“Discoarse”

By Preet Bharara

Dear Reader,

This week’s note is a bit of a call for research, a survey of sorts. I have been talking in this space and elsewhere lately about the nature of good faith argument and about the poison of bad faith argument. There is much to debate in this country, as there has ever been, but there seems to be less meeting of the minds even over the terms of disagreement that at any time prior. People increasingly talk past each other or don’t talk to each other at all. When they do, it is often toxic invective or sneering dismissal. Persuasion seems a quaint concept of late. Given the vitriol, what passes for modern-day debate and discourse should perhaps be re-coined as “discoarse.”