Back to fruitful arguing

From printing to international law, from the microscope to nuclear fission and quantum computing – the history of humanity is also a history of ideas and achievements, for better or worse. Since the “cognitive revolution” 70,000 years ago, our problem-solving skills have been based on two essential abilities: talking to each other and working together. Now they are in danger of being lost to us.

The reason is that socio-political developments are increasingly going in the wrong direction. The culture of dialogue is undermined. Controversy degenerate into discord, the opponent becomes the enemy. Instead of fighting together for solutions, the public discourse drifts into polemics, dogmatism, and isolation. The tone becomes hurtful, black and white thinking stifles differentiated considerations and too often catapults opinions that differ from the supposed majority to an extreme of the political spectrum.

These are worrying trends, also from an economic perspective. Fanaticism and zero-sum thinking have a deterrent effect on investors and skilled workers from abroad. And inventiveness, the driving force behind value creation and prosperity, can only flourish where there is diversity and exchange, where there is honest and fair, open, and factual discussion.

An engineer must be able to say that the combustion engine may still have a future without immediately being seen as a climate denier. The economist who thinks about extending working life is not automatically a heartless neoliberal. And anyone who advocates strengthening national competitiveness must not run the risk of being labeled and co-opted as an ethnocentrist

Discuss – don’t stigmatize

We must discuss without stigmatizing – this is worth remembering on the occasion of the International Day of Parliamentarism, which is celebrated every year on June 30th. It is no coincidence that the term parliament comes from the French “parler”: speaking and arguing is a constitutive element on the path to joint decision-making. Since the times of the ancient agora, negotiating conflicts, balancing interests, and working together to find solutions has been a good idea – and not just on a political level in the narrower sense.

Now I don't want to contribute to pigeonholing and defeatism myself. Of course, politics is arduous and often proceeds at a snail's pace - a "strong, slow drilling of hard boards," as the sociologist Max Weber once put it in a famous lecture. But a lot of things in the engine room of the parliamentary system also take place quietly, constructively, and efficiently; countless experts are working with full commitment. This also applies to the exchange in the pre-parliamentary area, where, among other things, business contributes its expertise.

Society can only progress through constructive cooperation; those who defiantly remain in their ideological and partisan corners torpedo innovation and progress. In order to overcome the many challenges, social interaction must be readjusted.

First: We need a real culture of debate again. By listening to other arguments – even seemingly absurd ones –, weighing them up and not dismissing them too quickly. By not defaming opponents –and by primarily focusing on consensus and solutions.

Second: We need more fact-oriented thinking and action. In view of the growing danger of disinformation and simplistic populism, it is crucial to convey the importance and benefits of factual debate more clearly.

Third: We need a truly inclusive, broad dialogue. Negotiating problems in public spaces must involve all social groups, on the basis of what is said above.

And fourth: We need more tolerance. Show the other person the respect that you would expect yourself; allow for ambivalence and overcome trenches. And within this system, be prepared to discuss sensitive questions such as the “tolerance paradox”, according to which excessive tolerance makes it possible for intolerant forces to gain the upper hand and limit or even abolish tolerance.