We see debates all the time on
television. Television channels love debates because aggressive debates, like
action movies, increase their TRPs. Increasingly, the debate has moved from
being a source of entertainment on television to an important - almost
unavoidable part of election campaigns in many entrenched democracies such as
US, UK, France and so on. European politics was a bit slow to adopt this
American debate prescription, but as we saw recently in case of Macron and Le
Pen in France, political leaders facing elections are finding it increasingly
difficult to avoid appearing in a widely televised debate.
Before going further, I remember an old friend and my former manager, a great thinker, Prof. Subhash Sharma in Bangalore who had come out with the idea of 3D – Discourse, Dialogue and Discussion to build harmony. This was more than a decade back and at that time I had wondered why he did not come out with the idea of 4D – Discourse, Dialogue, Debate and Discussion to build harmony. I felt at that time that instead of Dialogue or Discussion, a fierce Debate more sharply brings out the intellectual flaws of an argument.
But since 2007, I have revised my
views. Presently I am of the opinion that the current format of debates are not
desirable as a means of showcasing the ability or competence of top political
leaders. Let me quickly outline the reasons. I feel that since modern
democracies and our pretensions of being ‘civilised ‘do not permit us to have gory
and bloody sword fights, boxing contests, or shooting duels between leaders and
challengers like in the ancient world, we have sublimed this ‘civilised’
aggression into what we call ‘debate’.
In a nice, friendly discussion, we
are often willing to listen to people who make more sense than us. We are
willing to learn and share knowledge. On the other hand, in debates, especially
televised debates, there are often winners and losers. These winners and losers
are either decided by the organisers of the debate or by public and media who
are watching these high-profile debates. Since no one loves to be a loser, there
is a higher likelihood that an opponent faced with a stronger argument would
resort to insults and insinuations to put down the opponent, in another words,
to give out (or believe themselves)
the perception of ‘victory’.
Increasingly, as seen by the
debating style of Trump or La Pen, we see political candidates using aggressive
name calling, vicious sarcasm or personal attacks to score winning points, get
applause from their supporters or win acclaim on the social media. This use of
heavy sarcasm for which there are no easy replies, personal insults and
insinuations, creates anger between the debaters themselves. Of course, if the debaters
are themselves operating in the realm of ideas sometimes the results of debate
are good, but when the candidates want victory at any cost or if one candidate
starts the trend of insults, we end up seeing an inferior discussion of ideas
and less sensible arguments. The confluence of ideas that a great discussion
could have been, degenerates into a feast of insults – liked often by TV
audience, but bad for democracies where the public may decide their votes on
the basis of the outcome of debates.
The audience, even in the Roman
Colosseum, loved two men or animals savagely hurting each other to the point of
one person’s death. Today, in many TV debates,
we have become this ruthless Roman audience who love to watch two people
brutalise and wound each other through words in the form of a debate.
Secondly, is there any guarantee
that a good debater who is sharp-witted will necessarily be a good President or
Prime Minister? If arguing well was the
sole or the most important requirement of being a great visionary or leader,
why shouldn’t the post of Presidents and Prime Ministers in democracies be
reserved for the best lawyers in a country? After all, the best lawyers, by
profession, are trained to be experts in arguing.
In my opinion, the present form of
debate seen on television is merely a competitive sport, like chess or tennis.
If we do not expect our political leaders to be winners in tennis, chess or
football, why should we expect that good visionaries and leaders will be
winners in debates, especially the time-bound short format debates that we see
nowadays on television?
Of course, some of my friends may
argue that even in ancient India, which I often quote in my blogs, there used
to be debates. I agree with this. One such legendary debate, the debate between
Adi Shankaracharya, the reviver of Hinduism and Mandana Mishra (in around 8th
century AD), can be quoted here, for an understanding of the format of a fair
and ethical debate. (The source is given below the text)
“Mandana Misra was a distinguished practioner of the mimamsa philosophy.
