Challenging Authority

Kathryn Joyce, a philosopher and civil discourse director at Ohio State University, recalls a memorable clash with a college professor over unfair tests—an early lesson in the challenges of pushing back against authority. Now an educator herself, she teaches students to hold powerful people accountable with humility and care. For Joyce, civil discourse isn’t about winning arguments.  It’s about fostering fairness, connection, and dialogue, especially across power divides. Still, she cautions: not every conversation is worth having—discernment matters just as much as empathy.

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When we disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Access to information is a central concern in debates about how we might improve our public sphere, our public discourse. This issue always comes back to the ideal public sphere, a space where citizens can potentially gather to exchange ideas and deliberate on important social issues In this space, arguments are rational, all voices can be heard, and facts are freely available.

But achieving that ideal is pretty much easier said than done Historically. Moments of expansive information and access have bolstered public discourse. Think of the rise of the printing press in the 15th century, which rapidly spread ideas around and spurred the Protestant Reformation, or consider the Internet's early promise as a force of democracy, giving everyday people a platform to share their ideas, [00:01:00] and yet the same tools that broaden access can also fragment it.

Today, algorithms serve us curated news feeds reinforcing our beliefs. Instead of challenging them, the public sphere becomes fractured into echo chambers where misinformation can thrive and productive debate can dwindle. And this isn't just a social issue or a political issue, it happens in our relationships as well.

Imagine you and a friend are deciding how to spend a vacation. You want transparency and access to all the possible places that you could vacation, but the partner is strategically withholding what they really want or different places they've been before. Without a shared understanding of possibilities and facts, resolving conflicts and making decisions is highly unlikely.

Recognizing these patterns can allow us to push back and make reforms, whether it's fact checking or teaching citizens constructive ways to discuss factual disputes. Teaching [00:02:00] citizens how to look for good sources of information, or promoting journalism, or insisting on honest communication in our personal relationships.

Advocating for transparency is key. Access to information fosters, accountability, understanding, and potentially a more authentic dialogue. After all, a productive conversation in the public sphere or at the kitchen table requires everyone to be participating in at least roughly the same conversation.

I'm Michael Lee, professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Our guest today on when we Disagree is Catherine Joyce. Katherine is the program director for the Civil Discourse for Citizenship Program and the Center for Ethics and Human Values at Ohio State University.

She has a PhD in philosophy. Katherine, tell us an argument story. I. 

Kathryn Joyce: Thanks for having me. So the story I wanna tell is from when I was an undergraduate student taking an American history class. [00:03:00] And so this was my sophomore year of college and I had this disagreement with the professor that started out as a disagreement about test questions, um, but really was a deeper disagreement about the terms of the professor student relationship, I think.

So what happened is, uh, this. This teacher, this, uh, history professor would, he'd been doing this a long time, decades, and he would give lectures without any slides or anything like that, and then we'd read the book and he'd give tests. Pretty standard setup. The problem is that I'd study for these tests and then I'd get them back and I'd see that questions I was really confident about, uh, were wrong or there'd be questions on the test where I was pretty confident there was nothing in the reading about those questions.

And so I went to see him just to ask for clarification. And in that meeting, uh, it became clear that he's been using the same tests for years, but he had changed the textbook recently. And so he is saying, well, these tests are [00:04:00] fine. I've been u using them for years and history doesn't change. It's like, okay, but some of this isn't in the book.

Or I would show him actually like conflicting statements or statements that confuse the issue in the book. And he usually kind of blew me off. He's sort of defensive, dismissive. Um, but in a few cases he actually said, okay, fine. Uh, I can, I can give you credit for that answer. But this happened after every test because retest is one that was corresponding to a different book, uh, and maybe the lectures, but you can't study lectures if there's no notes or anything.

