at some new, inner galaxy than I can see heretofore unimagined worlds that invite further exploring. But the acceptance of external authority as my overriding authority blocks all discovery of the self. Such acceptance inhibits all growth and mimics death, for no act is more suicidal than casting aside one's personhood and replacing it with the alien authority of another.

THE LOCK: But if I am my authority, then aren't they also theirs? How can I win?

THE KEY: A winning argument is possible only when, speaking out of our authority, we address the authority of the Others.

   Our authority, and theirs: When we are moved to tears by a scene in a movie, it is because the actor cried before we cried, cried out of his heart. The script did not have tears. The tears came out of the actor's authority. He does not weep out of the sorrow of others, but out of his sorrow. Had he never known his own sorrow, he could not have cried.

   The actor's presentation that gives rise to our tears can be understood as his argument. He is arguing for our empathy, our caring. When he argues out of his own sorrow, that is, when he argues out of the authority of his experience, he does so acknowledging that we have experienced sorrow as well. If we had never experienced sorrow, if we had no authority of our own, the scene he presents his own argument—would have utterly failed.

   We begin to understand: Successful argument is a communication between the acknowledged authority of both parties to the argument. Moreover, that I argue concedes to the Other the right to argue back. That I speak and wish to be heard admits the Other's right to also be heard. But nothing in the bargain suggests that either should surrender his or her authority. I retain the authority, as does the Other, to accept or reject those arguments that are true or not for me. We cannot argue to those who have no authority of their own. Our arguments to those without authority are like beseechments to fence posts, like preachments to stones. Unless the Other retains authority we are arguing to the dead. There should be a sign taped to the refrigerator of every home and on the boss's door in every place of employment. The sign should read, PLEASE ARGUE WITH ME. In the end, argument is not always combat conducted with words. Argument is often more like intercourse—an activity that is most satisfying and valuable when both parties join in.

AND SO: We have been locked in our closets by those who have sought not our love but our compliance, who have sought not our growth but our subservience. But the keys to our freedom are in our hands. We need only give ourselves permission to unlock our doors.

   We are afraid. But fear confirms life and identifies the source of every successful argument—ourselves. We shrink from its pain. But we can experience its energy and convert its power to our power.

   Many protest that they have no talent for argument. They cry, "If only I could be like them." But such lamentations are a wish for death, for in order to be like another we must relinquish our own perfect uniqueness. Still some protest they have no authority. But I say we are the only authority—for ourselves.

   If, therefore, in the exercise of your authority, and out of your experience, you have accepted-—s true for you—some of my arguments, you may wish to join me in discovering what other buried treasures lie ahead. And, having given each other permission to argue, let us continue in this dialogue, in this lovely adventure of arguing together.