On civilized debate

As an obviously opinionated guy I am no stranger to controversy. This does NOT however automatically mean that I am experienced/talented in debate; I'm not bad at it as it turns out, but having an opinion and being willing to debate it is not as common as a lot of people would like. You can count me in with those people. I will go old-school here and take the Oxford definition from an actual paper dictionary:

debate: discuss or dispute about (an issue, proposal, etc.) esp. formally in a legislative assembly, public meeting, etc.

Coming back to the 21ieme siecle, the Internet can be considered a "public meeting" for purposes of this definition, as this is as public as it gets. At least it would be if more than a handful of people (thank you, btw) actually read it. I have over the years continued to put a lot of shaky propositions up on this site in the nearly vain hope that people would take the bait and call me on it. I need the mental exercise which only comes from challenging what I believe to a death match with the wits of others, but that doesn't mean that I'm kidding about what I write.

Even more old fashioned, I was raised to back up what I say. This was always rare in the opinionated, but is vanishingly so these days and the schools don't help. I find this ironic due to the ready access to reams of information which (admittedly with many grains of salt and a lot of fact checking) puts debating gold at your fingertips. We are in fact overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, and a valuable skill is the ability to limit your intake of it.

Boundaries need to be pushed to test them, something I do for fun as often as I can. As I get older I'm slowing down on this (been there, done that), but here's one rule I adhere to: I will always admit if I'm wrong. That sounds easy, and sometimes it it, but you will need to convince me that I am incorrect. There's another problem with many topics; convincing me to care enough to argue about it. People who take contrary positions to EVERYTHING are very annoying, so I try to be discriminating.

People have a lot invested in their view of the world, and you undermine that at your peril. Religious zealots are simply the most obvious; they have in many cases an entire lifetime of indoctrination in whatever it is and it's faith-based so there is really no point in debating religion. It can be dangerous too...

Secular beliefs are often structurally identical to religious ones and often as difficult to debunk. In theory there is no faith involved, but in practice there is a willing suspension of disbelief which is identical. I was going to get into a whole Left-Right thing, but I found that I don't have much interesting to say about that.

Last post's topic of getting along flows more naturally into this. There are times and places (and people) when you can "agree to disagree", and that is the key to civilized debate. This post at WUWT was the catalyst for my ramblings today and it hits that most critical of ingredients for civilized debate: self-selection of participants.

Just building "it" doesn't mean that "they" will come, (faith-based example) and in fact generally the worst reactionaries (of any stripe) will avoid an honest balanced debate like the plague. We like people who agree with us, but you don't learn and grow by preaching to the converted. People who want to convince, not bully, will engage in debate. Bullies will YELL and call you unpleasant things to distract from their inability to support their position on its' merits. In many cases that's their default position, even when they have an easy rhetorical target.

Much like what I proposed for the G8/20 meetings, if you want to keep out the great unwashed masses (e.g. the rabble described above) you need to control the venue, real or virtual. This will allow you to invite people, and if you're honest about it you'll invite your glibbest intellectual opponents. Stacking the deck in your favour only cheats you and your cause of legitimacy. So, the keys to civilized debate seem to be:

• Transparency, which equals a good reputation for those who display it;



• tread carefully on faith based beliefs;



• be enough of a threat to what "they" believe that "they" feel compelled to counter your argument (but not so compelled that they want you dead; see point above), and;



• control of the debating venue.

Again I welcome discussion of this, like everything else you'll find here. Lots of it can be better researched and presented, but as always this is what you get for free. I promise that if challenged I will always give back as good as I get, which will involve more than my usual cursory web searches and pulling things from the dusty corners of my brain. The latter is more fun and sufficient for the "jaw-jaw" part; if it starts getting serious references will start to appear as appropriate before it turns to "war-war". Look for that from any serious pundits, as well as how they talk about their opponents. Civility requires restraint, but doesn't need to be boring...