So, uh, at one point he said to me, look, you and I don't get along. We both know it, but we still need to get through this semester. And that really surprised me because I didn't. I mean, I was frustrated with him and with the class and with the tests, but yeah, I didn't think of this as not getting along this me going to see him to ask him these questions and point out these problems.[00:05:00] 

Michael Lee: Did you feel like he had, he had kind of unnecessarily personalized the issue you were making? Perfectly reasonable professional. Um, critiques or even asking for explanations within the boundaries of the class professor, student relationship, that's pretty standard and typical. And then he is like, well, you don't like me.

I don't like you. So, 

Kathryn Joyce: yeah, I mean, I, it, it did seem personal. It seemed like he, he felt that his authority as a professor entitled him to some sort of. Deference or trust or not, not being questioned essentially, um, by, by a student. But to me it was an issue of fairness. And now that I am a professor, now that I teach, uh, I, I still think about this a lot because I mean, that's why it stuck with me for almost 20 years is I teach now.

Uh, and I think it's important for students to be able to hold the professors accountable. And I'm not sure that we really always teach them that. And in that case, I was assuming as adults that would be. [00:06:00] An appropriate thing to do, and he was assuming that as a student, I should just go along with what he said.

Michael Lee: Was this so surprising to you at the time? And then of course, so sticky and memorable for you for a, a minute afterwards, I presume. Um, because, because you had never run into a professor who was kind of being lazy, frankly, about test questions, was it because. You had never run into somebody in a position of authority, especially an intellectual in a position of authority, opting for such kind of base motivations, like, well, this is just about personal dislike.

This is actually not about professional conduct. Something else, all of the above. In other words, why is this so sticky? I. 

Kathryn Joyce: I think it was because I hadn't thought of myself as doing something inappropriate, but that's essentially what he suggested to me. And so then I felt sort of bad about it. Like I, I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be.

And this, I think was the, the semester of my sophomore year, first semester of [00:07:00] sophomore year. So I hadn't been in college for very long and I hadn't had to do this with other professors. I'd go to office hours, ask questions, but I didn't. Have this issue with exams where there was just this clear disagreement with the textbook.

And so I, I hadn't run into it before. Uh, and then I was like questioning myself if I had done something wrong and if I was being, uh, kind of the problem child in class and, and what else I should be doing. And sort of, I was surprised by him not, not feeling that he was accountable. To me, and he even said multiple times, no student has complained about this before.

Michael Lee: Oh, there we go. And so 

Kathryn Joyce: really calling, calling out that I'm the student who's making a big deal of this and no one else has. 

Michael Lee: And that's a, a shaming response. Yeah. You're making a big deal about this and nobody else has seen to make a big deal about this. So he's shameless and you are shameful. And he sets this dichotomy up again, personalizing an issue of.[00:08:00] 

Kind of a basic question of what's gonna be on the test and where is it coming from? 

Kathryn Joyce: Yeah. Right. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. How has this, how has this impacted your, your scholastics, your studies, your approach to teaching, um, your approach to the work of, of dialogue on and off campus at Ohio State? I. 

Kathryn Joyce: Well, it makes me think about dialogue when there's differences in authority and power connected to different, uh, positions.

So not just, you know, social stratification or social hierarchies, but you know, there, there is a necessary difference in authority between a professor and a student. But having disagreements across those differences is something that I think about a lot. And then I think about that story, and I think that most people who teach college students are much more reasonable and concerned about fairness than this particular professor.

And so they're open to having students come to them. With with these questions or these complaints, but I guess for [00:09:00] me, because I had that experience, I took it, I take it even further and I think about how I can encourage students to hold me accountable and learn to be holding people accountable, even if it is their boss or their professor or someone who is in a position of power over them.

Michael Lee: How do you invite accountability when you're in kind of an up power position? 

Kathryn Joyce: Well, I mean, I tell students that we all make mistakes and that I've made mistakes before, and all professors make mistakes. And so if they think maybe there's a mistake or they just want an explanation, they're very much entitled to that.

Uh, and you know, you have to be careful because you don't want to tell them that all grades are negotiable or test answers are negotiable or something like that. Um, but certainly you should be willing to justify to them. Um, what, what the grade was or what the requirements of the class are, and you should be able to explain if you're departing from what you've said you'll do in class or what you are reasonably expected [00:10:00] to do.