In this school of thought, a particular ritual is done, and the results are
achieved instantaneously…. Mandana Misra was a perfect and adept ritualist who
preached widely. The young and charming advaita vedantin philosopher, Adi
Sankara, on his country wide tour was eager to debate with Mandana Misra, who
was by then already very old. Mandana Misra reasoned that since he had spent
more than half his life learning and preaching mimamsa, it would be unfair to
debate with a youngster in his twenties who barely had any experience. Hence,
with the intention of being fair on Sankara, Misra allowed Sankara to choose
his own judge. Sankara had heard greatly about Misra’s righteousness and
appreciated him for his act of fairness. But he was quick to decide that none
but Mandana Misra’s wife herself can be the most appropriate judge for this
debate. The debate between them commenced, and continued for six months
nonstop.
Thousands of scholars gathered every day to watch and learn. Mandana
Misra, at a ripe old age, still remained a man with very sharp intellect and a
very solid grasp of logic, but he was slowly losing. Despite being such a young
man, Sankara’s realization of the ultimate Brahman and his knowledge of Maya,
enabled him to win over Misra’s arguments easily. At the end of this 6 month
period, Misra was almost ready to accept defeat, when his wife, Bharathi,
declared that in order to defeat a man in debate, the opponent should also
defeat his wife.
Bharathi was a learned scholar herself and a very clever one at that.
Knowing very well that Sankara was a strict celibate, she immediately started
discussing conjugal relationships and marital obligations. Sankara confessed
that he had absolutely no knowledge in this area, because he was a celibate.
However, Bharathi felt that she should give Sankara some time to study about
this topic before resuming the debate. Sankara immediately accepted the offer
and left to start his studies. Through his yogic powers he came to know of a
certain king who was about to die. He instructed his disciples to preserve his
body, which he temporarily left to enter the dying king’s body. The king
happened to be a very evil man. Yet his wives were loyal to him and were in
tears when the king was in his deathbed. Suddenly, when the king’s body woke up,
one of the wives noticed that the king had recovered under rather mysterious
circumstances and appeared to have become a changed man. Sankara learnt from
that woman, all that he needed to know about conjugal experiences and on his
way out of the body, he blessed that lady who had taught him so much. Empowered
with this new knowledge, Sankara returned to resume the debate with Bharathi.
This time, he was clearly unbeatable. Bharathi and Mandana Misra bowed their
heads in humility and accepted defeat and became followers of Adi Sankara and
staunch vedantins.”
Excerpt from source : https://ourdharma.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/the-mandana-misra-vs-adi-sankara-debate/
Without delving deep into the
contents of the debate, there are key learnings for us, from this format of
debate.
1. The debate
takes place in an environment of respect and fairness. Mandana Mishra, shows
his fairness when he asks Shankara to choose his own judge. Shankara, on his part, instead of taking advantage of
this offer and choosing a biased judge, decides to further excel in this
fairness by choosing Mandana Mishra’s own wife as the judge.
2. The debate
is not concluded within 1 or 2 hours like our present day TV debates, but
within six months, which gives time to the debaters to rest, reflect on their
arguments, concede various flaws in their logical positions etc. In short, in
today’s TV debates the person with the quick acerbic tongue often wins. However,
in long debates, conducted over several days and weeks, there is time for each
opponent to evaluate the arguments and calm their minds enough to focus on ideas
rather than persons or insults.
3. Shankara, despite
being a great thinker and philosopher had the amazing humility to confess about
his lack of practical knowledge in the area of sexuality because he was
celibate. He did not pretend to know about an area just in order to win the
debate.
4. Bharathi,
the wife of Mandana Mishra again showed fairness, when she allowed Shankara
time to study sexuality in depth, rather than using Shankara’s lack of
knowledge of sex as a point to declare victory. She allowed Shankara to gain sufficient
expertise in that area and then come back to resume the debate. This clearly
tells us that the purpose of both opponents through this debate was to ensure
the emergence of higher knowledge and ideas and not to be declared ‘winner’, as
we see in the bitterly fought television debates conducted so often nowadays.
