You may enjoy these three talks by Rory Stewart from the BBC Radio 4 Seriously series of audio documentaries and podcasts.
In the talks, Rory looks at the history of argument and explores its importance and the fact that it is the foundation of our democracies and how we make political decisions.
He seems to see argument solely as rhetorical debate, which is not too surprising given he was trained to argue in school, taught classical rhetoric, and was once a Member of the UK Parliament.
Although he sees the dangers of rhetoric and how dishonest arguments can threaten our democracies and provoke division, he would still like to see it taught in schools as in the past.
He thinks we need more debate and rhetoric to get at the truth and make better decisions.
I found it surprising that he makes no mention of dialogue other than in its general sense as an alternative word for debate or discourse and no mention of social reasoning or oracy.
So I’m afraid that although I enjoyed his talks, I have to disagree with him as I feel that although honest rhetoric and debate are important, we also need dialogue, and it is oracy that should be taught in schools.
Prompted by his talks, I have added a post that compares oracy to rhetoric to my blook.
Tweet: The Long History of Argument
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Tags: argument (36) | debate (23) | deliberative democracy (12) | democracy (33) | dialogue (60) | member of parliament (1) | oracy (20) | rhetoric (11) | Rory Stewart (4)
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