It's Unavoidable

Reading through both Graff and Tannen’s work I had the same reaction as I started reading both writings, “This is ridiculous,” I thought this for multiple reasons. The first and probably most obvious is because of how long each text was, which for me yes I knew I could and would read it all, it’s just with all the other work I had on my plate I was planning to just skim each text. But that didn’t end up happening. I truly ended up hooked to each of the readings for separate reasons.

At first I found Tannen’s reading to be a bit outlandish. I truly thought, “Oh come on, we don’t use war metaphors nearly as much as she thinks,” however I was in a way proven wrong. My eyes were opened to how aggressively people speak all the time and I’m starting to notice it happen more and more often in my own life. And as I read through her text until the end I was kind of on her side of things. That we shouldn’t be focused on debate and who wins and loses and more about discussions and making talking to one another more civilized and humane. Her idea is to go around the argument to make things “nicer”, in a way.

However, I then read Graff’s work. Which truly, I at first thought he was this huge asshole. He was just continuously putting down Tannen’s work and going against it in every way possible. It was not until more than half way through his work did I realize his point. That argument is just a part of everyday life and there is no avoiding it. I then realized he was just trying to show that Tannen had been telling the reader to almost avoid argument at all costs to make people treat each other better and with respect. However, as I said, as Graff said, it’s unavoidable and if only students in school were taught this earlier maybe these arguments would be more controlled.

For multiple reasons I, in the end, agree with Graff’s conclusions about argument. At first I didn’t really like the way he was writing and thought, for whatever reason his work would parallel Tannen’s. That was completely wrong. I agree with his thoughts that arguments in daily life are unavoidable and that more adolescence should be taught in school and college how to better argue and express their opinions. It will help “get the argument game out in the open and acknowledging its unavoidability will help us start playing the game with less egotistically and competitively, and with more respect for each other,” instead of avoiding it all together.