In my house, my dad was the judge. My brother and I played lawyers. We stated our pleas and defended our cases. In the end, we waited for my father’s verdict. This was how my family dealt with discipline. When we were in trouble, the court was called into session.
Once, it was the case of the missing portable charger. My brother accused me of taking it on a school field trip and losing it. I pleaded innocent, claiming I had not touched the charger. One of my friends from school starred as a special guest in the jury. She sat amazed that this was how our family operated – seated at the dinner table, debating the case’s facts and arguing for our sides.
Maybe it was my dad’s ever-present yearning for his children to go into law, or maybe it was our flare for the dramatic. Perhaps I watched too many episodes of SVU Law & Order. Whatever the reason was, my brother, my father and I took to having heated debates. The conversation turned away from our childhood antics and to the problems of high school, and later the world, as we got older.
I relied on my brother heavily throughout high school. I thought I was good at arguing, but I never doubted he was better. I debated with passion, emotion and a clear idea of what I thought to be right and wrong. He offered facts, statistics and the philosophical methods of analyzing a problem. My brother could state his point in a succinct manner that left people wondering how they could have possibly thought they had a chance at winning. It was annoying. But, his skills served me well.
Socratic seminars took up a great deal of in-class debating in high school. We covered GMOs, education and government politics. Before I debated anyone, I ran my points past my brother. I would drive us to school in the morning and run through what I planned to argue in class. He stabbed a hole through anything too weak to stand. Then, I knew what to look out for and how to combat it if others found those same weaknesses.
When we went to college, our intellectual sparring became less consistent, but it still existed. If I have a particularly hard discussion post, and I am having trouble formulating my stances, I give him a call. Arguing with him highlights my own beliefs as I am forced to articulate how I feel about different subjects. I return the favor when his essays are due. I read them over, and we discuss his points. Was the argument clear? Did it flow well? Was there something missing?
Our arguments don’t need to revolve around schoolwork, though. We create them on our own. They exist on family vacations and over early morning coffee. My father offers his “real-world” experience, and my mom sits and waits for the debate to pass. Sometimes it takes an hour or more.
A few weeks ago, on a visit home, I woke up early to do some homework. I had just started up the Keurig when my brother came into the kitchen for the same reason. Rather than sitting through the lecture videos that sat loading on my laptop, I found myself seated at the kitchen bar, mug in hand, discussing politics. I don’t remember what we talked about anymore. Maybe it was the presidential race, or the supreme court nominee or the United States’ racial issues. Our conversations about these topics have been too often to pinpoint. Regardless of the subject, I finished no homework that morning.
Not everyone has a brother like mine. One who pushes them to think bigger and analyze deeper. One who asks the hard questions and calls you out on inconsistencies. People may not have my brother, but they need someone like him. Society is amid an awakening and beginning to ask bigger questions. We no longer sit at the dinner table and say that it’s “impolite” to discuss politics, money and religion. But an essential part of having these conversations is who we have them with. Our conversations should be stimulating and should end in growth. There should be respect and a yearning to understand. In a partisan world, we have to be willing to listen to others and acknowledge that our mindsets might not always be correct. There are ideas we haven’t heard and facts we haven’t seen. Having these conversations can show us those things. Most importantly, they can encourage us to look at ourselves, what we believe and how those beliefs fit into the modern world.
The “trials” my dad held when we were children weren’t always fair. They often ended in punishments ruled out as though there had never been a hearing. But, they did give me an invaluable lesson on debating. Those kitchen counter courtrooms taught me to stand firm in my position and state how I saw the world. They gave me a person, my brother, that I could argue with and learn from. They taught me that the value of an argument isn’t in whether or not you win, but in whether or not your points were heard.