Disputation Arenas:

Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness for Society's Benefit

an article by David Brin, Ph.D.

This unusual article looks at how truth is determined in our four "accountability arenas" -- science, democracy, courts and markets. It was lead article in the American Bar Association's Journal on Dispute Resolution (Ohio State University), v.15, N.3, pp 597-618, Aug. 2000.

Copyright © 2000 by David Brin. All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

III: A Concept for Implementation

Ideally, a new kind of Internet-based DA (Disputation Arena) can have several potential uses:

• Offer businesses and other communities a new way to handle internal debates and decide between disparate strategic plans, by comparing them systematically and openly.

• Offer a tool for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) between groups whose bitter adversarial stance does not encourage more communitarian approaches like mediation or arbitration.

• Offer opportunities for synthesis or consensus-building, after initial adversarial phases are complete. Even if both sides of a lengthy, adversarial dispute cannot come together, onlookers and outsiders will be edified by the best possible presentation/critique of each case, and come away better able to find consensus solutions.

• Offer a vehicle to solicit public comment or criticism, even when adversarial opposition is absent.

• Move the initial phase of creating policy and legislation onto the Internet by exposing data and policy proposals to scrutiny online, eliminating obvious blunders and attempting to coalesce consensus before legislators even get involved.

• Create a new form of entertainment -- possibly profitable -- attracting a myriad citizens to observe and pose challenges to intellectual champions sent by opposing sides in almost any public dispute.

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Software and servers must be combined in an initial design aimed first at offering debate moderation to groups that desire consensus. Goodwill and cooperation will be essential in early tests, since many different approaches must face trial-and-error scrutiny. Therefore, the ideal test-bed customers would be sophisticated and goal-oriented groups. Perhaps online "netizens" such as Internet Council on Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN), a high-profile non-profit organization making important decisions about the future of the internet and the issues appeal to a net-literate audience.

Another possible test-bed customer would be a net-savvy company, whose board is torn between two or more incompatible strategic plans. This, too, is a goal-oriented group whose basic desire will be to make the process work, not to obstruct. In fact, one entire branch of the Disputation Arenas concept would be to offer commercial services, enabling hierarchical organizations to compare and decide between competing strategies.

Only when these trials finish should a refined system be offered to acrimonious disputants in non-hierarchical settings -- out on the wild frontier of the Internet, where emotions and ambiguities rage, and where the potential rewards from such a system may be even greater.

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When the system seems ready to take on truly intractable and acrimonious social issues, some care should be taken in choosing the first participants (e.g., a top NRA theorist vs. a top gun-control advocate). Ideally it should draw press attention and attract many observers.

One fundamental question to be addressed is: why would anyone agree to enter the arena?

The prospect of tense confrontation, more relentless and extended than any previous kind of debate, may strike many as daunting. Others, who know the basic untenability of their manifestos will not want to see them exposed to close scrutiny. Even for those who have faith in their cause and confidence in their skills may still need persuading. There have to be incentives to participate.

Several possibilities come to mind:

1. Prizes -- offered either for victory or simply for sticking it out through the end. Foundation funding may provide this cash inducement at the start. In the long run, if disputations prove to have public entertainment value, prizes may come out of gate receipts paid by eager audiences.

2. A chance to score points and defeat opponents. Playing this up -- appealing to the self righteous egos who propel many modern advocacy groups -- will definitely be a factor.

3. Direct challenge. If an Arena achieves any sort of attention or renown, a self-fueling effect may occur. Refusing to accept a challenge may attract opprobrium and contempt. This is not a force to discount. Cowardice and hypocrisy are charges modern politicians cannot leave unchallenged, even when all else survives besmirchment. It is not absurd to consider extending this principle so that challenges tend to have a compulsory aspect, like medieval duels. After all, the passionate personality traits of fierce believers have not changed all that much, across a thousand years.

4. The potential of achieving real change. Arenas will grow more attractive if disputants witness actual effects taking place in the outer world of policy and public opinion. Ideally, arenas would serve as testing grounds, to make ideas ready for legislative democracy.

Whatever combination of incentives is used, the initial challenge will ideally come from people whose national stature would make it hard for any group to refuse.

Disputants who agree to send champions would be given two months to prepare their position papers and support materials, according to formats provided by arena organizers -- formats designed to discourage polemic, forcing them to parse their position down to discrete logical elements (e.g. underlying assumptions about human nature, about society, about near and long term goals, etc.) A standard questionnaire may provide a start, so both sides will present comparable answers to the same questions and confess their underlying assumptions.