5. Bharati and
Mandana Mishra, when overwhelmed by superior ideas and logic, showed their
greatness and humility by becoming the followers of Shankara’s ideas. They did
not resort to sarcasm or violent personal attacks to massage their own egos or
to pretend that they did not lose the debate.
Of course, in today’s busy world,
it is not possible to have this kind of a quality debate spread over weeks, between
opponents like Trump/Hillary or Macron/ Le Pen. Hence, my prescription for a
compassionate model of debate, tweaked for the present age is as follows. To
begin with, in this respectful model of debate, in a televised discussion/debate,
it must be clearly mentioned that there are no winners or losers. It should
take the form of a discussion in every way. The two political candidates must
start with spending ten minutes in silence. This ten minutes of silence, should
be telecast live. This time for silence, would be meant for only for meditation,
introspection and calming the mind. During the introspection/meditation breaks
it must be compulsory for the debating candidates to close their eyes and spend
time with their own minds and not distract themselves with any activities such
as peering through their notes or engaging in conversations.
After this ten minutes silence, the candidates would discuss the issues in a spirit of love, compassion and sharing ideas. They should give credit to each other for good ideas and be willing to revise their own ideas. They should be encouraged to ask questions to each other in a spirit of camaraderie. If one candidate becomes aggressive, sounds angry or highly sarcastic, the moderator must immediately pause the debate and further provide a five-minute introspection/meditation break to calm the agitated minds. After the break, the candidates must shake hands or hug each other again and start afresh with a spirit of compassion and affection. If required, the debater who first made the aggressive remark must apologise to the other debater and withdraw the remark. If the apology and withdrawal is not forthcoming, then the whole debate must be terminated.
Some people may laugh out loud at this prescription by me. After all, there are still some parts of the world where it is considered to execute law-breakers by stoning them to death, and here I am, talking about respectful debate. I am sure, when the first human fight-to-kills were proscribed in various parts of the world, those who were used to these sadist games of gore and blood must have laughed at those who stopped it or ridiculed them as faint-hearted idiots.
The point I make is that as we
evolve in our humanity, our approach to every issue must also evolve and become
spiritually and ethically refined. Gently, but firmly, we must remove the
violence and aggression which are in human minds. Seeds of aggression and
violence exist first in our minds, then they come into our words and finally
translate into actual physical violence. Hoping that our judiciary and legal
systems will prevent physical violence, when we callously allow violence, anger
and aggression to seep into our minds at every step of public interaction -
that is not a long-term remedy. When we incentivise the use of sublimated aggression
like we see in televised debates and give our implicit approval of nastiness in
televised debates, as sources of entertainment, we are sending the message that
verbal aggression, without use of explicit 4-letter abuse, is ‘okay’.
Western civilisation is
unnecessarily obsessed with the macho image culture which glorifies aggression
as something desirable. Since aggression in the form of physical violence is
increasingly becoming unacceptable in our lives, we have sublimated this
aggression to our workplaces to some extent (in our use of power as the tool
for getting work done) and in our debates. In my opinion, the earlier we get
rid of this sublimated aggression from various areas of life, the easier it
will be to build a compassionate, harmonious world. The choice of political leaders is the first
area from which the practice of aggressive television debates as a means to
campaign and win votes, must be removed. I am happy to hear the news that
Theresa May, Prime Minister of Britain will not have a head to head debate with
Corbyn before the elections.
©Staju Jacob, 2017.
Staju Jacob is the author of the path-breaking book Karmasutra The Karma of Sex, which deals with the karmic spirituality of consensual sexual actions. This book is available globally on various Amazon sites in Paperback and Kindle, Sony Kobo, Google books, Iphone Ibook etc. He may be contacted on Twitter @KaRmasutraTKOS
