Look it up!

In the age of the internet, or maybe, more specifically, search engines, there's simply no reason to argue over the kinds of things that people used to argue over in bars, at parties, or even at the water cooler at work. Very few of these arguments exist these days that can't be solved in the two minutes it takes to Google the issue at hand. That's kind of sad really. It means that the basis of some of the more entertaining conversations in life has been removed. Unless, of course, you enjoy arguing simply for argument's sake. Which I do. After all, sometimes it's not about the answer, but what you learn in getting to it.

One perspective on this is something I used to share with my high school students during the course of our conversations about research. They would complain about the number of sources I required on a given project. I would counter the complaint with something that's eternally effective along the lines of, "WHEN I WAS A KID we had to schedule our research activities around the times when the library was actually open. We had to use actual books, magazines, journals and we had to lug them around with us because we had to actually read them to find what we wanted. All YOU have to do these days is plug something into Google, anytime, anywhere there's a computer! So quit your whining!"

The goal of the research project from the teacher's perspective was to create a situation wherein the student found a topic so interesting that they forgot about getting the project done and actually wanted to learn something about the topic. In purist terms, that's the goal of any real research... learning about the topic as opposed to proving your thesis. That makes the internet a double-edged sword. While it's true that we can find everything about a topic much easier these days, that means it's also easier to zero in on the information that suits our purpose while ignoring all information to the contrary. Because of the ease of access to lots of information, we're more tempted to believe that our research is actually thorough and conclusive simply by the sheer volume of information we can easily find that proves our thesis, even if we found it by ignoring all the other information out there. That's not a new issue, it's just that this new method of information gathering makes it easier to accept our thesis by making it easier to grab a lot of info and easier to ignore info that doesn't suit our purpose.

It's kind of the same thing with arguing in bars, parties or at the watercooler these days. There's really no point in doing it. Instead of arguing over whether or not Kevin Bacon was really in that movie with that girl from another movie, we can just call up the Internet Movie Database and look it up. Of course, by doing that, we eliminate the conversation about every other movie we liked and disliked. We eliminate the, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that one... that was a GREAT movie! I'm going to have to rent that one again this weekend." We also eliminate the chances of learning more about our co-workers involved with us in the discussion.

It's in the argument that the real learning takes place. When we skip straight to the answer, we lose a lot of valuable information. My daughter had a math problem the other night that illustrates the point beautifully. She had to arrange five eights in a way that gave her nine. (not the fraction, five over eight, but five separate eights) She couldn't use plus or minus signs. That's the kind of problem where the typical rules of math must be remembered and suspended at the same time and actual thinking must occur. It's tempting to just find an answer key and look it up, but that's not nearly as satisfying as figuring it out. We probably could have Googled the problem and found the solution, but instead, I gave her a large blank sheet of paper and a calculator and told her to try as many options as she could think of. In essence, I told her to argue the point. She proposed thesis after thesis all leading her down the "wrong path," but getting her closer each time because each attempt furthered her understanding. She finally settled on a fraction using decimals that resulted in an answer like 9.0909 or something like that and she left it at that. The next night she came home with the preferred, and now obvious answer. She knew a lot more about that answer because of all the "wrong" answers she came up with on her own the night before. I could have made her continue until she got even more frustrated than she was that previous night, but we both knew this problem was one of those bonus problems given during the week before a long holiday break that didn't really count for a grade. It counted for something much more important than a grade and she'd already accomplished that goal. She discovered something she didn't know before she entered the argument. Only by arguing, even if her premises were "wrong" did that discovery come about. The exercise wouldn't have worked, the discovery process would never have happened, if she'd gone straight for the answer.

