Don’t take advice on how to argue

Published 7:18 pm Wednesday, December 3, 2014

There’s an odd trend in some of the trendiest magazines this holiday season. Many are publishing articles about how to win arguments with your relatives at holiday dinner tables.

The articles offer talking points and sometimes even handy statistics with which you can prove your family wrong.

Which begs the question, why would you want to? It’s the holidays!

Vox, an online journal, has an article titled “How to survive your family’s Thanksgiving arguments.”

It quotes “your cousin,” who says “Rioting doesn’t help. Why do those people have to destroy their own community? That’s insane.” Some tips follow to help you show your cousin how “simplistic” his view of the Ferguson, Missouri, situation is.

“He’s made a fairly superficial point about what happened in Ferguson when things took an unusually violent turn last night, with cars and buildings set on fire, and police reports of over 100 shots fired,” Vox says. “Still, once you agree with your cousin’s general premise — ‘yes, it’s unfair to business owners,’ and ‘yes the community will suffer economically’ — you might be able to encourage him to take a more nuanced look at the situation.”

Ms. Magazine has a feature titled “Pass the turkey to spread the feminism.”

“Family holidays are ripe with opportunities to insert feminist commentary and social critique,” the magazine contends. “With each holiday tradition, there’s ample material to pick apart, analyze and either support or condemn.”

Here’s one such opportunity: “Celebrate the Hello Kitty balloon in the Macy’s parade, and then imagine a parade full of girl balloons, speculating what that would mean for gender representation. Make a list of whom you would include, chock-full of politicians, activists and the occasional princess.”

Even the Los Angeles Times has a piece headlined, “What to do if your crazy right-wing uncle comes for Thanksgiving.”

“Tell them you accept their apology for endlessly pounding the drum of Benghazi when even the Republican House now admits that there was nothing scandalous there,” the Times writes. “Reassure them that the president is wholly within his authority to defer deportations on 5 million undocumented immigrants — but encourage them to demonstrate really loudly against this executive action so that Democrats can win the Latino vote for a generation.”

Clearly, it’s time for someone to put down the gravy boat and back away from the table.

Here’s what’s missing from these calls to confront relatives over cornbread dressing: The goal of political rhetoric (and that’s not a nasty word, it simply means “persuasive speech”) is not to win arguments — it’s to win converts. Going back to the discipline’s founding treatise, “Rhetoric” by Aristotle, the aim is to convince, not crush.

But even more importantly, why argue at all?

The Federalist magazine has a pretty good response. How do you win an argument at a holiday dinner? “Don’t start one,” the magazine says.

“Don’t do it,” it says. “Just don’t. Whenever you feel the urge to demonstrate how brilliant you are, don’t. Say ‘this stuffing is great’ or ‘thank you for passing the butter.'”

Enjoy your holidays. And enjoy your relatives.