Stasis theory

Joey Carlson
MSMU Class of 2025

(11/2022) Increased polarization in recent years has less to do with radical movements left or right—though these certainly exist—but rather with an increasing assumption made by many that those who disagree with them are culprits of grave immoralities.

There is a system to identify where disagreements lie in an argument, invented by Aristotle and perfected by Cicero, called Stasis Theory. There are five levels of an issue where individuals can disagree: definitions being used explicitly or implicitly, the facts related to the case, cause and effect relationships and where they exist, values, and policy (what should be done). It is always necessary to identify on which level a disagreement exists if you ever want to understand someone’s argument, be the issue with your spouse, someone online, or anyone in between. Once we begin to do this, very rarely does the discussion get heated, so long as it stays within these bounds. This is because, first, you are actually listening to each other, and second, you will quickly discover that most of the time you do not disagree on values, but rather on one of the other levels. While it is certainly true that many people have differing values, on values related to issues that are typically polarizing, people almost always agree.

For example, on the issue of abortion (since it may be on your Thanksgiving guests’ minds this year), one side may think that the other hates women, and the other side may think that the other wants to kill babies. Much of the time, this is not true, though there are people with extreme views, for whom we should pray. Most people love women and love babies, or at the very least would prefer them to not get hurt, and it is really on the definitional level that we disagree: is the fetus or zygote a human being that deserves rights? With the issue of gun control, very few people you will talk to want innocent people to be harmed because of gun violence. The majority of people on both sides have the same values here, the preservation of human life—they instead disagree on facts, cause and effect relationships, and policy. We quickly turn ourselves into the extremists when we accuse other people of not caring about innocent people, when they probably do, and they disagree with us on how best that should be done. We can only make accurate judgements on individuals’ values when they state them clearly, or through continual intuitive examination of how someone lives. We are never in a place to accuse pluralities of otherwise normal Americans of grossly immoral values—we simply do not have the information necessary to make such claims, and anyone who tries to do so is himself the bigot.

I often wonder why it seems like polarization has gotten worse. People like to blame Trump, but they forget that he was reacting to some pretty rigorous polarization himself even in 2015; what else could have driven a lifelong New York liberal elite to be such a scaly Republican? His rhetoric has been especially outlandish, but it is he and everyone else, except that he happens to be the target of the mainstream media. No, time did not begin with Trump. We forget that Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz back in 2012 was calling Mitt Romney, the most milktoast Republican in the Senate, a racist. We forget about Kanye West saying that "George Bush doesn’t care about black people" on live television for a special celebrity broadcast to raise money for Hurricane Katrina relief back in 2005. The racism mudslinging has been going on this whole millennium, but in 2016, the media decided that that was practically all they were going to do. All we hear about, from CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, is how someone out there that we’ve never met is a horrible person because, [insert glittering generality]. The difference is that, somewhere along the way, the polarization sunk into the American subconscious, and now there is no one with whom I disagree. Democrats, Republicans; they all want to yoke themselves to an ideology and accuse someone else of being a terrible person, when at best they’re probably only a little more terrible than themselves. Sure, I’ve got the way I vote at the ballot box, and it doesn’t change, but that is only because we are in a system where people are refusing to think critically, and they are refusing to insist that their leaders think critically. Yes, there’s an ideology that more closely fits my views than other ones, but I think for myself. The Party doesn’t think for me.

Truthfully, politics and religion are some of the most interesting things one can talk about (although, I am biased as an Economics and Theology double major). Our family and friends are the ones we should be able to speak most openly to, and instead we avoid all discussion of controversy, because they are the ones we cannot afford to deal with upsetting. Is that the loving thing to do, though? If we really believed we had the truth, and that the truth sets you free, we wouldn’t stick strictly to mundane common discourse; rather, we would take the time, and stick our neck out a little to truly understand our loved ones. Hopefully through it all, we all might get a little closer to the truth.

That’s the issue, isn’t it? The us/them mentality. If we really cared about making positive change in our world and in our families, we would recognize that most of us want the same thing, and that we’re all pretty ignorant, and that no one is beyond correction, because no one is beyond love. We can disagree; in fact, we often ought to. While pursuing the truth, and while inevitably disagreeing, we must always do all things out of a genuine desire to give of ourselves for the sake of others. So, maybe, if you have a chance, ask someone this Holiday season about their views on something controversial. Listen, ask a lot of questions, and if you disagree, identify on what level you disagree, and love always.

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