Misusing Our Ability to Communicate

Why we should do a better job expressing our opinions


There are two essential forms of communication; writing and speaking. This makes it relatively simple yet extremely important for people to learn how to communicate. Everyone starts with basic speaking until they receive some form of education, where they begin to read and write. As the years go on, the education gets more and more complex and with it, the people’s ideas. However, something that isn’t really taught in a standard class is the importance of logic. Most classes have students write papers or prepare for discussions by making a thesis and then supporting it with evidence. In fact, most of the paper/discussion is just evidence. Students should be learning ways to make logical arguments, specifically avoiding the use of faulty reasoning.

Although it is bizarre to consider logic as something that can be taught, it is even more bizarre hearing a conversation where two people are getting frustrated at one another because neither of them are being reasonable (not talking about children) however they each are assuming that the other person is the unreasonable one. One person then begins to attack the other instead of the opposition’s argument and then things only get uglier from there. This might sound oddly specific, but it is something that is far too common for people that consider themselves “educated.” People should not have to enter a conversation and feel like they have something to lose, like time, pride, or respect. Instead, everyone should be more familiar with how logic works in order to have constructive arguments where at some point both sides agree that both can be logical arguments, or one side agrees that one makes more sense than the other. By doing this, people don’t feel any pressure to get defensive. As stated, no one should feel like they are losing anything when engaged in an argument. Instead, people need to go into arguments feeling like they will gain something, whether that is a new outlook based on what the opposition presented or a peer that agrees with their ideas. In fact, people probably are unreasonable because they get too defensive with their views.

There are few classes where teachers teach their students about faulty reasoning well before students write their first essay or have a discussion in the class. I know we did this in my moral reasoning class, given that reasoning is part of the name, but the discussion in that class where the best I have ever experienced. Although they might have not been as entertaining as people saying really unreasonable things, the discussions fulfilled their purpose of educating the students, which, at the end of the day, is the reason classes exist at all. Teachers could improve the quality of discussions by taking a day of class to show one of many info-graphics that explain very well what logical fallacies are. Students, aside from being able to further their understanding of the material, will be able to apply this kind of knowledge to many environments far out of the classroom. These students will realize that not everything is black or white, that humiliating the opposition and winning the argument are not the same, and that in a logical argument no one is at a loss yet everyone is victorious.

It is unreasonable to assume that people will never get emotional in a conversation, however it is completely reasonable to assume that emotions are a driving force for what people think and say, and although it can be powerful, it can also be a danger to the person that is getting emotional or defensive because that person is now likely to close themselves off from further logical conversation. I have seen some very smart people make some very foolish mistakes that end up holding them back, and they never even realize what they’re doing to themselves. People in general are smart, but they can be smarter if they were more responsible with how they apply their intelligence. We could be spending more time improving our ideas by challenging each other’s beliefs in a reasonable way, but instead, people are wasting their time thinking of the best way to insult/humiliate the opposition. As a wise man once wrote, “With great power, there must also come great responsibility.” We have the great power to learn and formulate opinions that can be expressed virtually anywhere we go, but with it comes the great responsibility that we must also be open to other people and adhere to the same rules of logic that will inevitably help us improve.