Debating the Debate

Debate has held prime spot in public space engagement down the historical epochs. It continues with its highs and lows. Debate for evolving a consensus in public affairs is a boon, nevertheless a bane if it results in societal contention. Two ends of spectrum provide room for debating the debate. To listen and be listened to is the basic human instinct. Debate provides the forum for civilized interaction. Besides, it sets in a foundation of entering a social contract meant to share public space for mutual benefit. Additionally, it forms a bar for one-upmanship, louder supplanting the meeker. Pros alternate with cons, deserving a wider study on how it evolved down the ages.

Societies formed by an amalgam of diverse individuals initially evolved into tribes. With advancing civilization, nations and nation states provided a new platform for unity in diversity, geographical location providing the denominator. The concept of state was honed in ancient Greece, Athens in particular. Logic and reason were its essence. It provided the forum for public space engagement tailored to societal needs. Balance worked out between too much and too little paid dividends. History bears it out. Stark evidence is also provided of societal imbalance, were the scales tilt one way or other. Healthy societies start ailing, as and when they deviate from what is called the golden mien in holy texts. In its essence, it denotes lack or excess in public space management. Either extreme spells imbalance.

The initiation of logic and reason in ancient Greece resulted from the debate on the sane course to adopt in managing public affairs. Socrates was on the forefront of applying it, as elite was perceived to be holding back the deprived sections of the society. Of particular concern were the budding sections, the youth. Plato worked out polity to streamline public affairs. His deed backed the word. Plato’s academia was the harbinger of taking debate on logic and reason to academic halls instead of settling issues in the rough and tough of streets. Aristotle’s lyceum followed suit, academics holding the forefront. Civilized societies budded in post-renaissance Europe followed the lead provided by Greek masters. Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne, Harvard remained the centers of nursing ideas with debate as the medium. Lest we forget the German of picturesque Weimer—Goethe for initiating debate on east-west synthesis.

Greek logic and reason might have been the path-breaker in public space engagement; nevertheless it was not all milk and honey. Socrates ended in prison, hemlock was the potion prescribed to pronounce his end. He took it, in spite of jailor providing escape. Spirit of sacrifice for a cause immortalized him. Plato’s academia and Aristotle’s lyceum setting trend of debating issues in academic halls alternated with rough and tumble of streets. Plato’s dream polity had a measure of success in practice. Taken from academic to civic halls of Athens, institutionalization of polity got a healthy lead, thence the shaping of state. Millennia back to this day; state structures’ banking on it got handsome returns. Failure to invest in it has ended up in autocracies. Endless justification provided for hereditary rule remains unsustainable. Half measures in cementing public institutions have had a plethora of banana republics.

Governance in defiance of platonic polity was not a later day development. Byword of politics being the last refuge of scoundrels sprang up while the Athenian debate on public space engagement was going on. It was more of detesting street involvement than a slur on politicians. In its essence the cool debate in academic and civic halls was taken to be much more result oriented than settling issues in streets. Platonic polity alone did not face a challenge, Aristotelian note on logic and reason was put on sword by his taught, Alexander. He took the Hellenic barrage on the wings of a global conquest. Logic and reason took a back seat. Question remains—did Alexandrian blitzkrieg rhyme with Aristotelian trail of thought? Alexander might have had his defenders, if revenge could be made an excuse. Emperor Xerxes of Persia had earlier run over Hellenic lands.

True! Greece was germinating ideas, borne of debates in civic spaces—in academia, in city halls of Athens. Persia wasn’t far behind. Debate might not have been as pronounced in Persepolis as it was in Athens, nevertheless Cyrus the great proclaimed charter of human rights millennia before Magna Carta of Great Britain. In governance, an imaginary Persian ruler Jim was perfecting what in fine art was spelt as his Jam: goblet of wine filled to brim with experience acquired in statecraft. Jam-e-Jim, says Iqbal the poet is not purchasable commodity shaped by a craftsman, like glass it is not breakable. It implies hardening of goblet a la gold shaped of its dust. In Cyrus the imaginary Jim assumed a practical frame. Taking Persia to Babylonia was not merely a signpost of victory. In its trail he liberated Jews from captivity in 538 BC. The bondage started in 596 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar II the Babylonian king devastated Jerusalem, the torture in its trail led to destruction of Temple of Solomon.

Back to Athens the budding power, the bulwark of shaping up of a state based on logic, reason, debate based consensus was seen as a potential threat by Sparta—an established power within the wide ambit of Greece. Military backed settled establishment with proven abilities in warfare was in no mood to concede space to an Athenian ideal. Sparta had enough to guard its space even intrude extrinsically for logistic reasons. Athens lost. Thucydides, a decorated general nevertheless impartial in assessment of an emerging situation provides a scientific historical survey of the times. Budding power challenging an established power resonates in various historical epochs was rightly labeled as Thucydides trap. The world we live in is no different.

The sum-total of positivity seen in Athens and Persepolis borne of flowering of human thought alternated with negativity of power brokers seeking domination of Hellenic or Persian variety. Even Greeks of various hues were not seeing eye to eye. Consensus on issues intrinsic and extrinsic alternated with pushes and pulls to gain space. It continues to this day, the form may change from time to time. Positivity might have had an exponential growth with evolving civility, so has negativity. The bullying borne of unparalleled armour in human hand generates negative impulses. Microscopic levels in contention of ancient times have assumed macroscopic proportions. However the bone of contention has the same texture, given the inadequacies of head and heart.

The world we live in is full of challenges, intrinsic as well extrinsic. Hence, the need to rise to the occasion and guard public spaces, however limited they might be in internal dimension and external reach. To meet the emerging challenge, the raging debate has to be measured in all spheres of human activity. Rivalries in racial, ethnic and sectarian spaces abound, sounding caution in public debate. Lack of it, excess of it as well squeezes the already shrunk public space. Shrunk spaces result from fault-lines in public management. The men in power corridors, the man on the pulpit, even the common man share responsibility for creating a growing gap in public spaces. The gap is difficult to fulfill, unless sanity prevails over inadequacy. Inadequacies of head and heart provide the ferment for breeding conflict, unaffordable to say the least, better avoided.