A good day

I had a delightful afternoon out getting to know mentalguy and showing him around London - at least, some of the best known parts. He is an intelligent man and very good company. This is only the third time in four years that I get to meet real life LJ friends (hello, kagome_sama, chthonya, kennahijja), and each time it has been a great and unmixed pleasure. I wish it happened more often.

On the other hand...

...this last week, I had that clash with a certain conservative writer, because I would not flatter his views on what his party calls "socialized medicine"; at the same time as I was finally thrown out of the circle of a woman I had tried to befriend, basically because I did not flatter her delusions about President Obama and her general comfortable Guardian-reading ideology. It is not always easy using your own head to think with.

From an otherwise private post: why do we debate?

...You see, I am not Barrack Obama. I do not believe that unity or agreement are either a value or even a desirable goal. I believe that nobody has a right to demand or even to hope that someone else change their views, and that the primary purpose of debate is not to change the mind of the opponent. Anyone who thinks that has a positively fantastic notion of the power of persuasion - let alone THEIR persuasion. It also means a profound contempt for the opponent; whether or not his/her opinions are contemptible, s/he has taken just as much to reach them as you have, and when you treat them as silly notions that your clever persuasion can overcome, you insult, not just his intellect, but his character. No: you should start any debate you get into with the idea that you are not going to change your opponent's mind.

So why do it? Because if you always keep your opinions to yourself, if you never place them in the air to be properly contemplated and commented by others, you will never know what they are worth. Debate is about YOU risking YOUR certainties, not about the other guy risking his; and it is only from the other guy's point of view that the opposite is the case. Each person places his wares in the marketplace of ideas for any customer to look at, and hopes for the best. The primary point of debate is to expose your own viewpoints to criticism and to use it, if you can, to sharpen them. I also believe that debate is not necessary - and I will try not to force it on anyone who does not want it - but that once you enter it, you enter a fighting game, and if people seek a fight, they should not complain of the wounds.