The Argument Culture: Stopping America's War of Words Review

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(More customer reviews)How often does a person get to argue about a book that says we argue too much! I disagree, with a smile, with the other reviewers, and think that Tannen has deepened and extended her research by focusing her linguistic talents on the broader cultural domains of politics, journalism, and academia. While some overlap with her former work regarding the difficulty in communication gender, I found her other insights quite relevant and sagacious. I live and work in Japan, and I can assure you that this book has opened my eyes to look at myself and how often I approach discussions here with the argument attitude. Alfie Kohn (No Contest) and others have pointed out how our competitive attitudes are a result of the social structures that we inhabit. Tannen skillfully paints a accurate picture of the American system that reinforces and rewards arguments and acheivement. It is easy to see how easily how distrust, skepticism, and misunderstanding occurs when discussion is replaced with debate. It is easy to see too why we have become such a violent society when you have to fight to be heard. Our whole system is built on persuasion and politics, geared to attack people and their positions, not to promote cooperation and dialogue. As an academic, I can certainly identify with the one-upmanship that constantly occurs among university professors. Tannen has not covered all of the bases regarding conflict, nor needs to. I would recommend other works like Morton Deutsch's Handbook of Conflict Resolution, or Stephen Toulmin's The Uses of Argument, or Wiliam Ury's work Getting to Yes, Getting Past No for some practical applications. But this informative book takes a meta-view of American discourse and makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the language we are immersed in, and offers the alternative of dialogue instead of debate as a effective way of connecting with others. I often recommend this book to Americans who are living and working overseas so they can understand how to be more relationally sensitive to cultures that are not so direct in their dealings with people. Thank you, Dr. Tannen, your illustrations and insights are enlightening!

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