Talk Radio

What happens when we shift from "winning" an argument to genuinely seeking common ground?  Bryan Gentry, a strategic communications professional, made what we now calls a reckless post on social media in 2008 mocking his friend’s support for Barack Obama.  Bryan wrote the post in a aggressive, talk radio style. His friend was upset, and Bryan quickly regretted the post.  As they talked it out, Bryan learned quite a bit about himself, his relationships, and his politics.

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When We Disagree is a show about arguments. How we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Have you ever been arguing with someone and felt like they're just not hearing you, or responding specifically to what you're saying? More particularly, it seems like they're actually responding to someone else entirely.

Michael Lee: An extreme version of your case, or perhaps someone specific who has made vaguely similar claims to yours. Researchers have called this argument the straw man fallacy. Or just the straw fallacy to take gender out of it. This is misrepresenting an opponent's argument to make it easier to attack. Although the origins of the name are disputed, the metaphor of an easily defeated scarecrow or strawman is plain.

Michael Lee: Instead of addressing the actual claim or position, The person creates a straw argument, a distorted or oversimplified version of it, [00:01:00] and then proceeds to knock it down. It's like building a weak version of your opponent's argument and then claiming victory because it was so easy to defeat. Let's say you and your partner are discussing how to spend household money.

Michael Lee: You suggest, I think we should save some more money for emergencies. Your partner doesn't like this and responds with something like Oh, so you want us to just never enjoy life? You want us to just stop spending or having fun forever? Instead of addressing your actual point and saving for emergencies, or consider it at least.

Michael Lee: They've exaggerated it into something extreme, never spending money on fun or never having fun, to make it easier to argue against. Of course, you never said anything about cutting out enjoyment entirely, but this distorted version makes it hard to have a conversation about strategic or situational spending and saving.

Michael Lee: Imagine you're at work and your boss muses I think we should implement some more team building activities to improve morale, and [00:02:00] you think to yourself, oh so you think we're all just incompetent and need constant hand holding to get our work done? Here again, you're creating a straw argument by misrepresenting the original suggestion.

Michael Lee: Your boss wasn't saying the team is incompetent, but merely suggesting activities to boost morale. The argument then shifts away from the actual proposal and becomes a discussion of workplace competency. Which wasn't the original point. The straw fallacy blocks productive dialogue, and hinders conflict resolution, but at its core, it really just reduces connection.

Michael Lee: Whether it's intentional or not, composing straw versions of what others are saying refuses to engage the world as the other person sees it. When we misrepresent someone's argument, we're not engaging with them honestly, and that makes it almost impossible to reach common ground. If someone constantly builds straw versions of your argument, You might start feeling unheard or misrepresented, which can damage trust.

Michael Lee: Straw tactics can [00:03:00] also derail serious conversations, turning complex issues into oversimplified caricatures. This is why it's crucial to really listen, to actually listen to the other side, and accurately represent their position before responding. I'm Michael Lee, Professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative.

Michael Lee: Our guest today on When We Disagree is Brian Gentry. Brian has been a University Communications Director for the past 13 years, and he was a journalist before that. He also does freelance writing on political culture and education. Brian, tell us an argument story. 

Bryan Gentry: Mike, thanks for having me. Um, I want to tell you about an argument that really, um, Changed a lot of the course of my life.

Bryan Gentry: The way I look at the world around me and engage with people around me, this happened in, uh, this would have been 2008. It was the first time that Barack Obama was running [00:04:00] for the presidency. And, uh, at that time, I. a very strong conservative. I listened to a lot of talk radio back then. I was a journalist, um, and I had a friend who had had kind of come out to really support Barack Obama.

Bryan Gentry: Um, and he talked, talked to me about his reasons, many of which I disagreed with. And, but I, looking back, I also realized I did not understand them. Uh, I ended up deciding one day. In the spirit of stand up comedy or, um, uh, and talk radio kind of the intersection of those. I wanted to write something kind of entertaining about what I thought about the election, um, and, um, kind of poke fun at a lot of the a lot of the reasons that this friend had told me, um.

