The chorus to David Bowie’s iconic glam rock song, “Starman,” was written on the whiteboard in my AT Modern European History classroom: “There’s a starman waiting in the sky.” For a class in which nationalism and industrialization were common topics of discussion, this was surprising. The method to this madness? Starmanning.
Starmanning, coined by Angel Eduardo in his article How to Star-Man | Arguing from Compassion, is an alternative to strawmanning or steelmanning. Instead of using your opponent’s weakest argument to make your own seem more formidable, or using your opponent’s strongest argument to illustrate how easily you can deconstruct it, starmanning encourages you to find the humanity in an opponent’s argument and engage with its most charitable version.
At least, this was the lesson Christy Gerst, our AT European History teacher, instilled in us.
In a period of polarization and petty political arguments, starmanning allows high schools to model charitable discussion in their classrooms and encourage collaborative disagreement.
According to 2023 research from the Pew Research Center, when Americans were asked to describe modern politics in one word or phrase, the most common response was “divisive.” The political environment is certainly divided, with each side attempting to lay claim to moral superiority.
When I left Ms. Gerst’s classroom that day, I was elated. It was exciting to think about a kind of conversation that valued speech over silencing others. But it made me think about what U-High is like. In a school that’s mostly liberal, it’s easy for in-class discussions to operate under the assumption of shared values. Variation from the norm is often shamed and even condemned.
What would it be like to ask about the reasons behind our shared positions on abortion or immigration? I imagine a hushed silence would fall over most classes, not because no one has a well-formulated response, but because most people are afraid to stray, accidentally or purposely, from what is acceptable.
Shutting down disagreement rather than making effective arguments fosters resentment, the consequences of which we saw play out on the national stage in November. Instead, teachers and students could shift to encourage disagreement in the classroom, using starmanning to create models for political discussion.
Ms. Gerst encourages us toward this. We are often assigned conservative, socialist, and liberal sources on the same issue and instructed to find the most reasonable explanation for each viewpoint. Students often lean toward different perspectives. Some days, I am a frustrated socialist, on others a vehement conservative.
I have not perfected starmanning. I’m not even very good at it. Nonetheless, I’m committed because I know that as high school students, we have to start seeing disagreement as an opportunity instead of as an obstacle.