Socrates knew the value of argument. He understood how, if done well, the discovery process was a guaranteed by-product. He even created a teaching method based on this. Both he and his method have been tarnished over time in our rush to find answers. The Socratic method of teaching is a brilliant method to encourage real discovery in students, but not when students are conditioned only to give right answers. Our fragile egos don't allow real discussion, aka argument, anymore. The movie Legally Blond even goes so far as to paint The Socratic Method as little more than a ruthless way of attacking students. Unfortunately, these days, that's all people think arguing is - attacking. We've forgotten that in a real argument, learning takes place. We visit areas of knowledge that have either been mothballed, or perhaps are actually new. We create the conditions required for seeing things from different perspectives. We learn about the topic, about each other, about ourselves.

Folks don't seem as comfortable learning things these days, especially if we don't like what we're learning. In his book, Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality Zen Master, Brad Warner, notes that meditation isn't easy and you might not like what you discover. He claims that the goal of doing it is self awareness and he jokes that most people abandon the mission as soon as any real awareness begins because we don't like what we become aware of.

I wonder if this same fear of awareness is at the root of the old rule, "never argue politics or religion." After all, in this age of the internet, there's really no need to argue anything. We can just look it up anytime, anywhere. Unless, of course, the purpose of the arguing isn't really to find THE answer, but rather to discover something... to gain more awareness, to learn, whether what we learn is about ourselves or the others in the argument.

Could it be that this rule protects us from ever discovering anything? After all, if we can just look up any information we want, then why bother discussing anything with anyone, ever? We can just go with the answers we know are out there and never have to worry about how others see it. For that matter, these answers existed long before the internet made them more readily available to us. With a little effort, we could have found them before computers ever existed. So why argue anything? Why discuss anything? Why have a conversation with other humans, ever?

Wow, that's a pretty bleak existence.

It's also the kind of existence created by the "tolerance" of things we're too polite to discuss. When we move anything off the table of discussion, as we have the topic of religious beliefs in this country under the guise of tolerance, we create a dead zone of discussion where no further discovery can take place. By agreeing to disagree about an issue and agreeing to never discuss it, we shut ourselves off to ever discovering any more about it. By claiming we know the answers, whether because we've looked them up in a book, or in a search engine, or whatever the source, we shut ourselves off from ever discovering any more about that topic - whether that discovery leads to moving others in our direction, or us moving in their direction, or - in my naive mind still blissfully tied to the idea of way too much faith in my fellow man - a mutual discovery in both parties.

Just as with my students and their research project, finding the answers isn't ever really the goal. Discovery is. These days, I'd like to discover a formula for existence on this Earth that leads to world peace. (I admit I'm naive and have way too much faith in my fellow man, but why not... I'm here, I might as well forward this arrogant agenda of mine) When I discuss this crazy idea with a lot people, they tell me it's not worth talking about. I'm used to that and I've discussed things that truly weren't worth talking about, at length, just to kill time, so I don't let that stop me. But what really frightens me is when people tell me, "it doesn't matter anyway because the world will end in apocalypse no matter what we do."

That bothers me because it's a cop out. In a world where we can "know" everything just by looking it up, it really burns me up when someone uses that "knowledge" as an excuse to do nothing. Maybe I'm way wrong about this and maybe the world really will end in an apocalypse over which we humans have no control whatsoever, but as long as the possibility of grandkids is a twinkle in my brain, I'm going to bring it up over and over and over. I may not be able to stave off this apocalypse (although I have a suspicion that we can) but I can at least push it back until my grandkids are out of the picture. I'd like to push it back until their grandkids are out of the picture. I'd like to think this crazy idea of humans living peacefully together is one of those things that all humans agree is worth arguing about even if the argument is, at times, uncomfortable.

I don't know much for sure about this world, but I know I want it to be a peaceful place for my kids to grow up, get old, and have these same kinds of amazingly satisfying discussions with their friends, enemies, and even their own kids. And I know that the answer to how this might happen isn't in a book or on the internet. The answer, if there is one, isn't something anyone can look up. It will only ever exist in the discussions and interactions among people. While there may be predictions in books about how our world will end, one way to guarantee such an end lies firmly in the refusal to discuss it.

I don't consider that refusal polite nor tolerant.

Happy Holidays,
Luth


Oh, and congrats on the rock, Laurie Doll!