Bryan Gentry: But when I put this online on Facebook, um, I actually changed the privacy settings so that he could not see it. I thought you want to, um, [00:05:00] you know, I, I wanted to be able to poke fun at it, but didn't really want to engage with him on it. But, of course, it turns out those privacy settings did not work and ended up feeling quite embarrassed.

Bryan Gentry: Uh, but. As an outcome of that, I started to, uh, engage more constructively and thoughtfully and really try to understand the people around me. 

Michael Lee: Mm hmm. What, what kind of stuff did you write? 

Bryan Gentry: Oh, you know, looking back, I can hardly remember, um, most of what I wrote. I, I, I titled it my favorite quotes from Barack Obama supporters.

Michael Lee: Uh, were they made up, were they made up quotes? 

Bryan Gentry: Uh, they were, yes, they were made up quotes for the most part. They were paraphrased. They were, um, simplified, taken out of context. Um, I was basically building a straw man, uh, of a Barack Obama supporter. Um, [00:06:00] it's good. It's good. Like 

Michael Lee: talk radio stuff. Like you can imagine Rush Limbaugh in the day doing something like this.

Bryan Gentry: Oh, absolutely. It was straight out of the talk radio playbook and nothing like, uh, what a journalist like myself should have been doing. 

Michael Lee: Right. And you were covering a similar beat, political culture and education as a journalist at the time? 

Bryan Gentry: At that time, I was, I was covering business. So I was writing articles about, you know, nuclear energy companies in the region that I was living in at the time and banks and consumer spending, things like that, uh, foreclosures.

Bryan Gentry: But I was, my, my beat did not cover politics, which is. One reason why I just put this on Facebook, uh, for my friends to see rather than actually publishing it in an outlet. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. Question two, two questions. And I want to hear the kind of aftermath of, uh, what happened after the privacy setting screw up. Um, [00:07:00] one, did you have.

Michael Lee: An ideological conversion. And then two, did you have a kind of tactical conversion about the role of sarcasm, mocking, talk radio shtick in general, in political or relational conversations? 

Bryan Gentry: Well, um, I'll, I'll describe the aftermath like this, um, so I actually, I, I clicked posts on that, you know, on that Facebook note.

Bryan Gentry: Then I went to play dodgeball with some friends who got together for, you know, for 

Michael Lee: playing every 

Bryan Gentry: now and then, then on, you know, then later that night, I, um. Later that night, I checked my Facebook, and the first comment was from this friend who I was misquoting, mischaracterizing him throughout most of this post, and he had said, this is unfair for you to, for you to bring this up like this, and I felt so [00:08:00] embarrassed, and I deleted, I deleted the, that post, I apologized publicly on Facebook, I called him and apologized personally, because I realized it did not match my values the next morning.

Bryan Gentry: Um, I awoke with, you know, the next morning I woke and just started having these this idea run through my brain. Um, and the words were speaking the truth in love. And I'm a person of faith. Uh, I ended up searching for those words. Turns out there are some words from the New Testament, but it just, uh, kind of drove home to me that this, this was the, an ideal that I aspired to, that I believe is important, but that I had fallen short of, and I had fallen short of that because I had not spoken the truth.

Bryan Gentry: 100%. I took words out of context. I twisted things to make it a funnier joke or whatever. Um, and also it wasn't done in a spirit of love and [00:09:00] respect and, um, and mutual understanding. Um, and so when you ask it, did I have an ideological conversion? Did I have a tactical conversion? It started out as a tactical conversion because this was a moment that made me realize.

Bryan Gentry: That my goal is not to own my political opponents or destroy someone who I disagree with in an argument, and it might not necessarily be to convince or persuade that person who disagrees with me. Um, and so that's affected how I've responded to countless kinds of disagreements since then. Um, just trying to understand, well, what is this other person actually thinking?

