Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies
On Pompous Words and Pipes
I have quite rightly been accused of using pompous vocabulary that requires a footnote, and “dialectic” probably belongs squarely in that dock. It sounds like something you’d mutter over a pipe in a wood-panelled study while adjusting your tweed jacket.
A dialectic is what happens when two people disagree and neither storms out of the room. It’s basically this: someone says something, someone else says, “Hang on,” and if nobody flips the table, everyone ends up a bit smarter. It’s an idea, a serious counterpunch, and, if grown-ups are in the room, an upgraded version of both.
Recently, I introduced my students to the concept of dialectic not as a debating trick, but as a learning method for dealing with difficult and contentious issues.
What Should Be Off Limits?
I posed the question as if it were harmless. Casual. Academic.
“What topics should be off limits for dialectic debate?”
The hesitation in the room didn’t last long. Once the first hand went up, others followed quickly, as if relieved that someone had broken the ice.
“Politics,” one student said firmly.
There was an immediate ripple of agreement. A few heads nodded with conviction. Politics, after all, is the subject most likely to derail a dinner table or detonate a group chat. It felt like the obvious candidate for quarantine.
“Religion,” another added.
The nodding intensified. Of course. Faith is deeply personal, often inherited, rarely surrendered without pain. If anything could turn an intellectual exercise into an emotional standoff, surely it would be religion.
Then, from further back in the room, someone offered a third category:
“My culture.”
That one shifted the tone.
It wasn’t abstract like politics, or philosophical like religion. It was intimate. It was identity. It carried the unspoken subtext: this is who I am. This is my history. This is not up for dissection.
You could feel the weight of it settle in the room.
Politics. Religion. Culture.
In that brief exchange, we had assembled a remarkably powerful list of politics, religion, culture, the very forces that shape nations, elections, conflicts, loyalties, and worldviews. The things that most influence how we see the world.
And yet the instinct was to place them beyond scrutiny, as though the intensity of feeling made them unsuitable for careful thought.
It was a revealing moment. In less than a minute, we had quietly agreed that the issues most central to our collective life were too dangerous to examine together.
If a topic is powerful enough to shape policy, identity, or history, it is important enough to withstand careful examination. The intensity of feeling around an issue does not disqualify it from debate; it makes disciplined debate more necessary.
To exclude such issues is to imply they are too fragile for reason. And that, I would argue, is a far more dangerous claim than any argument we might advance about them.
A Culture of Argument
Now, I come from a culture where argument is practically a national pastime. We debate over a braai, over breakfast, over lunch and over supper. I debate when it’s inappropriate. Politics, religion, culture, corruption, inequality, rugby, almost nothing is too sacred to be pulled apart loudly and at length.
Ok, perhaps not rugby.
It’s not always refined, but it is engaged. We don’t avoid tension; we live in it.
That means Israel–Gaza, the legacy of apartheid, racism, abortion, Black Economic Empowerment, all of it is fair game.
Not for cheap point-scoring. Not for outrage theatre.
But for scrutiny.
Digital Food Fights
And no, this is not what happens in the comments sections of news sites, on X, or in those enormous WhatsApp groups where everyone suddenly becomes a geopolitical strategist.
Those spaces are not dialectic. They’re digital food fights.
People don’t enter to learn; they enter to perform. Arguments are crafted for applause, not understanding. Opponents are reduced to cartoons. The aim is not synthesis but domination, preferably in under 280 characters. Nuance is treated like cowardice. Changing your mind is seen as treason.
It’s not a disciplined disagreement. It’s tribal chest-thumping with Wi-Fi.
Social media rewards speed, certainty, and spectacle. Dialectic demands patience, humility, and the uncomfortable admission that you may have been wrong.
And ok I admit, the flesh is sometimes weak. I, too, have been known to sling a little spaghetti into the melee and then step back as if the devil himself hacked my account. It’s remarkable how persuasive he can be when outrage is trending.
The Discipline of Staying in the Room
Dialectic is slow. It requires an actual conversation. Two people in the same room. Looking each other in the eye. Listening without interrupting. Allowing the other person to finish a sentence, even when you disagree with every word of it and find it deeply offensive.
Responding to what was actually said, rather than to the imaginary villain you’ve constructed in your head.
Most importantly, it requires recognising the humanity of your counterpart. Not their avatar. Not their ideology. Not their voting record. Their humanity.
It is much harder to dismiss or demonise someone sitting across from you, someone whose voice you can hear shift when they care about something, whose expression changes as they think, who is clearly more than the label you might prefer to attach to them.
Dialectic demands that you take another mind seriously.
The Dopamine Problem
Of course, I get this wrong all the time.
Dialectic sounds noble in theory, eye contact, humanity, disciplined listening, but in practice, it is exhausting. It is far easier to retreat to the warm glow of righteous certainty. It is much easier to fire off a clever insult, to call POTUS an orange buffoon (because he is), and enjoy the satisfying rush of tribal applause.
That takes seconds.
Dialectic takes stamina.
It requires swallowing the perfectly crafted retort and asking, “What am I missing?” It requires resisting the dopamine hit of outrage and choosing the slower, less glamorous work of thinking.
If I’m honest, the temptation to simplify, mock, and move on is constant.
The discipline to stay in the uncomfortable space of actual engagement?
That’s the part that requires practice.
In the meantime, I’ll try to resist the dopamine and keep the spaghetti in the pot. No promises.
Until Next Time
Bruce
Ruminant Pink Friday 