Styles of Debate

[Borodog]

This OP is about debate per se, rather than about specifically Political debate, but this seemed like the best place to put this.

This morning I received an extremely well thought out PM from MrWookie, with some thoughts on why he thinks my posts are often so polarizing. After considering his points, I have come up with 4 main problems with my posting style (real or perceived is in the eye of the beholder):

1) Sarcasm. Frankly, I love sarcasm, if it is backed up by ideas and logic. I love the Frederic Bastiat style of philosophical discussion. I find it to be witty and enjoyable. Obviously, the "backed up by ideas and logic" is the critical part; seemingly that should be sufficient. Often though I find discussions completely lacking in wit to be dry and uninteresting, for example the Andy Fox/Iron81 debate regarding whether the atomic bombs ended WWII. Full of good argumentative points, but numbing to my interest (this is not meant as a slight to either debater).

2) Negativity. I have an incredibly bad habit of beginning responses with irrelevent phrases and clauses such as "No . . .", "This is incorrect . . .", "Ridiculous . . .", "That's absurd . . .", etc. I have made a concerted effort over the past several months to stop this, but still catch myself doing it all the time. It serves absolutely no purpose except to piss someone off. Either the response itself shows why something is wrong, incorrect, ridiculous, or absurd, or it doesn't. There is simply no reason to include this kind of extraneous negative rhetorical dressing. In fact, it undoubtably pisses someone off and acts to close their mind at precisely the wrong time, which is right before I make the point I'm trying to get across. This is a stupid habit that hopefully I can break by publicly announcing it.

3) "Taking the gloves off." When it becomes clear to me that a particular poster is not interested in rational debate and is only interested in trolling, I have always had no qualms about "taing the gloves off". After all, why bother to be nice to someone who has shown they aren't interested in being nice to you? At that point the main purpose of the debate shifts in my mind to the interested reader, and one of my tasks then becomes to hold my opponent up for total public ridicule. Obviously this has several problems. A) It creates negative feedback. If I take something in a certain way and decide the other poster isn't interested in being nice, and decide I'm not going to be nice, and since he then decides that I'm not interested in being nice, he sees no need to be nice . . . B) If the other poster is a genuine a-hole (of which there are and always will be many), I am merely lowering myself to the stinky brown level of a-hole. How can that possibly be good? The interested reader will either be convinced by the ideas or be turned off by the attitude. Why leave open the second possibility?

4) Response format. This was pointed out by MrWookie, and I have to admit it never occured to me. When debating with someone I like to quote and respond to every point made in my opponent's post, with rare exceptions. I don't like to leave any points either unrebutted or not conceded as the case might be. In fact, I really, really hate when people cherry pick a few lines from a carefully thought out post to respond to and snip the rest without comment. It strikes me as evasive and deceptive; it distorts the intent of the post being responded to. It often smacks of goalpost shifting. Either rebutt a point or concede it. Simply ignoring it and making it artificially vanish from the debate is a dirty trick in my opinion.

But MrWookie pointed out that some people, including himself, find this style of debate to be "rude, nitty, and obnoxious." I must confess that I can't really fathom this. He made the argument that if he was having a discussion with a friend in a bar who quoted every sentence back to him before rebutting it, rather than just replying in paragraph style, he would find it bizzare, rude, and would probably leave. I pointed out that in a bar while having a discussion with a friend neither of us would get beyond a paragraph before being able to interject and make our rebuttals or comments, so it's apples and oranges. But the point remains; some posters will simply see this style as rude and insulting apparently, and are themselves uninterested or incapable of engaging in that style of debate (that is not a slight; you don't have to be stupid to not be as anal as I am about replying to posts).

In making this post I am hoping that some readers will recognize patterns of response or potential areas of disconnect they might have, and possibly think about ways to mitigate them. I can honestly say this: I like sarcasm. Political debate is in fact sparring. The aim is to convince your opponent (to win) or to force them to convince you (which is also a win, in my book). You cannot have honest, or even interesting, political discussion without exchanging intellectual blows, and any attempt to do so will end in frustration and desertion. I also cannot change my style of explicitly addressing the points made against me in a debate, at least without feeling intellectually dishonest with myself. So if you read my posts, just remember, that's how I roll. Skip to the unquoted bits if you like.

What I have been attempting to do, and will continue to try to do, and will probably continue to fail at, hopefully in ever lessening degree, is to remove the negativity and the flat out "gloves off" aggression.

[HeavilyArmed]

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In fact, I really, really hate when people cherry pick a few lines from a carefully thought out post to respond to and snip the rest without comment.*

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Life's too short to answer every single point. It's a waste of time in certain debates where you won't be read in good faith.