Bryan Gentry: And why do they think that? Rather than coming up with a straw man shortcut that I can mock, ridicule or, um, or easily take down 

Michael Lee: that 

Bryan Gentry: did. Ultimately, it did start to [00:10:00] lead to an ideological shift, not quite a conversion, but a shift where simply by. Asking myself, why do people actually disagree with me on politics that led to me, led me to understand why people did.

Bryan Gentry: And it turns out I agreed with some of those reasons. And so. You know, I tell people today that I'm a radical moderate or something like that, um, because a revolutionary centrist, sorry, what was that? 

Michael Lee: A revolutionary centrist. 

Bryan Gentry: Yes, that's another way of saying it, where I just, I understand arguments on both sides and I see the appeal of them.

Bryan Gentry: Um, and so that it did lead to an ideological shift, if not an outright conversion. 

Michael Lee: Was there a moment I'm sure there was, or maybe a rolling series of moments that night you make the post, you go play dodgeball, you come back, you realize that there's some access issues you hadn't [00:11:00] anticipated. This thing has, has a life that, uh, perhaps you didn't like.

Michael Lee: Was there a moment when you thought. Oh my God, I've really screwed up here. 

Bryan Gentry: Yeah, it was that moment when I saw that, uh, one of the comments on the post was from the specific person I had from, and that hit me, it hit me hard for two reasons. One, I had trusted technology to allow me to be a bad friend. To allow me to, um, basically act contrary to my values, act contrary to the friend I was trying to be, um, and I trusted technology to kind of let me get away with it.

Bryan Gentry: And, uh, uh, so I realized that there are a couple of problems with that. We can't really trust technology to do that, but too, we shouldn't trust technology. Even if technology were perfect and bulletproof, and we didn't have anything to worry about, um, because there's [00:12:00] also the, um, the, the prospect of who do we want to be, um, and so that's, and that's the other place where I messed up.

Bryan Gentry: I think I also had, uh, set the post to be hidden from some of my coworkers because I didn't, I was like, well, you know. I don't want them to know that I'm a journalist out here talking about my political opinion, even though politics politics was not my beat. Um, but since, you know, after that, I think I, um, became much more careful about just making sure that I was representing my employer.

Bryan Gentry: Uh, and trying to show a lack of bias there as well. 

Michael Lee: How did your friend react when you called to apologize? 

Bryan Gentry: Uh, he was upset. And his, I think his big question at the time was, why would you do this? And that just made me reflect on, well, why did I do it? 

Michael Lee: Right. 

Bryan Gentry: He wanted to know, could, could he count on me to be a friend?

Bryan Gentry: Even when [00:13:00] we disagreed on politics, and at that moment, he probably realized he couldn't. I hope I proved over the following months that, um, that he could trust me as I did not repeat that kind of, uh, approach to a political discussion after that. Um, but his question made me reflect. 

Michael Lee: I think this question is a little broader than this story, but I've given your experience.

Michael Lee: I'd love to hear you reflect on it. You talked about powerfully about the phrase speaking the truth and love. And this is certainly a situation where the truthfulness is, is the lack of truthfulness here is. Is unmistakable in the sense that you were hiding this from your employer and the specific target that the quotations are made up.

Michael Lee: Quotations were specifically taken out of context and meant to be as uncharitable as possible to create the straw person, as you say. Um, and I wonder, is there an [00:14:00] extent to which. You can still make space for mocking, barbed, sarcastic, teasing humor in a political culture in which sometimes really powerful people need to be leveled, need to be taken down a notch.

Michael Lee: In other words, can those be done? ever in love taken out of the context of this specific personal relationship? 

Bryan Gentry: Well, so you mentioned, you mentioned the phrase powerful people. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. 

Bryan Gentry: Uh, there's a huge difference between mocking or teasing, uh, making fun of something about the president of the United States or a candidate for president.

Bryan Gentry: That is a, that is a, Making a comment about a president or a candidate for president, something like that, is vastly different from making the same comment about your neighbor, or your friend, or your co worker. [00:15:00] Uh, so the, the You know, punching up as they say in comedy, it's okay to punch up, but you don't punch down.

