OPINION

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By Andrew Eastep

Debate is an essential part of the American culture. From the earliest debates on the playground over the best Pokémon (Squirtle, obviously), to dinner table arguments on who should be the next president (Squirtle, obviously), the very nature of American democracy relies on compromise and debating the pros and cons of an idea. But there’s a fundamental problem with the state of debate in America right now. 

A hot dog. Image credit: User The Culinary Geek via Wikimedia Commons.

Thousands of times, I’ve turned on a cable news station and been bombarded with relentless screaming that seems to resemble a tailgate at a football game more than a discussion on public policy. Debates at the national level don’t seem to fare much better, with the nation reeling from the—let’s call them “interesting”—2020 presidential debates. Many would argue that politics is just a difficult subject, and that it’s because of that difficulty that debate gets muddied up. I disagree, and to prove my point, I’m asking:

Is a hot dog a sandwich?

Is this a shameless rip-off of Sarah Garman Rohr’s (‘20) 2019 Match article that asked the same question? Pretty much. Am I still going to write about it? Almost certainly.

I should clarify; I’m not just asking if a hot dog is a sandwich. That would be ridiculous, and if there’s anything I’m not, it’s ridiculous. I’m also asking if cereal is soup, if Pop-Tarts are ravioli and whether or not edge brownie is better than center brownie. These are the questions that need answering.

This little social experiment involved polling Upper School students and faculty on those very pertinent questions and asking them why they believed in what they believed. My goal in this experiment wasn’t focused on what people chose in the poll. There are enough articles about that already. My goal was to see why people chose the way they did. And boy, did I get some results.

Chase Conquest (‘21), noted brownie centrist, gave this reason for choosing the way he did: “Richard Nixon.” 

Ava Messer (‘23) responded simply with a link to the Credit Karma website. 

Perhaps my favorite reason was presented by Dunning Gould (‘23), who simply responded, “lmao.” 

Admittedly, a Match poll isn’t the most accurate way to collect data. However there still is some useful information we can glean from the survey.

A Brownie. Image credit: User Ɱ via Wikimedia Commons.

At the time of writing this, of the 114 students who responded, only 36 gave a reason for their position. Some of those 36 responses didn’t even justify their response, preferring to simply restate their position. For instance, Sarah Grace Clarke (‘21) stated her reasoning as, “A hot dog is a hot dog. I don’t get why people think it is a sandwich, because it is not. Cereal is cereal. A Pop-Tart is a Pop-Tart.” Similarly, Maddox Winston Evans’ (‘22) reasons for responding the way he did were, “a hot dog is a hot dog, not a sandwich. Cereal is, in fact, a soup. Pop-Tart and ravioli are very much not the same. Edge pieces are goated.”

Even more problematic is that some responses attacked the opposition without even defending their own position. Spencer Billings (‘21) responded, “if you reach for the center brownie first, I don’t trust you, and I never will trust you on the grounds you’re probably a terrible person,” which is probably the best representation of politics in America. 

Similarly, Harrison Neuhaus (‘24) responded, “if you take the center brownie, you are Satan.” Aside from the obvious problem of people feeling threatened over brownies, the more significant issue at hand is that, instead of giving reasons for their answer, they preferred to slander the opposition.

The question is: Why?

Why is it that something as inconsequential as a Pop-Tart, or whether or not cereal is soup, becomes such a heated debate? I believe that the problem stems from how we debate. In the great U.S. of A, we tend to argue superficially, barely scratching the surface of the deeper question we’re asking. Putting it bluntly, we argue over conclusions, not reasons.

Michael Sandel, philosophy professor at Harvard* University, would seem to agree. In his TED Talk on democratic debate, he says that, “lying just beneath the surface of those arguments, with passions raging on all sides, are big questions of moral philosophy, big questions of justice. But we too rarely articulate and defend and argue about those big moral questions in our politics.”

Yes, perhaps arguments over food might be a bit of a sidestep from politics, but the underlying problem remains the same. There’s an underlying philosophy that informs our choices, but we don’t articulate that. Instead we shout over each other, creating teams: Either you’re with me or against me.

According to a New York Times article by philosophy professor Dr. Jonathan Ellis and law student Francesca Hovagimian, “[debaters] don’t cultivate the disposition to listen to others with the real possibility of changing their minds. On the contrary, they practice listening with eagle ears for opposing points to pounce on. Rather than increasing their comfort with being wrong, they can deepen an attitude of certainty.”

I think one of the major problems with debate is that it suggests that there are two sides to an argument. Debate posits that you can either be “for” or “against” something, without much in-between, and that you have to sternly defend your argument until you crush your opponent and win. Debate is a competition. A hot dog is a hot dog, and if you disagree with me, you’re stupid and wrong. Deal with it.

According to Collegiate government and economics teacher Rob Wedge, “When we ‘win’ an argument, however we win it, we get way too excited about winning the argument, so we argue harder. Similarly, we hate to lose, and some people will just hang on so that they don’t ‘lose’ an argument.”

So, is there an alternative?

Aristotle. Image credit: Alvaro Marques Hijazo via Wikimedia Commons.

Aristotle seemed to think so. (Yes, I am about to cite Aristotle in an article about cereal being soup, and something tells me if he saw this he would be proud. He would also probably be confused about what a hot dog is.) 

Aristotle believed that to consider a problem, we have to dive beneath the superficial “for” and “against,” and look at the essential nature of the problem. For instance, Aristotle would look at the edge-versus-center brownie argument and ask, “What is the purpose of a brownie?” The purpose of a brownie is going to vary between different people, depending on their opinions and their views on brownies. Some might say a brownie is meant to have crisp edges, and some might say it’s supposed to be gooey. But that’s okay. Disagreement is healthy. But, if we look at the underlying philosophy that makes us disagree, we might find points that we do agree on and find common ground. For instance, we may both agree that the purpose of a brownie is to be delicious, even though we find different elements of the brownie delicious.

According to Sandel, “there is a tendency to think that if we engage too directly with moral questions in politics, that’s a recipe for disagreement, and for that matter, a recipe for intolerance and coercion. So better to shy away from, to ignore, the moral and the religious convictions that people bring to civic life.”

But when you only scratch the surface of the issue, there’s nothing to discuss other than just “for” versus “against,” “red” versus “blue,” “Pop-Tart” versus “ravioli.” It’s only once we break down these barriers and start getting at the heart of the argument that we can start to understand each other and work towards a solution that we can all agree on. Instead of asking, “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” we need to ask ourselves, “What is the essential nature of a hot dog?” and “What is the essential nature of a sandwich?” From there, we can finally come to understand our opposition instead of yelling at them.

Food debates may be a tad less important than arguments over laws and welfare checks—I think we would all be upset if Congress spent the day talking about the best way to make hot chocolate instead of writing the tax code—but if we can’t talk about whether pineapple belongs on a pizza or what is the optimal way to make a PB&J without pulling out the heavy artillery, how can we ever be a productive society?

So the next time someone on Twitter asks you if cereal is soup, take the time to ask why you think cereal is soup or not. Be willing to explain and discuss your thoughts on the inherent soupiness of cereal with those who disagree. And maybe, just maybe, you might be able to find some common ground.

Featured image credit: Evan-Amos via Wikimedia Commons.

* CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misidentified Sandel’s university as “Stanford.” We regret the error.