Stating the Other Side Fairly in a Column

Every column that argues for something argues against something else. The writer who says the city should end its parking requirements is answering people who believe those requirements protect residents. How the column treats those people, and their reasons, tells the reader a great deal about whether the writer can be trusted on everything else.

Our note on writing a column with a clear argument says, in a paragraph, that a column should meet the strongest objection. This note takes that paragraph and opens it out: how to find the other side’s best case, how to state it so its holders would recognise it, and how to concede what is true without surrendering the argument. The advice is ours, offered as practice for columnists on VeriTaus.

Why the other side deserves its best case

There are two reasons to represent an opposing view fairly, and only one of them is about manners.

The first is that a column is read by people who disagree with it. Some of them hold the view you are arguing against, and they know its reasons better than you do. If you describe their position in a form they would never use, they stop reading at that sentence, and they are right to. You have shown them that you either do not understand the disagreement or do not wish to.

The second reason is practical. An argument that defeats a weak version of the opposing case has not been tested. The reader who is genuinely undecided usually has the strong version in mind, and if your column never reaches it, the column has not answered the question that reader brought to it. Beating the best case is the only victory that counts; beating a lesser one is a rehearsal.

Recognising the straw man in your own draft

A straw man is a version of an opponent’s position built to be knocked down. Few columnists set out to build one. It happens by drift, in the course of drafting, and it is easier to catch in revision than to prevent. The common forms are worth knowing:

• The extreme instance. The column answers the most careless thing anyone on the other side has said, and presents it as the side’s position.
• The motive in place of the reason. “Opponents simply want to protect their own interests.” Perhaps some do. Motive does not settle whether their argument is sound.
• The missing qualification. A position that is conditional (“in most cases”, “until a better system exists”) is reported as absolute, which makes it easy to refute with a single exception.
• The loaded paraphrase. The view is restated in words its holders would reject: “they want to keep things as they are” for a position that is really about pace or cost.
• The nameless crowd. “Some people say” introduces a claim that no identifiable person has made. If you cannot point to anyone holding the view, you may be arguing with yourself.

A useful revision test: highlight every sentence in the draft that describes what the other side believes, then read only those sentences. Would a thoughtful supporter of that position sign them? If not, the column is arguing against someone who does not exist.

Stating the strongest version

The strongest version of a view is rarely the loudest. It is usually found in the most careful statement of it: a considered report, a dissenting judgement, a long-form essay by someone who has worked on the question, a letter from a reader who knows the subject. Read those before you write the paragraph that summarises them, and link to the best of them so readers can judge your summary for themselves. Our note on sourcing and attribution applies here as much as anywhere: attribute the view to the people who hold it, in their words where you can.

When you write the summary, aim for the standard sometimes described as the principle of charity: where a statement can be read in a stronger or a weaker sense, take the stronger. In practice that means a few habits:

1. Lead with their reasons, not your verdict. Give the paragraph to their case before you begin answering it. “Supporters of the rule argue that…” followed by their best two reasons, set out without adjectives.
2. Keep their qualifications. If they say “in most cases”, so do you.
3. Use their vocabulary where it is fair. Describe the position in terms its holders would choose, unless those terms are themselves the point in dispute; then say so.
4. Name the value underneath. Most disagreements that reach a column are not about facts alone but about weighing: safety against cost, freedom against order, speed against care. Saying what the other side is protecting shows you have understood why reasonable people hold the view.

A good check is whether a supporter of the other view, reading your summary, would think it put their case at least as well as they might have put it themselves. That is a high bar. A column that clears it has earned a hearing for its answer.

Conceding what is true

A fair summary often turns up something uncomfortable: the other side is right about part of it. The honest response is to say so.

Concession is not weakness in a column. A writer who concedes nothing implies that every consideration on the subject happens to point one way, which readers know is seldom true. A clearly stated concession tells them you have weighed the matter, and it makes your remaining claims more credible, because they have survived your own scrutiny.

Concede precisely. Say what you grant and what follows from it, and then explain why your conclusion still holds: the point is true but outweighed, true but answered by a feature of your proposal, or true in some cases but not in the ones at issue. “Opponents are right that the change will raise costs for some households in the first years; the question is whether that cost is worth the longer-term saving, and I think it is, for these reasons.” That sentence concedes a fact, keeps a judgement, and shows the reader exactly where the disagreement now lies.

Keep the line between the two clear. A concession is usually a matter of fact or consequence; your answer is a matter of judgement. Mark each for what it is, so the reader can see which sentences ask to be checked and which ask to be weighed.

Sometimes the fair summary does more than complicate the argument; it overturns it. If, having set out the other side at its strongest, you find you cannot answer it, the honest course is not to weaken the summary until you can. It is to revise the column, narrow its claim, or hold it until you have an answer.

When the other side writes back

Readers on VeriTaus can respond beneath a story, and every comment is reviewed before it appears (the features page describes how). Some of the letters that arrive will come from people whose view you summarised. Read them for one thing first: did you represent them fairly? If a reader shows that your summary missed a qualification or misstated a reason, that is an error of substance, and it deserves the same handling as any other, as our guidelines ask of every columnist.

A column that states the other side well does not need to win every exchange. It needs to leave readers better able to judge the question than they were before they started. That is what fairness to an opponent buys: not agreement, but trust that the disagreement was described honestly.