Principles of Debate
Feb. 12th, 2004 09:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusI participated in two heated discussions recently. One in my livejournal, another in yesterday's journalism class. It brought to mind a couple of points.
1 - The basis for debate needs to be substantive. He said/she said is just pointless.
2 - Keep the focus on the facts. Innuendo/sly slander and politics "well, I did the great blah-blah article and therefore..." and "you're just a student while I'm..." are irrelevant to the facts.
That's just politics, clouds the issue, and doesn't belong in a substantive debate. Actually, this sort of underhanded one-upmanship is listed among the 37 Methods of Disinformation taught by the CIA: if you can't disprove the facts, discredit the source and put them on the defensive.
3 - The two parties have to agree on the terms and what they consider a worthwhile text of reference.
This is why religious debates often go nowhere. The Buddhists say "the Buddha said," the Christians say "Jesus said," and these quotes are meaningless to each other.
Online credentials "I am this or that" aren't credible, because too many people lie online. Even people who don't lie outright tend to shift the facts a little. Someone will claim to be a professor when in reality they just got their Ph.D and are working at a McDonald's. Frankly, if you have to back up your words with your credentials you probably have a weak argument. Which brings us to:
4 - The basis for the debate has to be provable. Have your facts straight.
The purpose of debate is to bring to light incorrect assumptions of course, but you should try to know what you're talking about. Entering into a debate about work you haven't read is doomed to failure because you're running entirely on assumptions.
Yesterday the journalists started with he said/she said, everyone was mad at the Managing Editor and an important writer was trying to sway the class against her, and already had the teacher's ear.
I got up, stood at the board and wrote down facts -- "Okay, so far I hear... Communication..." *tap tap* "Deadlines..."
It was obvious when what was said just politics, because there was nothing for me to write down. I just stood there, chalk poised. Finally I restated it, "So the issue is [restate]?"
When names got mentioned: "That sounds like a personal issue. We don't need to discuss that as a group. Maybe you should take it up with..."
That focused everyone on solving the real problems. Kept bringing us back to: "Okay. How do we plan to solve this?"
The Managing Editor had stormed out of the room early in the discussion, so when she returned and tried to restart the (resolved) personal debate: "Actually, we resolved that" (i.e. you abdicated when you left) "and now the topic of discussion is [x]."
1 - The basis for debate needs to be substantive. He said/she said is just pointless.
2 - Keep the focus on the facts. Innuendo/sly slander and politics "well, I did the great blah-blah article and therefore..." and "you're just a student while I'm..." are irrelevant to the facts.
That's just politics, clouds the issue, and doesn't belong in a substantive debate. Actually, this sort of underhanded one-upmanship is listed among the 37 Methods of Disinformation taught by the CIA: if you can't disprove the facts, discredit the source and put them on the defensive.
3 - The two parties have to agree on the terms and what they consider a worthwhile text of reference.
This is why religious debates often go nowhere. The Buddhists say "the Buddha said," the Christians say "Jesus said," and these quotes are meaningless to each other.
Online credentials "I am this or that" aren't credible, because too many people lie online. Even people who don't lie outright tend to shift the facts a little. Someone will claim to be a professor when in reality they just got their Ph.D and are working at a McDonald's. Frankly, if you have to back up your words with your credentials you probably have a weak argument. Which brings us to:
4 - The basis for the debate has to be provable. Have your facts straight.
The purpose of debate is to bring to light incorrect assumptions of course, but you should try to know what you're talking about. Entering into a debate about work you haven't read is doomed to failure because you're running entirely on assumptions.
Yesterday the journalists started with he said/she said, everyone was mad at the Managing Editor and an important writer was trying to sway the class against her, and already had the teacher's ear.
I got up, stood at the board and wrote down facts -- "Okay, so far I hear... Communication..." *tap tap* "Deadlines..."
It was obvious when what was said just politics, because there was nothing for me to write down. I just stood there, chalk poised. Finally I restated it, "So the issue is [restate]?"
When names got mentioned: "That sounds like a personal issue. We don't need to discuss that as a group. Maybe you should take it up with..."
That focused everyone on solving the real problems. Kept bringing us back to: "Okay. How do we plan to solve this?"
The Managing Editor had stormed out of the room early in the discussion, so when she returned and tried to restart the (resolved) personal debate: "Actually, we resolved that" (i.e. you abdicated when you left) "and now the topic of discussion is [x]."
