Why and how to debate charitably
The list of rules is on the second page.
The issue
People are really terrible at arguing. The biggest thing by far that happens, in my experience, is that people see implied assertions (implied positions) in others’ posts that the posters didn’t intend, and attack the others based on those perceptions. (Note: I don’t mean logical implication—it’s valid to attack someone based on that.) Discussions end up being about three times as long as they needed to be, in the rare cases when manage to resolve themselves at all. (They usually don’t resolve themselves.)
Now, this sort of thing is often called “putting up a straw man”. But I don’t think that’s an accurate way to look at it. In normal, productive conversation, people intentionally try to imply assertions all the time. Perhaps more often than not. But it’s only problematic sometimes. Take, for instance this sentence: “I wish George W. Bush had never been born.” While that’s not something that you actually hear much (people tend to express things more, umm, creatively), it’s a statement that’s absolutely charged with possible hidden implications. Many of them are very likely true and intended, and virtually no one would ever object sincerely to their being assumed by someone engaging with the person who made the comment. For example, the speaker is probably strongly opposed to Bush’s performance and policy in the presidency. The person probably has a good deal of personal animosity against Bush. Those assertions do not necessarily follow from the original statement, but they’re implied so strongly that, in normal situations and in the current cultural context, it’s safe to assume that they hold.
Now, there follows a much broader range of implied assertions (implied positions) that are less likely true—the likelihood is probably still greater than 50%, but not greater than 80%. For instance, the speaker might be a Democrat, but they could also hate Democrats. They’re not likely a Republican, but they might be one that opposes Bush specifically, but not most Republicans.
The problem
But even when people responding assume those things, it’s not always a problem. Because, often, the respondent will realize that the speaker doesn’t necessarily hold those positions (that the implication is probabilistic), and will phrase their response accordingly. Even when the respondent is mistaken about the implied assertion, they will, when being civil, revise their ideas about the speaker when the speaker disclaims the position the respondent was assuming of them.
But when things really break down, it’s when the respondent sees possible implications and assigns them too-high probabilities and then fails to give the speaker the benefit of the doubt when they disclaim those assertions. Often, it’s because the respondent is unaware that the implied assertion is not actually explicit in the speaker’s words. The respondent is so ideologically separated from the speaker, and often unfamiliar with (or, worse, dismissive of) of the subtleties and variations of different positions similar to the speaker’s that they’re not familiar with, that they’ll obstinately group the speaker’s explicit positions with a wide array of other positions perceived to be similar, but that the speaker never explicitly stated (or even implied with a probability higher than 60%). And when this happens, communication becomes much more difficult.
Sometimes, if explicitly disavowing those respondent-assumed positions will convince the respondent that the speaker does not in fact hold them, then conversation can resume slowly, and progress quite slowly (and often heatedly). But it seems that all too often, the respondents (of any ideology) have such a distrust of the people they debate with that the respondents will not trust an explicit disavowal, even if only for the sake of argument while they show that the speaker must necessarily hold that position (or something like that). Or, if they do back down a bit about what they assume of the speaker, they only do so a little bit, and continue making other erroneous assumptions at every turn in the conversation. Now, this distrust in itself is not always a bad thing. It’s necessary sometimes, for dealing with those people who hold truly extreme positions that aren’t worth intellectual consideration. But it seems like nowadays it’s being used by mainstream leftists against mainstream rightists, and vice versa. It’s used by mainstream feminists, and libertarians, and environmentalists, and fundamentalists, against anyone not in their in-group.
And that’s a huge misfortune, for everyone. When the majority of people become unable to hold rational conversations with those in the opposing ideological camp, the effectiveness of society-wide (or subculture-wide) dialectical processes that can lead to consensus on issues, and that can make effective coalitions possible, and that can lead to real intellectual progress at a cultural level, drops proportionately. (That’s not to say that it’s ever been any better, just that if it were…)
I think that people who contribute to this problem are blameworthy. People who don’t strive to follow the principles of sound, rational debate are complicit in the intellectual chaos that characterizes open societies and effectively cripples mankind. I wouldn’t be surprised if this chaos were a necessary (but not sufficient) cause of the phenomenon of fundamentalism. And those who positively reject these rules are, I think, worthy of contempt. (On the other hand, I welcome those who reject them to engage with me based on them. Particularly, if you think that the rules should be followed among those within a particular ideological range, but discarded when engaging with those outside that range, I’d like to hear your reasoning, because I am very suspicious of it.)
