Stardate 20011121.0906 (On Screen): No-one as taken me up on
my challenge to debate the war. (Imagine my surprise.) Originally it was a challenge to MetaFilter's anti-war left, but I'd like to broaden it now, and maybe turn y'all into detectives for me. If anyone knows of a good anti-war blog whose arguments are cogent, let them know about it and see if they might be willing to engage in a blog-debate with me.
I wanted to clarify what I meant by not abiding by "Berkeley rules". That doesn't mean I intend to be sarcastic and slashing. In some of my dissections of anti-war editorials written by pros I have done that, but I'll desist in the blog debate. Rather, what I meant is that according to Berkeley rules, everyone is entitled to have an opinion but no-one is permitted to criticize anyone else's opinions, because doing so is disrespectful. We're supposed to respect each other, and to grant validity to other opinions solely because others hold them.
That's what I won't accept. The point of debate is to try to construct arguments for your position that are logically consistent and convincing on their merits. Your opinion should be respected if and only if it makes sense, not merely because you hold it. The opinion itself is what matters, not the fact that you are the opinion holder. And the fact that I or someone else don't accept or respect your opinion doesn't mean that we don't accept or respect you. It's possible to respect an opponent while disagreeing with them.
Anyway, I'm still ready to take this on. Up to two of them, and the basic rules I set down still stand, with the following addendum: I intend to archive unmodified copies of my opponent's arguments here on my server. They're welcome to do the same with mine. Other changes in the format can be negotiated, as long as it doesn't gut the debate format. Spread the word, folks. (discuss)
By the way, this is straight out of Mill. He advocated that we should seek out those whose opinions on some subject was different and engage them in debate. As a result one of two things would happen and they were both good: either you discover that your opinion was wrong, and change it, or you discover that it was right, but understand better why. The point was that this prevents knowledge from becoming dogma.
I sometimes think that one of the reasons that the Mormon religion is as strong and vibrant as it is is because all the young men have to go on "missions". The overt reason for this is to try to convert the heathen, and indeed it may accomplish some of that (though I suspect not very much). But it also means that those young men do indeed confront others with different opinions and learn to defend their own point of view in the face of such arguments. When they come back, if they have not lost faith (and they rarely do) then they will instead have gained a very deep understanding of their own religious beliefs. At that point, their beliefs will be unshakeable because it won't be based on indoctrination; they've debated their beliefs and found that the beliefs survived that process, and thus in a very real sense they believe rather than just accepting because their parents told them so.
