Do you consider yourself reasonable? Do you think it is typical of our public discourse today? By “reasonable” I mean thoughtful, discerning, careful in our judgments as opposed to hasty, not given to rash decisions or knee-jerk conclusions, letting logic reign in our heated emotions.

When you think of the major media commentators and the most viewed tweets, does the above description come to mind?

Is it an Elective or a Requirement?

I suppose my title gives away my answer. I don’t think the intellectual discipline of a reasonable person is a bonus feature of a few. We should see it as a duty. Being reasonable is not asking too much. It is not the same as requiring a certain IQ or forcing people to study subjects they don’t like or that confuse them. No expertise or experience is required, any more than being civil and kind requires a degree.

The most basic form of logic is what we call “common sense.” The word “common” means what it sounds like. Everyone, barring cognitive impairments, can be reasonable. Just as you can choose to treat people in civil way, so you can make the decision to be fair-minded. And you should.

Being Unreasonable is Immoral

I’ll go one further. If you are willfully irrational, you are simply in the wrong — in the moral sense. I say “willfully,” again, because those unfortunate souls who suffer certain cognitive disabilities may not be culpable for their inabilities in this way. For the rest of us, we ought to hold ourselves and others accountable for failing to live up to this basic requirement.

Christians certainly should know this, and our greatest examples have demonstrated it. The late and great philosopher Dallas Willard once wrote an essay called “Jesus the Reasoner.” The Bible is replete with reminders, like when Paul tells the young Timothy to be “sober-minded” (some English translations say “be alert” or “keep a clear head”). We hear the constant echo of the command, “Thou shalt be reasonable.” This is why John Wesley once wrote, “I wish to be, in every point, great and small, a scriptural, rational Christian.” A willfully irrational faith, he thought, is no faith at all — it is mere nonsense.

Look at the state of things that has resulted from our unwillingness to obey the command to be reasonable. Think of the future that awaits if it continues in this way. If we are guided by irrational forces, we will be guided to ruin. We can’t afford to dispense with the intellectual virtues that have guided civilization to its best milestones. Social media has brought mob-thinking to prominence. Our social discourse has devolved horribly as a result. What can we do?

A Reasonability Checklist

Here are some tips, none of them groundbreaking but all of them important:

• Practice patience when you hear news. Wait to see if it’s true before over-reacting. Wait for details that may sort out more clearly some of the particulars. Avoid the knee-jerk reaction. Fight the urge to emote on social media when you don’t know all of the facts.
• Stop to think and ask critical questions when you read stories and opinions. Every time you see a controversy and heated opposition, look closely at the accusations people make, and cross-examine them. You will often find that just taking the time to think through it this way raises really important questions and exposes errors.
• Consume news and opinion from a broad base of perspective. Read or listen with the wider view of history. This avoids a narrow, myopic perspective. Also see things more globally, since the perspective of other cultures may broaden how we see what is going on near us. What would the wisest people of past eras have said about it? What do those in other parts of the world think about it? Of course this means having some awareness of the history of ideas and of the worldviews of those in other cultures, both of which will do wonders for your discernment of daily news and events.
• Consider every source from which you hear news and opinion: Who is writing it? Is there an angle? Does this source have a history of allegiance to one side of things? It is no crime to have a point of view (we all do). Just try to be aware of what that point of view is when it comes to who is reporting or editorializing on a subject. And don’t pretend that sources with points of view are in fact purely neutral.
• Be vigilant for slanted language. Is something being downplayed or over-emphasized by the words that are used? Is it, for example, being described as a “riot” or a “protest” and why? Is a writer on abortion using words like “healthcare,” “murder,” “fetus” or “baby”? Those terms are decisions the writer makes that reveal his or her standpoint. Be aware of the rhetorical tricks that are meant to give the reader an unnecessarily positive or negative impressions. If a writer calls something “racist,” for example, is that a rhetorical means to slander it or is evidence given to show that it is in fact racist?
• Read across multiple sources to the degree that you have time. This helps round out your perspective on the reporting and responses to events. And your sources across the political spectrum. Sample from the left side of the aisle via the NY Times, WaPo, HuffPo, the major networks, and NPR, for example. Note equally the perspective from the right side of the aisle, a la National Review, The Federalist, the Wall St. Journal, Townhall, and obviously The Stream, to name a few.
• Don’t give too much weight of authority to those who don’t merit it, such as celebrities, athletes, advertisers, corporate bigwigs, so-called social media “influencers,” or others whose expertise and experience has nothing to do with, for example, political science, history, theology, the hard sciences, or moral philosophy.
• Question the primary claims of any article or essay. This is not to be totally distrusting or entirely skeptical. A healthy skepticism means that when a writer makes a claim, I ask why I ought to believe it. Then I give the writer every opportunity, with an open mind, to provide the reasons why I should. But I don’t simply take his or her word for it because it was, perhaps, stated with great emotion or because the piece is from what is thought to be a reputable source (like a major network or publication). We have to demand good reasons for believing the claims of people.
• Demand consistency. Beware the prevalence of blatant double-standards today. This is not the same as “whataboutism.” The latter is just avoidance, like a red herring. It points “over there” and asks “what about that?” instead of dealing with the issue at hand. I’m talking about applying the same language and standards to things that are equal, instead of letting your bias tweak the scales. In other words, if it was wrong for one side to use a word or phrase, it is wrong for other. If one side is immoral for assaulting police, then it is immoral for the other side also. Examples of this are everywhere.
• Be leery of mobs. Social media fosters incredible levels of groupthink. The temptation is strong to jump aboard fast-moving bandwagons. These mobs form overnight and sweep across social media. We should automatically be wary of sudden surges of opinion that gather such momentum. They haven’t been thought through, and as with nearly all mobs, they are mostly likely wrong on many counts.
• Don’t engage people like a child. Where there are disagreements, a reasonable person doesn’t slander his opponent or call him names, a la “sexist, bigot, racist, xenophobe, homophobe, white supremacist,” to name many of the current favorites. Unless reasons can be given, it is sinful and infantile to hurl these at people. Other foolish tactics include erupting in emotions of outrage to silence your opponent, or trying to find ways of punishing him or her instead of responding in a civil way. Punishments could include getting him or her thrown off of a platform, censured, castigated publicly, demoted or fired from a job. Also it is not an adult move to let loose a string of profane insults, as if this needs to be said. Finally, don’t do the “hit and run” where you toss your opinion like an Antifa-made molotov cocktail and then run away and hide or unfriend the person who disagrees with you. The fact that this final bullet point was needed is a woeful indication of just what it has come to.

I hope you find this checklist helpful. Thomas Paine once said that trying to debate someone who has forsaken reason is like trying to administer medicine to the dead. Maybe we can breathe a little reasonability into the public discussion.

Come, let us reason together.

Clint Roberts has spent many years teaching courses in philosophy, ethics and religion for various universities, including the University of Oklahoma and Southern Nazarene University.