Bryan Gentry: Um, so that, you know, that's 1 consideration to make there. There's also when people are at similar levels of power and responsibility and respect and authority, um, then there's, there's good natured ribbing. Versus destructive, uh, destructive humor, good natured ribbing, I think would be something that people on both sides could could chuckle at and admit.

Bryan Gentry: Well, that's funny. Uh, 1 example, 1 of my favorite jokes, um, Ronald Reagan, um. During one of his debates, I can't remember which time he ran for president, but one of the debates he was involved in, someone said, well, is age an issue in this election, implying his age? And he said, I believe it is, but I promise not to use my opponent's youth, again, youth and inexperience against him.

Bryan Gentry: And everyone [00:16:00] present laughed. It was something that, um, that yeah. It was humorous. It was light hearted. It was not vindictive in any way. Um, but then there are other ways where, um, you're too serious about the joke, you're cutting too deep, um, or people only on one side of the equation, one side of the argument might find it humorous.

Michael Lee: That's the Mondale 1984, Reagan makes the youth in an experience, Barb. And Mondale later gave an interview to PBS in which he said that after he smiled, Mondale smiles and laughs and the audience does too. And then Mondale said that his, his laugh. Concealed a real sadness because that was the singular moment in which he knew he had lost the election.

Michael Lee: The point about humor and the power of humor, the power of humor to essentially allow you to get away with some barbs, but [00:17:00] also be relationship reaffirming. And in addition to the distinctions between punching laterally, punching down and punching up are all good ones. Big picture question as we close.

Michael Lee: Do you ever miss the, this aping, the talk radio shtick that you were aping in 2008? In other words, was that persona doing something for you that you can even, even in a, in a small way, look back fondly upon? Or do you feel like this is a real sea change and you are thrilled to disown that that phase of your life?

Michael Lee: It 

Bryan Gentry: is a sea change. Um, it was I'm trying to remember exactly when just a couple of years later, something I changed careers and something about. Um, I'm trying to remember exactly when it was, but I stopped listening to the radio as much in general and therefore stopped listening to talk radio. And I actually like the person who I [00:18:00] became because I realized a lot of what I was listening to on talk radio was leading me to only see one side of the story, was leading me to, um, think ill of people around me who just happened to disagree.

Bryan Gentry: And so, um, now I still have, I have a tremendous amount of respect for many of my, uh, friends and relatives who listen to talk radio or are involved in politics on a more, um, on a more partisan scale than I am. Um, but I, um, but for me personally. You know, that may have, you know, listening to and even maybe hoping to someday be a part of talk radio or being a part of that culture was a part of me at one time as I went through this shift of.

Bryan Gentry: Realizing that the real me is someone who wants to talk with someone who disagrees [00:19:00] with me on politics and try to understand why they think differently. Do and do we have common ground? And can we find some solution? That might be a, it might be a compromise or it might be, um, something of mutual benefit, um, on another issue or something.

Bryan Gentry: But can we find a way to disagree? With respect rather than, uh, and work constructively rather than just a quick takedown that might go viral on social media, but doesn't actually build anything up. 

Michael Lee: And then there is a kind of preference there for a private personal conversation, as opposed to a public takedown, a public takedown with an audience.

Bryan Gentry: Right. Um, I think it was, um, uh, Stephen R. Covey, [00:20:00] who in his seven habits, he said we should seek first to understand, uh, before we seek to be understood. Um, and that, that maxim says a lot. When you just post a quick take on social media or call into a talk radio show or something, you're usually not trying to understand someone else.

Bryan Gentry: You're usually trying to be understood. But if we take more time to actually be curious about the people around us who disagree with us, whether it be on politics or religion or, um, the best way to approach a project at work. If we take that time to be curious about it, then we can really understand the issues at hand and probably work more effectively in the long run.

Michael Lee: Brian Gentry, thanks so much for being on When We Disagree. 

Bryan Gentry: Thank you, Mike. 

Michael Lee: When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Kunz and Lance Laidlaw. [00:21:00] Reach out to us at whenwedisagree at gmail. com.