By Ezra Minard ’28 (DCI Fellow)
Denunciation and persuasion are two common tools in the rhetorician’s repertoire. Both seek to affect change. Both recognize the inherent self-interestedness of any interlocutor. However, they are far from equal. Denunciation is easy, instinctive, and emotionally satisfying. Persuasion, by contrast, is difficult, uncomfortable, demanding, and frustratingly the far less common of the two. It is the path less traveled, one which requires patience, humility, and tact. Persuasion is preferable to denunciation because it engages others without hardening opposition or undermining dialogue through condemnation.
Denunciation operates by attacking motive and appealing to guilt and shame. It signals moral superiority and implies that the other’s beliefs place them beneath serious engagement. It is more comfortable to regard oneself as morally superior to an opponent than to consider the possibility of being wrong, which is exactly the disposition which civil discourse requires. Predictably, denunciation invites reciprocal denunciation. Rather than expanding dialogue, it constricts it by hardening opposition and dividing people among in-groups and out-groups. Do denouncers reasonably expect those they criticize to join them condemning themselves? More often, the denounced feel attacked and become less willing to listen as a result. While denunciation may project a belief in one’s own moral superiority, it undermines fruitful deliberation.
Contemporary debates about the platforming issue illustrate this tension. Some defend exclusion (and denunciation by extension) as a means to prevent the popularization of harmful ideas. They might view exclusion as an instrument of the court of public opinion, and I agree that there are circumstances in which conversation refusal or avoidance is not only justified, but perhaps necessary. Similarly, no one has a moral obligation to engage with anyone in any conversation and the freedom of association is an overlooked but essential right under the First Amendment. But consider the maxim: “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” Do denunciation and exclusion inadvertently popularize certain views by making them appear edgy or off-limits? If so, deplatforming could be a tragic mistake. And where do those “off-limits” conversations move ?
Conversations rarely disappear when suppressed. Instead, they often relocate into more ideologically homogenous spaces. Such insulation intensifies partisanship and deters deliberative dialogue, especially between those who are most diametrically opposed and subsequently, most in need of deliberation. If a democracy relies on productive dialogue between disagreeing parties, then ideological sectionalism compromises it.
I do not mean to suggest that there is neither a time nor a place for denunciation or for choosing not to platform someone. Conversation is only one tool among many for affecting political change. Protest is another. Our current political moment, however, feels oversaturated with denunciation and greatly in need of dialogue. The architecture of the internet feeds on rage, fear, panic, and character assassination, as they generate more online traffic than empathy, humility, and moderation. Dialogue is simply less cinematic. It does not trend as denunciation does.
Additionally, online spaces provide anonymity that weakens accountability. The social costs of harsh rhetoric decline in the absence of face-to-face settings. While online privacy is essential, its utilization in the dialogue sphere encourages caricatures, condemnation, and condescension as one is less prone to regard their interlocutor’s humanity on X (Twitter), for example.
A more effective alternative to denunciation is persuasion, which logically appeals to one’s interlocutor’s self-interest. Rather than trying to compel belief through shame, persuasion invites the interlocutor to agree, if she finds it aligned with her self-interest. Treating an interlocutor as a moral equal, even despite disagreement, does not necessarily concede moral complicity but instead recognizes shared humanity and seeks positive transformation.
