The Failure of Discourse

I can hardly look at Facebook today. The passage of the health care bill has brought out the worst in us, both those in favor and those opposed. We are awash in words--bitter, angry, sarcastic words. We are only over/against the other. And because of this, we have the lost capacity to hear, to listen, to understand, and with this we have lost the capacity for discourse.

I am not naive about this. In a two-party system, the pressures on language are almost unavoidably negative. Both parties are locked in a language game which is aimed at getting things done. Jurgen Habermas calls this instrumental reasoning. It's a form of reason different than one designed to understand one another. For Habermas, instrumental reason too easily is objectifying, propagandist, and manipulative.

I'm not saying that people in politics are bad people. They aren't. And I'll give all of them a pass at the level of motives (this is naive, I know, but is part of what is required of me as one who follows a crucified God). But they are thrown into a system that forces them to play by a certain set of rules to get things done. They are beholden to principalities and powers that, for both good and bad, are a part of a representative democracy. (Twain's quip that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others comes to mind here. It was Twain, wasn't it?).

Habermas' hope for discourse lies in what he calls communicative reason--reason designed for understanding one another, not getting things done. And the place he hopes this will occur is in civil society--the public spaces in our society not governed primarily by the state or the economy.

One of my professors, Gary Simpson, sees the church as a public companion in the sphere of civil society. It is a place for the church to be public and moral without lapsing into the snares of partisanship. And part of its role in civil society is to keep the capacity for discourse alive through a posture of openness to the other--a mark of the Trinitarian life of God. I like this understanding of the church and think it corresponds to biblical understandings.

It is striking to me how often Scripture associates righteousness with speech ethics. Evildoers' throats are open graves, according to the Psalms. The righteous, in contrast, have the fruit of praise continually on their lips. And this goes beyond, for me, singing praise songs. This is about refusal of gossip, slander, slurs. Praiseworthy speech is for building up, not tearing down. One of the capacities Christians ought to be able to offer to the world is the ability to keep discourse alive, to stay in conversation without impugning motives or resorting to ad hominem attacks. To disagree without demonizing through sarcasm, sloganeering, etc.

(As an aside, read 2 Cor and notice how often Paul's experience of the death and resurrection is subsequently embodied in the way he speaks--openness, frankness, godly sincerity, not peddler's of God's word, etc).

I am convinced that without this capacity, we lack the ability to discern what it is that God might be up to in the world, and we certainly lose the capacity to say anything meaningful that might pass as "good news." Speech designed to accomplish things forecloses on other possibilities. Discourse designed to understand remains open as long as possible. And gospel as speech category is an open category, designed to open the world to the continuing voice of God. Speech ethics are crucial for this kind of openness.

Facebook is a place within civil society. I am not an idealist like Habermas. I don't think there's a societal "place" where we can retreat from the effects of state or economy, where our speech can be totally free from instrumental concerns. This week, Facebook suggests that instrumental reason trumps communicative even in forums like this, and that Christians are as implicated by this as anyone.

But I hope for more. I do think its possible for the goal of speech in forums like these to be understanding and not convincing. My sense is that people move most when they feel understood, not because they find a particular argument compelling, and certainly not because they've been subjected to fear, sarcasm, gloating, etc.