Analyzing Debatable Claims
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Analyzing Debatable Claims
The TED talk topic is, “Is civility a sham?”. The talk was conducted by Teresa Bejan, who is a professor in political theory at Oxford University. Before going to teach at Oxford Univesity, she was a lecturer at the University of Toronto. She has been conferred with the American Political Science Association’s 2015 Leo Strauss award, whereby she was considered to have the best dissertation in the area of political philosophy. One of her keynote lectures is that of ‘acknowledging equality.’ Her research brings about different perspectives in modern political and English thoughts as the research makes people on political theory and practice.
Dr. Bejan begins the talk by stating that she believed that civility was a sham, but in the course of writing her book on civility and studying the long history of civility, she changed her mind. She started viewing civility as a necessity in society. Her book mainly looks at civility and combines the competing conceptions on the matters by people such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Roger Williams. She views the development of civility as the sophisticated efforts that people put into ensuring that there is coexistence among people and not the superficial calls for politeness.
The aim of the TED talk is to highlight the importance of civility. Dr. Bejan expects the audience to use the info she gives to establish that civility is essential in society. As she explains, civility is personal diplomacy where one masters the art of not going to war. It is also the art of not leaving the table even if the other side deserves it. She also states that civility is good and is not considered a sham, but deciding to talk about civility itself is uncivil(Bejan). It is deemed to be uncivil because it creates a moral high ground for the speaker and thereby creating a barrier for the civil discussion to continue. The audience is, therefore, expected to have the courage to make themselves disagreeable.
The target audience is everyone in general since it does not apply to a specific group. She calls out to everyone without mentioning particular groups. The context of the talk is true civility is expressing what one believes to be true to a person or a group with whom one may not agree. It is very hard as it requires a calm head and honesty from both sides of the discussion, and if civility is exercised, it forms the core of an actual debate and conflict resolution. To understand the topic being discussed, the audience must first know the meaning of civility. Civility can be defined as the courtesy and politeness in behavior when one is involved in a formal conversation.
The speaker uses appeals such as the little disagreements that people indulge in. She explains that people more often than not defend their opinions even though they know they are wrong. They fail to stop and consider the other side’s arguments since they are not civil. Most people lack the virtue of staying calm and not being easily offended in an argument, which is an essential virtue since it helps one to grasp the idea of others and realize that they are not always right. She also highlights that the United States, a tolerance community, has not been a happy one due to the use of the approach(Bejan). She explains that civility makes disagreements tolerable even if the people in the arguments do not have the same faiths, for instance, religious and political convictions.
Evidence that is used is documentary evidence, where she refers to her book for most of the arguments she makes. She gives an illustration where she says that most religious leaders in the 17 th century used the discussion of civility to silence and suppress other established churches that were not approved by them. Dr. Bajan goes ahead and uses the evidence of protestors of civil rights being silenced by the argument of civility. They use this strategy to save themselves from making an argument since they dismiss the opposite side from making their arguments claiming that they are uncivil. The evidence is not so credible since it is biased. She uses her book as evidence, which means she uses her ideas to make the arguments. I would like to know whether civility always leads to the production of productive discussions. Is there a possibility that people may be civil in a discussion but still not agree and result in taking measures such as leaving the argument or starting wars.
The speaker introduces the topic by saying that she used to think the contrary to what she stands for now. But as she continued to interact with people and read more books, her opinion was changed. It is very compelling since it does invoke interest. One would like to know the factors as to why she changed her mind about civility being a sham. The way she introduces the topic is very captivating as it attracts the attention of the audience. She concludes the talk by explaining that civility cannot be compared to being respectful, but speaking one’s mind to one’s opponents and not behind their face (Bejan). Therefore, she uses the method of stating surprising facts that are supposed to catch the audience’s attention at the end of the talk.
References
Bejan, T. (Director). (n.d.). Is civility a sham? [Video file]. Retrieved May 22, 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/teresa_bejan_is_civility_a_sham