The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue

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Deborah Tannen. The Argument Culture: Moving From Debate to Dialogue. New York: Random House, 1998.

Deborah Tannen, a noted linguist, professor, and author of the bestseller You Just Don't Understand, decries in The Argument Culture what she considers our compulsive desire to use combative rhetoric when we communicate in public - in the media, in politics, in our courtrooms and classrooms.

The argument culture urges us to approach the world and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done; the best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find …