Debate vs. Fight: FITE!
Here is a terrible secret. I love to argue. Well, it's not really a secret, is it? I enjoy a good debate with a well matched and respectful opponent the same way I enjoy a good game of ping-pong, in fact that's exactly what it is, a verbal game of ping pong. It's playful, challenging, and, in a really good game/debate, hopefully edifying.
However, I hate to fight. It makes me angry and tense and deeply unhappy and makes me want to curl up in a ball with my hedgehog spines out and never speak to anyone ever again.
What's the difference?
Well, therein lies the quandary. It's often very, very hard to tell the difference, especially on the internet. And the problem is, one's opponents may not even understand the difference between a debate and a fight, and launch from one to the other without a moment's notice.
Like many people of my class and education level, I was taught to debate at school - although I was never actually in a debating society, I was certainly part of a philosophy society that used to place some of our discussions in the terms of formal debate. Logic and Rhetoric, point, counterpoint, rebuttal, summation - they are ancient models from the Classical world and the legal system. It was kind of like learning a martial art without getting hurt.
I suppose therein lies the crux of the matter - that what separates a debate from a fight is when people get hurt. It was one of the first points taught, when I was learning how to debate - you debate the topic, not the person. Ad hominem attacks - that is, personal attacks on the participant, rather than the views expressed - are simply not allowed.
The problem is, real life doesn't always work this way. One tends to form a fairly wholistic view of a person, comprised of their past as well as their present behaviour, one's knowledge of their "character" - and all of this colours one's perception of whether their argument is valid or not.
Of course, there is the opposite end of the spectrum - those who view *any* conflict at all as disrespectful, wrong and something to be avoided. I have a real problem with this viewpoint. For a start, I was raised with was the idea that actually taking the time to debate with someone was a sign of respect, that you respect them enough to listen to their views and take them seriously. I was raised to constantly question things, to examine them, to take them to pieces and see how they work. Again, this is class and culture - the whole Protestant view of questioning and examining. What I took away from my religious education was that a belief which could not be examined, discussed, probed and maybe even contradicted was not a belief that was held very strongly at all.
Until, that is, someone starts treading on your most cherished beliefs. I suppose the answer, then, is never debate on the internet about anything you actually are emotionally engaged about? What kind of attitude is that? Self protection, or the short path to closed mindedness?
However, I hate to fight. It makes me angry and tense and deeply unhappy and makes me want to curl up in a ball with my hedgehog spines out and never speak to anyone ever again.
What's the difference?
Well, therein lies the quandary. It's often very, very hard to tell the difference, especially on the internet. And the problem is, one's opponents may not even understand the difference between a debate and a fight, and launch from one to the other without a moment's notice.
Like many people of my class and education level, I was taught to debate at school - although I was never actually in a debating society, I was certainly part of a philosophy society that used to place some of our discussions in the terms of formal debate. Logic and Rhetoric, point, counterpoint, rebuttal, summation - they are ancient models from the Classical world and the legal system. It was kind of like learning a martial art without getting hurt.
I suppose therein lies the crux of the matter - that what separates a debate from a fight is when people get hurt. It was one of the first points taught, when I was learning how to debate - you debate the topic, not the person. Ad hominem attacks - that is, personal attacks on the participant, rather than the views expressed - are simply not allowed.
The problem is, real life doesn't always work this way. One tends to form a fairly wholistic view of a person, comprised of their past as well as their present behaviour, one's knowledge of their "character" - and all of this colours one's perception of whether their argument is valid or not.
Of course, there is the opposite end of the spectrum - those who view *any* conflict at all as disrespectful, wrong and something to be avoided. I have a real problem with this viewpoint. For a start, I was raised with was the idea that actually taking the time to debate with someone was a sign of respect, that you respect them enough to listen to their views and take them seriously. I was raised to constantly question things, to examine them, to take them to pieces and see how they work. Again, this is class and culture - the whole Protestant view of questioning and examining. What I took away from my religious education was that a belief which could not be examined, discussed, probed and maybe even contradicted was not a belief that was held very strongly at all.
Until, that is, someone starts treading on your most cherished beliefs. I suppose the answer, then, is never debate on the internet about anything you actually are emotionally engaged about? What kind of attitude is that? Self protection, or the short path to closed mindedness?
posted by Masonic Boom | 10:46 pm
4 Comments:
"Ad hominem attacks - that is, personal attacks on the participant, rather than the views expressed - are simply not allowed."
Case in point of a great thinker who completely goes against this 'rule of debate' - Nietzsche.
Nietzsche may have been a great thinker, but he was a lousy and hysterical debater. The two things - having powers of debate and powers of thought - are not necessarily tied together, and I think that's part of the problem, because we're trained to believe they are.
So not only are we trained to view the world in a very adversarial way (to the degree that many Americans have been persuaded into believing their tame and politically stagnant electoral cycle represents some sort of clash of the opposites, for example), but we're also trained to identify a person with his or her ideas very, very strongly.
This is the great big pitfall of popular psychology. It's thorough enough that we all know that there are probably emotional reasons why most people cherish ideas they passionately believe are rational or somehow objectively true, so we can attack and dismiss a good idea by attacking the person who has it.
Go back to Nietzsche, for example. If we descended to ad hominems in his case very seriously when we decided on the value of his arguments, the ravings of such a syphilitic, pissy, unpleasant, sexually inadequate boob could be dismissed in a way I'd consider unfortunate. And they often are.
But pop psychology isn't thorough enough that we always appreciate an idea can come from someone we disrespect and nevertheless be true or valid, and it's REALLY not thorough enough that we always appreciate the emotional motives behind our own 'rational' or 'true' ideas.
And then we get defensive when someone attacks the ideas, and then very aggressive about the opposite of these ideas, and . . . well, the sort of education you had in debate is supposed to be the defense against this sort of thing, and it's a good defense, but hardly foolproof, especially when the person you're talking to is a hysterical debater who goes for your jugular, instead of your idea's jugular. I guess you just have to keep trying!
Okay, sorry, you can have your blog back now.
Nah, go for it, LaS! I love your insights!
I suppose one of the problems is that although a person can be viewed as the sum of their ideas *and* actions (though I've always thought people should be judged more by their actions than by their ideas) - a philosophical idea can have value independent of those people that hold it.
(Ridiculously over-simplified example: just because a bunch of dicks believe that 2 + 2 = 4 does not make that idea false because dicks beleive it.)
In this case, ad hominem attacks do nothing about the argument.
Not to mention that ad hominem attacks make the process of debate and discussion... well, un-FUN and hurtful and nasty and poisonous.
The other problem is this idea of debating as being necsssarily adversarial. I don't believe that this has to be true. However, unfortunately, a lot of people do. I argue/debate for the fun of exchanging ideas, discovering new things - believe it or not, to me, as competative as I can be, the result of "Oh wow, I never knew that before, that's really changed my view of this issue and the world!" is a far more satisfactory outcome to a debate than "I win, you are PWNED!!! I WIN I WIN!"
One of the most interesting things about the way that I was taught to debate was to separate the issues from the belief - one teacher I had asked the class about an ethical issue (I think we were debating the death penalty) and the class divided up along their the lines of their own beliefs and we discussed it. At the end of the class, the teacher said "right, tomorrow, we are going to have a formal debate - where everyone has to debate and defend the *opposite* side from what they actually believe."
It was a very, very useful tool to understand the actual mechanisms of debating, as divorced from the emotional content and potential for hysteria.
I actually detest Nietzsche's style of rhetoric - it completely ruined his philosophy for me. But just thought I'd play devil's advocate!
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