Such a refreshing thread to read. I don't know how I missed it until now? I agree that the nature of debate has suffered over the last forty years or so. I agree that too many debates deteriorate into cyber-donnybrooks or uncivilised clashes of personalities rather than more civilised clashes of ideas. I do not agree that this should be considered a fait accomplis. There are plenty of excellent debaters of all political stripes on this forum and that they can conduct superior debates if given half a chance. So some knob-head parachutes in with a drive-by trolling or personal attack. Ignore it and carry on with the best of the debate. I essence we must develop thicker skin while guarding against becoming insensitive or callous along the way. The only way Incan see to preserve or perhaps even promote good, stylish, fact-based or authority-based, genuine debate is to do it despite the cyber-chaff endeavouring to distract us or to derail the debate and to carry on despite it.
I like debating here but more for the reading then the writing. I love learning and thinking about another debater's good, inciteful post and anything which allows me to do those two things is a "good" in my very humble opinion. To do that, I have had to develop a system of filters or baleens and to exercise them vigorously in order to better separate the considerable volume of chaff from the scarce grains of wisdom and revelation I seek. Perhaps we all need to do that, as more and more frequently we are dealing with people who (through no fault of their own) have been raised in an increasingly superficial, right-now, just-in-time-delivery world, which values appearance over substance, the immediacy of reaction over the slower process of reflection and the satisfaction of the quick strike over the more gradual aspirations of learning and teaching.
Humility and confidence are also key to maintaining or expanding the presence of "good" debate on any forum. The humility is necessary to not come off as a right prat during a debate and the confidence is key to not letting intentional humility be mistaken for weakness in debating or uncertainty in the case being presented. Humility also defuses the greatest sin of too many debaters; the sin of arrogance. Nothing kills debate and poisons it so much as arrogance in one or more debaters. I regularly regret crossing the line between humble debate and arrogant schooling on these forums and must always guard against unleashing this destructive vice which is a part of me.
Honesty is important too but it is harder and harder to be "honest" in a world where facts no longer exist as nearly universally accepted commonplaces between debaters. So may I revise my statement to "holding honest intentions" in an increasingly factually-fuzzy world. Proving facts can be more difficult too. For one third of my life there was really no public internet. It took two thirds of my live for the Internet to become a socially relavant thing. Thus I learned a lot from life experience and books which cannot be readily linked into a citation in an Internet debate. Trawling through the interwebs to find digital sources to confirm what I already know is a pain in the arse for me and when you cite an author, book and page numbers as evidence, too many new-school debaters reject that. So the solid facts of yesteryear are buckling under the weight of the immediate but more fungible facts of the right-now internet.
Despite these obstacles, the only way to find and promote good debate is to practice it and to bring newer debaters along in our wake. We must plant the intellectual trees which we ourselves will never be able to sit under in the shade and enjoy, for the benefit of new generations. So don't lose heart, don't despair, but gird yourselves and jump right back into the verbal fray. It may seem a forlorn hope at times but it was and is acting on hope which made and makes our world a better place despite the vicissitudes of human nature and bestial violence.
Oh, and
@NWRatCon , know that I forgive you and still very much respect you for being and thinking like a lawyer!.
, heh, heh, heh, heh.
Cheers, be well and debate on!
Evilroddy.