Michael Lee: Yeah. So 

Kathryn Joyce: I may Yeah, go ahead. 

Michael Lee: Is there, is there a part of you that is concerned about the, the risk of, of, let's say, disrespect or assuming, uh, incompetence or kind of giving too much before it's necessary? 

Kathryn Joyce: You know, it hasn't been a problem. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. 

Kathryn Joyce: Uh, that hasn't been a problem. Uh, students are really hesitant, I find, to hold professors accountable.

Uh, not always at, excuse me, not always at, um, I. Really prestigious schools where students might have, uh, experience doing this or maybe even in their high schools and their families. They've been taught that they're entitled to, to this sort of, um, challenge or to take this sort of active role. But at Ohio State or a place like Georgia State, or I was at the University of North Dakota, students don't always have that sort of, uh, confidence and, [00:11:00] and so I.

I don't worry about them taking it too far. Yeah. 

Michael Lee: Um, 

Kathryn Joyce: my experience is they don't take it far enough. 

Michael Lee: Let's, let's take it outside of the context of the student teacher relationship and talk about all sorts of other power imbalances that can happen when there's the necessity of dialogue or debate or disagreement.

What are some things that folks outside of the classroom can do if they're in an up power position to encourage accountability in these kinds of exchanges? 

Kathryn Joyce: Uh, you mean if they're the more powerful person? 

Michael Lee: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kathryn Joyce: Well, one thing is to be really aware in these conversations that it's hard for the other person to challenge you.

And so be, have even more humility than you might otherwise have. And, you know, you might even help them kind of think about what questions they might have or objections they might have. Anticipate those, um, explain those and really be. Inviting students to [00:12:00] disagree with you, um, and making it okay. I, I think that's, that's what I do, so that when I'm giving a student an answer and they're nodding along, I wanna be sure that I'm checking with them and being really encouraging of them to give me an honest response.

Does that make sense? Does that not make sense? 

Michael Lee: Yeah. 

Kathryn Joyce: Uh, and so I think the person of position of power has to be aware of how difficult it is to be on the other side and be. Actively enabling that dialogue. 

Michael Lee: Let's flip it and talk about kinds of judging from your work and your experiences, kinds of a piece of advice you would give to folks who are facing a necessary conflict, but they come at that conflict in a relatively down power position.

Kathryn Joyce: Yeah, that's, that's always a lot tougher because if you have someone who is in a position where they can shut you down if they want to. There's, there's not much you can do if they take that, [00:13:00] take that position. But I think that you can appeal to, uh, you know, shared values or shared mission. Yeah. And just, you know, I, I know that fairness matters to you.

Fairness matters to me. Uh, here's something that seems unfair, can we talk about it? 

Michael Lee: Mm-hmm. 

Kathryn Joyce: Uh, and so I think going in with this, uh, request for. Talking about something rather than like accusations. I think in any situation, uh, power differentials are not, you wanna approach people in a way that doesn't put them on their heels or put them on the defensive right away.

Uh, and so go in assuming that there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation. And go in and ask that explanation, try to understand it, and if it turned out, turns out it's not a reasonable explanation, then that's the time to raise those concerns and continue their dialogue. 

Michael Lee: Well said. When I do workshops and trainings on some of these related issues relevant to tips for better disagreement or, or listening better [00:14:00] things of this nature, I often talk about the, the both, the tat and the explicit principle of reciprocity.

Mm-hmm. In conversations, and you, you touched on that a bit, which is this sense of shared value. You believe in fairness, I believe in fairness. Let's proceed to enact a conversation and hopefully a result. That's fair as well. Why do you think that principle of reciprocity is so persuasive in these kinds of encounters?

Kathryn Joyce: Well, I think that it can be, it can be hard to refuse to give something back to someone when they've given it to you. So here's what I mean. Um. If you listen, if you ask someone a question, you're trying to really understand their point of view. And so you're listening with curiosity, you're reserving judgment and truly trying to understand, and you can demonstrate that, that to them by, you know, repeating back to them what you think they've said until they agree that yes, you understand what I'm saying?