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There would have to be a prim definition of roles for participants:

• The disputants must have sufficient status in their advocacy community that they cannot easily be disowned if they are seen conceding points or compromising. Ideally, teams of half a dozen or more will enable each side to endure months of relentless questioning.

• There must be rules. An impartial Jury will decide procedural issues and adjudicate a myriad squabbles that inevitably rise when groups have long hated and demonized each other. Ad hominem remarks must be penalized swiftly to keep things at least somewhat civil.

• Distinct from the jury will be a panel of Eminent Observers (or inquisitors) noted for a pitbull tenacity at asking piercing questions. Their backgrounds should be varied for fairness.

• The Peanut Gallery... an open forum for outsiders to post comments on the ongoing debate. These comments have no formal role in the dispute, but will edify. Option: let the Peanut Gallery elevate some their most incisive members to the panel of Eminent Observers.

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The actual dispute begins when both teams of adversaries post their manifestos or position papers plus supporting material.

At this phase, no attention is paid to actual merits of either side's case! Instead, a month or more is spent discussing the logic and consistency of each manifesto, by picking apart each advocate's position into ever-smaller pieces, producing a string (or several strings) of logical and falsifiable statements. Each will be given its own discussion thread, so that no step of logic escapes scrutiny.

A hyperforum technique would be ideal for this stage, allowing facilitators to take advantage of this new medium's slow, relentless, meticulous pace and leave no logical stone unturned. An option will be to allow more than a pair of disputants, since not all controversies have "two sides." Even when there is clear bipolar opposition, it may be worthwhile to allow a formal track for those who think that both opposing groups are missing some crucial, fundamental point, or for those who wish to build a proposed compromise.

If the process has no further output than two lists of well-parsed opposing position papers, that would be a major improvement over the present murky state of affairs, whenever people "debate" difficult modern issues.

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Here is a unique, but crucial phase. After both manifestos are declared logically usable, a distinct period -- say a month -- will be given to each side so they may paraphrase the other side's position.

This step aims to ensure that each party has actually read and understood where the other one stands, so they aren't simply shouting past each other at chimeric caricatures. Paraphrasing is hard to do when you've spent years demonizing the opposition, calling them venal or stupid and dismissing their concerns. Success at paraphrasing will be seen as a way of winning credibility. It means "I do understand my opponents... so my disagreement with them is well-informed."

Each side may lace their formal paraphrasing with asterisks and footnotes asserting that the statements they are describing are idiotic. That's fine. But if they fail to depict their opponents' point of view in a manner that the jury finds at least generally accurate, they will be disqualified.

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At this point we have four documents online... each side's Position Paper, plus the paraphrasing each side has prepared, to show they understand what they are opposing.

Now commences an open-ended and far-flung season of debate in which any and every line of these four documents can be fair game, each with its own category and line of discussion. Attack and defense can be based on logic, evidence or morality. While the Eminent Observers (or inquisitors) will be free to criticize, comment or pose questions, the adversaries themselves will bear principal responsibility to refute (or concede) their opponents' points. We won't walk away from any locus of disagreement, simply because it seems obdurate!

Indeed, by beginning with paraphrasing, it should be possible to expose polemical exaggerations and force stipulations from both sides, eliminating many lines of disagreement. Whenever this happens, the sub-category involved gets closed with a Statement of Stipulation.

This stage continues until we reduce the battle to a limited number of Core Conflicts over Substance. These would then be the focus of further intense scrutiny and research.

Note that while jurors or invited Eminent Observers would be free to criticize or comment, the adversaries themselves will bear principal responsibility to refute (or concede) their opponents' logical points.

Jurors and disputants may at any time issue Challenge Wagers... predictions that may prove either true or false after future investigation. Part of the fun will come from daring the other side to put themselves on the line... or to put their money where their mouth is.

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Some traditional accountability arenas offer explicit results. A right answer. Courtrooms give verdicts and scientific meetings shift paradigms. Markets starve some product lines and reward others.

In contrast, standard approaches to mediation aim ideally for all adversaries to come away feeling relatively content with a new consensus or compromise, perceiving it as somewhat fair, ready to cooperate and make the new solution work.

