Morning, all. I’m going to spend most of the day answering a backlog of e-mail. Why am I telling you this? Not quite sure. I’m just thinking out loud.
I’ve been “challenged” to a debate on the Bill Bennett fiasco, and the odd thing is I’d consider doing it if the challenge were serious. Last year a law school student organization invited me to debate on…something. Can’t remember. I was offered a decent fee to do it, but the invitation was last-minute. Having no public debating experience and little time to prepare my argument, research my opponent, etc., I had to refuse the offer.
But…I like the idea of openly discussing a topic where each person lays out his argument, the other guy cross-examines him, lays out his argument, and so on. We all have opinions, and I dare some many of them are not based on facts but impressions and emotions. In a formal debate, if done properly, a pattern of truth emerges on one side. People get to hear both sides of an argument and the strengths and weaknesses of the argument. Emotional, ill-informed tirades edify no one.
I would debate someone only if the formal rules of debating applied. What my challenger has in mind is probably a mini-shout-fest with two people pulling “arguments” out of the air at random with no coherent structure or goal. I would engage only if there were a neutral moderator who followed the rules and made sure the debaters did the same: time limits for opening statements, arguments, rebuttals, and closing statements.
People think what they do on blogs is debating. For from it, my friends. Sometimes intelligent discourse emerges, but not often. We tend to get emotional, which usually obscures the point being made. I sense that most who disagree with me have a hard time controlling their emotions, and almost nothing is gained when we reach that point. People don’t know how to formulate an argument or rebut someone else’s based on facts and rules of logic. The ancient Greeks knew what they were doing.
For instance, the rebuttal portion of a debate involves exposing the weakness in your opponent’s argument and/or offering evidence that would tend to disprove it. Unfortunately, what most people do on blogs and on shout-down radio and TV is “rebut” a point the person never made (the “strawman” fallacy) based on his own prejudices and assumptions while veering wildly off-topic, attacking the person who made the argument and assuming that because one thing follows another, it must have caused it, etc. Hey, I’m guilty, too.
James White is a skilled debater, and it’s almost embarrassing to listen to him defeat an opponent who clearly has no idea how to structure an argument or respond to someone else’s. If I’m going to engage in public debate, it must be a real debate with rules.
If you’ve engaged in formal debates, let me know. This is a skill I want to develop.
Wow. I started out talking about e-mail. The other stuff just popped into my head. So I’ll answer my e-mail now.
Addendum: If you’re in town on October 11, you may want to attend a conference at Heritage called Reclaiming Our Destiny.
Unrelated Update: No whites allowed.