[00:15:00] If you do that for someone, um, that's a really, that's a way of making people feel heard and it's. It feels really good to get that from someone and then you're in a good position to say, okay, um, I understand what you've said now. Would you mind if I explain my point of view? Because there's some differences with how I see things.

It's pretty hard to say no there, I think. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. Well said. What's your favorite part about doing this kind of dialogue Work.

Kathryn Joyce: I think my favorite part is empowering people to, uh, have better relationships and feel like they can have conversations and with people who disagree with them without it being a conflict or a fight. I see a lot of. Students and a lot of people I interact with, uh, estranged from family, family members or even wanting to form friendships across, [00:16:00] you know, on the same political side and feeling like they can't be friends with someone who disagrees with their politics.

And I think that's, that's unfortunate. And so giving people tools where they can really have these sorts of conversations in a productive way. Without just writing each other off or getting upset or, or feeling dismissed. That's my favorite part about doing the civil discourse work. 

Michael Lee: It's interesting that you pitch the, the benefits in terms of, of human connection, right, and the benefits in terms of reducing estrangement and alienation.

So often when we talk about this kind of work, especially in a polarized climate, we're talking about avoiding fights, avoiding violence. Et cetera, et cetera. Right. Bigotry, red states, blue states, these kind of huge antagonistic collisions. Mm-hmm. And here you're talking about the, the basis and necessity of individual one-on-one or one on group relationships from which we are a little distant right now.

Kathryn Joyce: Right. And I think it's important that [00:17:00] we are able to learn from one another and have conversations with people and see that they're human beings and have reasons for the positions they hold and the reasons they have are not always the reasons we think they have. And, and so sort of engaging people, even those, especially those who disagree with us in this sort of shared inquiry.

Type of approach. Like, okay, well let's explore this together 'cause we disagree. Why do we disagree? Where do we disagree? 

Michael Lee: What is your biggest worry about this kind of work? 

Kathryn Joyce: Well, some situations are not appropriate situations for civil discourse. Mm-hmm. And so. Uh, we always try to be clear about that when we're talking to different groups of people because I would hate for someone to be, uh, using the civil discourse and dialogue tools that we offer with someone who is actively trying to manipulate or coerce 'em or someone who's not operating in good [00:18:00] faith, and that could be, uh, bad for them.

Michael Lee: Say more about. That's my, say more about that. Oh, yeah. Um, what, so talk about the bad faith part and then talk about why using the tactics of civility and civil discourse in a, in a situation of potential manipulation might actually make it worse. 

Kathryn Joyce: Great. So we have four, um, principles of civil discourse we call the four Cs.

So be curious, be charitable, be conscientious, and be constructive. Uh, and when you use those in a conversation. Where others are also, uh, engaging in good faith in that they're giving reasons, they're listening. Uh, they're not trying to just persuade you by saying anything they want. Uh, those, those are really good tools to use.

But when you get into a conversation with someone who, uh, is just looking for ways to manipulate you. Sort of putting yourself out there by being curious and being really charitable, uh, can just give them sort of fuel for the fire. And [00:19:00] one, one kind of person I have in mind is what's known as the high conflict person or a person with a high conflict personality.

This is a term that comes from Bill Eddie, and this is, these are people who are, um, very emotionally volatile. Uh, very preoccupied with blame. Avoiding blame and blaming others and are willing to act in ways that 90% of adults wouldn't. And so, uh, when you're talking to someone who is seeking conflict, seeking blame, uh, using these sorts of tools can actually be a disadvantage because you are showing epistemic humility, but they're going to use that as like.

A way to blame you for something. Um, you are considering that they might be right. That's part of civil discourse. Consider that the other person might be right. But if you're doing that with someone who's just looking for a way to blame you, that can be damaging, that could be counterproductive. 

Michael Lee: Uh, [00:20:00] so at the risk of simplicity, then what?