Might the process we have just described, in phases One through Five, actually bring about such a happy and explicit resolution? As syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman wrote -- "It is hard to broaden the debate during a crisis; far easier to raise the same old banners. But maybe we can lower the decibels of this debate by staking out (some) common ground."

Certainly, any implementation of the Disputation Arena concept should allow for the possibility. If adversary-participants show goodwill and substantial movement from their starting positions -- if they prove able to paraphrase opponents and accept the validity of their concerns -- modern mediation tools can be offered to help them travel the rest of the way. For example, the "Adjusted Winner" formula, created by New York Academics Steven Brams and Alan Taylor, may be applicable for Internet-based mediation and compromise. Providing that adversaries can agree on terms and definitions, the formula distributes enough partial victories for each side to feel better off than they were before.

Unfortunately, fractious and self-righteous human beings are not always capable of doing this. Obstinacy and self-righteousness torpedo many promising attempts at intercession and negotiation.

That is where a DA approach may succeed where others fail. For in fact, consensus among the original adversaries is not at all necessary for a disputation arena to reach successful conclusions.

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Under certain circumstances, neither competitor has to budge a bit for there to be a decision. This is especially true in institutions that have clear and explicit chains of command.

Suppose the Board of a corporation faces two apparently equal and yet incompatible strategic plans, offered by different groups of middle managers. A commercial version of the Disputation Arena would help decision makers expose every flaw in both plans as thoroughly as possible, charting the results systematically to allow direct comparison. Reciprocal learning and compromise are possible, even in a command-based system, but the main goal is to give chiefs every tool they need to choose wisely.

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Suppose there is no consensus, compromise, or command decision?

Generally, there will be valuable results from a structured disputation, even if nothing more is achieved than forcing opponents to be explicit about their assumptions and desires.

If they further make a few moves away from caricatures and demonizations toward conceding each others' humanity -- and perhaps a few areas of common interest -- all the better.

In some cases, it may be possible to prove one side or the other definitely wrong on one or more critical sub-points that must be urgently repaired, sending them away with homework before the next time battle is rejoined. Each side will profit from criticism, even if neither actually "wins."

The process would also expose cracks that inevitably exist within a party, between moderate pragmatists and fanatical idealists who tend to dominate today's media-drenched disputes, garnering attention by dropping simplistic sound-bites in lieu of reasoned argument. These moderates will have learned each others views... and names. We will have opened an option for them to open negotiations without their fanatics present to interfere.

Finally, it must be noted that the principal beneficiaries to any disputation may not be those directly involved in the debate. Outside observers, perhaps far more numerous, will be free to draw their own conclusions, edified by the best arguments that both sides raised, yet free to work out new idea unburdened by the same emotional baggage.

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While the disputation arena concept resembles a courtroom in some ways -- e.g., the meticulous impartiality and detail-fetishism that must be shown by its organizers -- the outcome does not have to be formal victory for one side or another. As in democracy, it will be rare to see anything so clear-cut. Indeed, this new arena serves primarily as a partner to democracy -- society's messy process for floundering toward consensus and policy.

Should the organizers issue a final report? That needs to be explored down the road, when we have explored the disputation process and discovered what its limitations and benefits truly are. Countless practical questions can only be worked out with practice.

The ultimatum of a disputation arena won't be to award "victory" to any one side, but to create an atmosphere of practical problem-solving, helping moderates understand each others' concerns and reach for some mutually beneficial consensus, leaving fanatics isolated and impotent at the wings. In today's political climate, we all win by forcing both sides to accept a little ambiguity.

Above all, this process isn't meant to serve disputants as much as the rest of us, by giving us a chance to peer closely and skim good ideas from both sides, utilizing their passion and insights without getting sucked into either purist position. Innovative styles of accountability may thus provide centripetal influences to bring us together, counteracting the centrifugally polarizing tendencies that now threaten to tear civil society apart.

Ultimately, free speech is about much more than just self-expression. It is also how humans find ways to solve problems and live with one another. Ironically, this utopian aim may best be achieved by argument... by the reciprocal accountability that comes about when adversarial opposition takes place in an arena that is both open and fair.

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The Author would like to acknowledge comments, criticism and suggestions from the following people: Professor Bruce Murray of Caltech, Dr. Robert Lempert of the Rand Corporation, Ohio State Professor Peter Swire, Ohio State Professor Joshua Stulberg, Dr. Cheryl Brigham, James H. Bigelow, Carl Coryell-Martin and Stefan Jones.