Rag-e Harf 7: Dialogue Was a Rite of Truth-Seeking

Dialogue was a rite of truth-seeking On the possibility and suitability of dialogue with the radical opponent

Sa‘di relates an anecdote in the Golestān to this effect: a Muslim scholar debated with an atheist and then abandoned the debate. They asked him why he did not continue. The scholar replied: “My knowledge is the Quran, Hadith, and the sayings of the elders, and he does not believe in these things nor does he listen to them. What use is it to me to hear his unbelief?” Sa‘di, too, comes out in support of that scholar: “The one whom you cannot rescue with the Quran and tradition / The answer for him is that you give him no answer.” In plain modern language, this can be expressed as: “When you have no common intellectual ground with your interlocutor, dialogue is fundamentally impossible.” This view was not only prevalent in Sa‘di’s time but is still a common view today. A friend recently wrote on his Facebook page that he does not debate with someone who does not believe in human rights, because he has no common ground with him.

One cannot engage in dialogue with a radical opponent?

This time I intend to pitch my tent in the vein of this common saying that claims: “One cannot engage in dialogue with a radical opponent, because there is no common intellectual ground with him.” I want to show that this statement, which I call the “impossibility view,” is indefensible. My claim is that not only can one engage in dialogue with a radical intellectual opponent, but that authentic dialogue necessitates dialogue with a radical intellectual opponent.

To defend my own view, I must first of all say that the “impossibility view” is fundamentally based on an incorrect conception of what authentic dialogue is. In an authentic dialogue, the primary goal of the dialogue is not to find the possible errors of the other party to the dialogue, but, on the contrary, the goal of such a dialogue is to find the possible errors in our own view. In the process of critical dialogue, it is of course entirely possible that a person discovers no error in their own view and continues to defend their view, and this defense may cause the other party to the dialogue to find an error in their own view and not in ours, but this is an unintended and secondary consequence of the dialogue. The primary goal of authentic and critical dialogue is not the discovery of the other’s error. It is precisely this point that causes authentic, evaluative dialogue to become something fundamentally different from “fault-finding.” In “fault-finding,” your entire effort is to find error in the other party to the dialogue, but in an authentic dialogue, your entire effort is to evaluate your own view through critical dialogue with the other. If we picture dialogue in this way, then not only can one debate with a radical opponent (and consequently the “impossibility view” is erroneous), but dialogue with a radical opponent is fundamentally closer to the truth of dialogue than dialogue with someone with whom you share common intellectual ground.

You have no common ground, the sky hasn’t fallen!

A proponent of the “impossibility view” might accept our criticism and say that they, like us, believe that the goal of authentic dialogue is not “fault-finding” with the other. But they might then part ways with us and say that the primary goal of dialogue is not the discovery of one’s own error through dialogue, but rather the primary goal of dialogue is “reaching agreement with the other.” Hence, when you fundamentally have no common ground with the other, dialogue is no longer possible. But even if—hypothetically—the primary goal of dialogue were to reach intellectual understanding (a hypothesis that, in my opinion, is not defensible), the lack of common ground between the parties to the dialogue is still not necessarily a sign of the impossibility of dialogue. Because in such a situation, it is still possible for the parties to the dialogue to critique the intellectual foundations of the other party and show that adopting such foundations entails unacceptable consequences, consequences that the other party to the dialogue is unlikely to be willing to accept. In other words, one way to continue the dialogue when the other party to the dialogue holds fundamentally different foundations is to show that the individual themselves cannot remain committed to those foundations. Another way is to demonstrate that there is no coherence in the individual’s set of fundamental beliefs and that contradiction has crept into them. In such a case, the individual must set aside one of those contradictory beliefs.

Suppose someone fundamentally does not believe in human rights. One could reason with them in this way: if human rights are not the basis of collective life, the powerful will institutionally trample the rights of the weak in society. And if you are opposed to the trampling of the rights of the weak in society, you cannot be opposed to human rights. (In this case, we show them the unacceptable consequence of their view); or one could reason in this way: you are opposed to human rights, but you are vehemently opposed to Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands. This opposition is meaningless without taking human rights as a basis. (In this case, we have shown the contradiction in their thinking).

I am mindful that, in practice, dialogue with a radical opponent is far more complex than the model I sketched above. But my aim is not to deny the complexity of such dialogue; my aim is merely to show the possibility and also the merit of such dialogue.

For an example of authentic dialogues, see the American film Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), directed by Woody Allen, and pay particular attention to the nature of Mickey's dialogues (played by Woody Allen himself) with others (especially Hannah).

Yaser Mirdamadi/ Rag-e Harf 7