How not to debate
Sunday, February 12, 2012 11:48:46 AM
Ever since the Enlightenment, people have held this funny conviction that Homo Sapiens Sapiens is fundamentally a rational creature, driven by logic. While recent research has thoroughly dismantled this myth, some people actually try to know their biases and be as rational as they can, in order to better know themselves and the world.
One tool people use for reasoning about the world is debate, that is, a discussion of opposing views in order to determine which is better, through exchanging and exploring arguments. Trouble is, debate can shatter one's precious illusions about the world, and some have spent millenia perfecting the art of argumentation. So you may want to know how to counter this dangerous intrusion of "reason" and "logic" in your perfect little black-and-white world.
Fortunately for you, I've put together this very simple guide:
- Ignore inconvenient facts your opponent brings up. Unlike philosophical arguments, facts can't be dismissed out of hand, so you need to simply ignore them. If called up on it, dodge. Better yet...
- Change the subject to something vaguely related and completely irrelevant. When your opponent points that out, oscillate between claiming you've been talking about that all along and claiming there's a very important connection between the two. For that matter...
- Conflate issues. After all, not everyone can be expected to grasp the highly sophisticated concept of "this thing is different from that other thing". For example, who cares that legality and morality are entirely distinct concepts, which moreover evolve spectacularly over the centuries? Just make a big mess of it all.
- Go in circles once you've run out of vaguely related subjects. Surely if you bring up again a debunked argument, that will reinforce your position? If called up on it, pretend you've never mentioned that before. If quoted (it happens in online forums), go "la la laaa, can't hear you!"
- Finally, when you can no longer deny losing the debate, pretend you've been in agreement with your opponent all along. Under no circumstances admit you were wrong and you had to change your position.
There! Now you can be a perfectly awful debater in five easy steps.
There are more tricks of the trade, of course. There's nothing like cherry picking the only two words out of a 200-word abstract that kinda-sorta support your position... out of context. The straw man argument is another popular fallacy.
And don't forget! There is nothing wrong with being wrong. That's why you should always ridicule people who try to set the record straight.
Oh wait. If that's true, why are you so afraid to admit you're wrong?

How not to debate by Felix Pleșoianu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.




