Kathryn Joyce: Well, I think that you just have to recognize that you can't have a civil discourse with a person like that. Mm-hmm. A person who's not willing or capable of engaging, uh, in this kind of discussion, you have to be able to identify that and then not, not engage in that way with that person. 

Michael Lee: And this may be kind of a compulsiveness, it's not necessarily a tactic or strategy, some kind of rational approach.

This person is making high conflict. People can come from all sorts of environments. But I'm trying to draw a distinction too, between that and the sort of purposeful provocateur. Somebody who's, who's goading and is as un charitable as possible, and maybe they're deeply online and are interested in gaining clicks and likes and views and the whole thing because they've, they are engaged in a kind of shouting and Freud of pissing you off on purpose.

Kathryn Joyce: That's not a person who's willing to engage in civil discourse. And you can't, you can't [00:21:00] engage in civil discourse with someone without their consent, we say sometimes. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, they're, they're not doing it. And it takes, it takes both or all people in the conversation to be, uh, willing to do it.

So, you know, sometimes I'll have a be having a conversation with someone, a little less extreme, but still who's very much in the mode of persuasion mm-hmm. And wanting to persuade me. I'm trying to do the civil discourse thing and they're trying to do the persuade me to believe what they believe thing.

And so I'll just stop and say, okay, I'm really not interested in having a conversation where you try to convince me I'm wrong. Um, I'm not trying to convince you I'm right. Like if you wanna have a conversation where we try to understand each other better and try to understand where we disagree, and then maybe have future conversations about, you know.

What the better way to go on that point of disagreement is like, I'm willing to have that conversation, but I'm not willing to talk to you. If all you wanna do is try to convince me that you're [00:22:00] right. 

Michael Lee: We've been talking about this in terms of polarities a little bit. On the one hand we have the four Cs civil discourse method, and then on the other is we have these instances in which it's, it's not appropriate.

One of those is if you can suss out whether the person is a, a high conflict person, another is if you can suss out whether, if they're potentially engaged in being purposefully contrarian for whatever reason. But oftentimes there is a kind of blurring of, of these boundaries where you and I can be perhaps kind of a little contrarian in the heat of a moment.

Maybe we think it's purposeful and it's valuable, or maybe we're just hot and we're emotional. I. Um, we can be provocative. Certainly all of us can use shame and blame and, um, more high conflict tactics without being high conflict people and then lapse back into civil discourse methods. And so sometimes it can be hard to diagnose, is this a civil conversation?

Is this a high conflict conversation? You get where I'm going with this? [00:23:00] Yeah, absolutely. So how do you, uh, the world can be a confusing place, and how are you, how are, are those of us who are interested in continuing civil dialogue work? To identify those conversations that can be productive for those that should be avoided?

Kathryn Joyce: That's a great question. I mean, exploring a disagreement through civil discourse takes a lot of emotional management. And so if we feel ourselves getting angry and our judgment getting clouded and we're getting defensive, it might be time for us to just take a step back, ask if we can return to this conversation.

I've sometimes said, you know, I, I feel myself getting defensive or, you know, the way that we're talking about this, I've just. Getting really tense and I, I think I need to come back to this. I don't think I can keep having this conversation right now. So that sort of self-awareness of whether you are in a, in a place where you're ready to explore this through civil discourse, uh, as opposed to just.

Express [00:24:00] emotions about the situation. I think that's really the, the most important thing and for all of us to recognize that no matter how mature you are or irrational you are, or good at managing your emotions, uh, we're emotional creatures and sometimes we're. Going to be too upset to talk about something or something is too, too close to us, too personal, and we're, we're just gonna have to, um, avoid conversations until, until we feel like we can handle it in the right sort of way.

And that's okay to do. It's okay to be unprepared in the moment to have a conversation. 

Michael Lee: That's a perfectly fitting closing. Catherine Joyce, thank you so much for being on When we Disagree. 

Kathryn Joyce: You are welcome. Thank you so much for having me. 

Michael Lee: When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee.

Recording and sound engineering by Jesse k and Lance Laidlaw. Reach out to us at Whenwedisagree@gmail.com.