By Savannah Dowtin ’28 (DCI Fellow)
“Would you rather be reincarnated as Trisha Paytas or Jojo Siwa?” I break the silence of the solemn lunch table as my friends look up with confused expressions, scoffing through bites of spaghetti. These types of outrageous Would You Rather questions are far from rare in our Commons table conversations. On the surface, they seem ridiculous, random, and you may start to wonder what type of person even comes up with something like that. But they all have one thing in common: they spark deliberation.
The first deliberation skill my friends employ is the ability and willingness to disagree with one another. What happens when everyone in the room says they would rather have toes for fingers when having fingers for toes seems like the obviously more advantageous option? Unlike problems that plague our world today, these questions don’t suggest a level of expertise is necessary to solve them. When discussing the former, it is important to acknowledge that everyone as citizens in the public sphere can bring value to a conversation with their unique experiences and local expertise. But while one might hesitate to contribute to a discussion on immigration if they feel ill-prepared, anyone can jump into a Would You Rather debate with equal ethos. Thus, the deliberative disposition, egalitarianism, is not only exercised but encouraged in these conversations because entertainment arises within disagreement.
What follows shortly after the initial proposition are the qualifiers: “If I’m Trisha Paytas, do I have to act like her? Am I Jojo Siwa currently, or when she was on Dance Moms?” To engage in proper deliberation, we crave complete context, even when discussing a problem that is entirely fabricated and hypothetical. Unfortunately, having complete context is a near-impossible feat. Instead, as Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse write in their book, Why We Argue, we must exercise earnestness and responsibility, meaningfully addressing as many arguments as we can with respect and validity. When we disagree with people, there is a common assumption that because we went through a logical process to arrive at our conclusion, there must be a gap in logic on the opposing side. This reflects the tendency to underestimate the power of context, framing, and information available about an issue.
Another deliberative aspect infused in this example is the flexibility and expectation that one’s opinion will change as new information is given. At first, one might argue that being the worst player on the best sports team is better than being the best player on a worst sports team, because they’re considering what’s beneficial for the team as a whole as opposed to prioritizing their personal achievements. However, someone might counter that being the best player on the worst sports team means that their contributions are meaningful to the team, and this way, they aren’t weighing the team down as the worst player. In both of these arguments, the team is valued most, but the conclusions differ based on the interpretation of the information. This illustrates how disagreements can still arise when people harbor the same core values; the steps a person takes from the data to their decision must be well understood to understand their belief. Additionally, reassessing our beliefs as we gain new information, and practicing what Aikin and Talisse describe as cognitive hygiene, is crucial to maintaining the productivity of deliberations and remaining authentic with ourselves and our communities.
Unlike a Would You Rather question, real issues rarely only have two sides. Being able to tease apart the nuance within problems helps us understand the various pinpoints of disagreement more clearly and address them with attuned focus. Oftentimes, we are forced to use our citizenship responsibility to make binary choices, like choosing to elect person A or person B, when in actuality, both of these options represent a plethora of other Would You Rather questions. However, if we can take the time to disagree with our peers and defend our opinions using emotion and experience to motivate instead of blind us when the stakes are Trisha Paytas versus Jojo Siwa, then there is hope that we can exercise these principles on issues that affect our communities, our schools, and our nation.
