If you grew up with siblings, you likely experienced the moments of storming off after an argument that, in the grand scheme of things, was probably about nothing important. And even if you’re an only child then there’s a good chance schoolyard friendships were tested in a similar manner. Football teams, trading cards and Pokemon were fonts of bickering and quarrelling in my early school days. All the friendships survived these fights, I believe, however it seems like the art of impassioned arguing has also survived into the modern day, where the schoolkids are now twenty-somethings on the Internet tearing each other’s throats out on social media posts or forums. Examining the recent victories of Brexit and Trump (and the relative successes of Le Pen in France, AfD in Germany and even Jeremy Corbyn), I ask what is the role of emotion in debating? Is it constructive or destructive to tie passion to clear information?
Clearly, you could argue that passion is not only advisable to add into your arguments, it’s essential, particularly in politics. One needs only to look back to Labour’s shockingly disappointing 2015 campaign to see that – I refer mainly to that Ed Miliband interview. After five years of a political marriage so filled with resentment, the throne was Labour’s to lose and they managed to do so against all odds through a frankly dull and uninspired campaign. It’s all okay, though, because the Tories would show Labour how to really run a disastrous campaign a few years later. Putting personal opinions aside, most train-wreck campaigns recently have all lacked emotion and enthusiasm, and a lot of successful movements have contained almost pure emotion – during the EU referendum, the non-stop fact-reeling of the Remain campaign, whilst very accurate and built on the views of experienced experts, was perceived by the electorate to be monotonous at best and ‘Project Fear’ at worst.
On the other hand, the country went along fantastically with the Leave campaign’s renowned slogan bus, repetitive claims of money for the NHS and, of course, the whole “take back control” thing. It didn’t matter that a healthy majority of their claims were beaten down at least a hundred times by Remainers because what people really wanted was charisma. Fact lost out to feeling for the position of voters’ top priority, and consequently the negativity ‘Project Fear’ never stood a chance, regardless of its veracity. You could almost claim that the electorate listened only to what they wanted to, as if by just repeating grand claims of success they could make them happen. Yet could you really find fault with that approach when the fact-bearers obviously inspired so little energy within voters? Whatever you think of Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson, they clearly have a way of connecting with voters as people rather than statistics, something Theresa May and Ed Miliband sorely lack.
However, there is something important to note about this near-universal preference for rhetoric over reality. It’s unsustainable. No matter how many pledges and promises Corbyn makes around the country to get elected, if the Labour party lacks as much cohesive planning as it appears to (what with its Schrödinger’s Brexit stance and all) then if and when they do get elected they’ll be truly in a mess. It could even resemble Trump’s America currently – elected on a wave of sentiment and belief in rhetoric over policies, the Republicans have still yet to do anything more significant than dismantle legislation without a proper replacement. Giving into the pro-Trump side of the party handed control of the White House and Congress to the Republicans, yet it also has prevented them from solving any problems they identified due to their lack of plausible planning. What use is power if you can’t exercise it to achieve solutions?
Similarly, what use are facts if nobody cares? In both the EU referendum and the US election, feelings overtook information in importance and pushed facts into obscurity. Unfortunately, progress is dictated by actual actions rather than ideals, and in ignoring reality we risk putting a stopper on progress. Take immigration as an example, where the argument has been reduced to “racists” and “snowflakes” rather than the benefits and drawbacks of free movement against, say, a visa scheme. We all know what the result of such toxicity looks like – a small group of radicals spring up out of nowhere, and then once they get their way they dissolve into chaos, punching each other in public and so on. The other effect is mass disinterest and nihilism – people either don’t vote or don’t care who they vote for, which is the perfect breeding ground for ‘alternative facts’ as opposed to proper solutions. The next few years are an important time for observation – will anything get solved, or will we be swimming in problems and idealism by 2019?