From an otherwise private post: why do we debate?

[fpb]

...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.

Comments

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

A variant of this is that one doesn't expect to sway the opponent so much as to sway the lurkers who are watching. Marketplace indeed, with the debaters as salesmen.

[affablestranger.livejournal.com]

Yep. Well put.

[elegant-bonfire.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons I added you was to hear/read opinions and viewpoints coming from a totally different experience than my own. If we keep our eyes and minds closed to anything that might be 'different', how will one learn anything new?

[sanscouronne.livejournal.com]

I wholly agree, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I've come away from debates with a changed mind.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Very true. The one thing I would add is that it is also important to recognize when to leave a debate. Unless both sides are operating with a certain minimum of charity and good faith, the exchange is doomed to generate far more heat than light.