* One line quote out of huge post was not done to set you off.

[Borodog]

Actually picking one line to respond to that interests you is not a problem at all. It's cherry-picking the 2nd point, the 5th, and the 11th to make comments that are already pre-butted by the 3rd-4th, 6th-10th, and 12th-15th that drives me nuts.

[ojc02]

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2) Negativity. I have an incredibly bad habit of beginning responses with irrelevent phrases and clauses such as "No . . .", "This is incorrect . . .", "Ridiculous . . .", "That's absurd . . .", etc. I have made a concerted effort over the past several months to stop this, but still catch myself doing it all the time. It serves absolutely no purpose except to piss someone off. Either the response itself shows why something is wrong, incorrect, ridiculous, or absurd, or it doesn't. There is simply no reason to include this kind of extraneous negative rhetorical dressing. In fact, it undoubtably pisses someone off and acts to close their mind at precisely the wrong time, which is right before I make the point I'm trying to get across. This is a stupid habit that hopefully I can break by publicly announcing it.

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Oof, I definitely do this too. I must make an effort to stop.

The response format point I find very strange. I much prefer to have someone reply to all the points I make. It is very annoying when people ignore what I consider to be the main point of my post and focus on something nitty. Indeed, rather than ignoring points because one perceives it to be in their interest, I think it would go a long way to reaching resolution if one agreed with them on the points they have right and then focus on the wrong ones.

[elwoodblues]

Ridiculous.

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1) Sarcasm.

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Sarcasm has its place...There are two problems with sarcastic comments on a forum like this: 1) in order to know that you are being sarcastic, people generally have to have a feel for your "body of work" to know that you are purposefully diverging from your honest positions. This assumes that your readers both know your body of work and can safely project what your position will be. 2) sarcasm is more difficult to detect when written than when spoken.

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2) Negativity

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Some negativity is better than others. Starting a response with "No" isn't a bad thing per se. There are a few instances where I think a good ol' "ridiculous" is warranted or an occassional "absurd." However, I think you're correct that this often closes people's minds to what is to follow.

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3) "Taking the gloves off."

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For the most part, this is just unnecessary. Why beat a dead horse?

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4) Response format

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There are surely pros and cons to each type of response. I tend to just snip the things that I particularly disagree with. This can either mean that I agree with the unquoted parts, find the quoted part particularly erroneous, or don't want to beat a dead horse (see #3 above.)

I will add one more that I think many (including myself) can/should reflect on:

The use of hyperbole/analogies. I think there are good times for both. Slippery slope arguments have their place, but they are used WAY too often. When I use analogies, I try to do it for a reason --- to elicit a discussion about what makes the particular comparison like/different than the topic being discussed. A good example is in discussions of gay marriage I often analogize to interracial marriage. If there is a good reason to treat these two situations differently, I'm all for it. A few weeks ago, I compared the stolen labor from slaves to nazi stolen artwork. I wanted to see what the rational difference was and why reparations are okay in one instance (requiring the return of the goods even if not by the original owner, but by someone in their lineage) but not in another. Apparently bringing up Nazis is an automatic undie buncher.

[BCPVP]

A kinder, gentler Borodog? Say it ain't so! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Poofler]

Most of us do all those things at some point. Agreed that irrelevant negativity and "gloves off" are things to work on. Sarcasm is delicate... but has its place if sparing and not too personal. I also don't find anything wrong with refuting/conceding every point. But, it sometimes forks the discussion into confusing and sometimes irrelevant fragments. Sometimes I'll let those fragments go if they aren't necessary to refuting/accepting the conclusion.

[kickabuck]

A while ago there was a thread asking for people to list their favorite and least favorite posters. I listed you as my favorite but later regretted it. Although your intelligence and writing ability are formidable, the four characteristics of your debating style you have cited, used in combination, actually serves to attenuate any point you are trying to make by alienating the reader. You will have greater effectiveness as a debator and changer of minds if you tone down the use of all these devices, although all can be used, just do so more judiciously.

[Skidoo]

No problem then. I don't suppose any of those enumerated qualities per se, if practiced without self-indulgent rudeness or overbearingly pretentious didacticism, are necessarily detrimental to the consumer-friendliness of the forum. Everybody's happy.

[ojc02]

One of the best examples of effective argument I have seen is this video by Milton Freidman. He never gets angry or raises his voice. His readiness for everything and quiet confidence was super effective. Not saying I agree with everything he said (I don't), but his style was great.

Not sure how well this translates to an internet forum but it seemed appropriate.