Preface
Remarks
I’m responding to this post here.
So please see that before reading any further. Now my only grievance is just only on a small part of that post, which I will get to later down in this post. However, due to how relevant it is in contemporary times, I decided to make a post detailing my thoughts on how much of a problem contemporary debates are.
Post Scriptum: I meant to add this originally, but no excuses now. Me and the author have no issue between each other. This post really is trying to focus on just contemporary debates but it was also useful to mention this post because it did give the spark for me to make this post. Note also the video was produced way before this post or the post I replied to existed.
The logic of contemporary debates
Before I go into the post itself, I like to communicate the problem of contemporary debates. The logic thereof this type lies in the prospect that we debate in order to gather a victory and not to actually reason out the best answer to a topic. Now why is competitiveness bad? 'Tis bad for contemporary times since people don't actually try to know and understand the other side that they are trying to deal with. Instead, as aforementioned, they seek glory - and all this sounds familiar to a word that starts with a "r" - well it's none other than rhetoric. How it came to be that debates became all rhetorical WITH little substance, literally, is up in the air, but it can be pinned down to the fact that with society's lack of care for philosophy mixed in with the over-promotion of individual competitiveness eventually decayed debates to what it is now.
The actual problem with contemporary debates
What I truly find fault with the NOTE section:
"[B]efore leftists start getting annoyed at me about advocating debate against holders of extreme, right-wing positions I'd like to say I'm only saying that one should do this once the idea has already been introduced. [...]"
The problem of debating extremists in general
Now while I can see that debate is a powerful tool, there's the problem of spotlighting ideas/people and giving them a shred of credibility if one were to discuss them. Not only that, if one were to accept the debate online or in real life, the winner of the debate always revolves on the speech and rhetoric component and very little of the power of the idea. Ever heard of Aristotle's delivery? Essentially, Aristotle's delivery is a component of rhetorical speech, and speech in general, where how one delivers a thought will lead to how much an audience/opponent will understand that thought. Or in other words: if one delivers a thought with irrelevant verbiage, poor syntax, poor semantics and/or incorrect emphasis of details, then one will not communicate/express the idea to the opponent/audience. Not only is that a problem, if your opponent is a trickster, they can win the debate even when the entire set of arguments are formally/informally fallacious and bears no substance.
But let's assume for a second that an opponent isn't be a trickster and will say things in good faith, now we still have the problem if the opponent knows their subject matter. Because if an opponent wants to make arguments against something because they support some other side but don't know what their opposing, then we got a problem. This leads to arguments going in circles, the opponent going ad nauseam on the same topic because they generally don't know the topic at hand and/or them providing misinformation on the topic. All of these will make the opponent look intellectually dishonest and a fool that has to be schooled on the subject matter. In a civil debate with impartial, this would be frowned upon and the person kicked out from the establishment so as to let people who are knowledgeable on the subject to actually speak. But most debates carried out today are infested with these types debating those who know their content (or not) and the victory status sometimes doesn't end up in the ends of the learned! This subliminally allows people to think that your side is full of shit and that they don't have to really learn it to "debunk" it.
But let's assume that our opponent is both learned and not a trickster, well this runs into the problem of debates lacking mods or mods being biased. The former is scary since one topic can be discussed for longer or shorter than the topic deserves, and could give the person who is in the wrong a victory in that topic. Nonetheless, unmoderated debates run into the risk of both sides just screaming their heads off and nobody to pose questions that matters in debates. The latter is scarier due the fact that a mod can just give softballs for their side and hardballs for the enemy side. Nonetheless, the mod could purposefully derail entire conversations if the one side knows of their trickery, which we still assume that the opponent still picked them in good faith but didn't knew of their nasty side, and tries to have a legitimate conversation. These three are the major concerns that will be hard to deal with our current political climate and if we can't resolve these, then we can't legitimately solve the original issue at hand.
Yet let's assume that all three are non-issues. We still run into the original issue of spotlighting bad ideas and giving ideas/people the impression that these ideas/people have a shred of credibility in their bones. It matters not how many times its been presented, the fact remains that we acknowledged their position to have enough substance to be worth debating about. While liberalism teaches us that the best ideas eventually win out, history proves the opposite and that debates only work in academic spheres, which sometimes that ain't necessarily true! Furthermore, when the learned can easily be bested, it allows the perception that education is worthless in society since it doesn't necessarily always teach "real applicable things" to us. When that view can further from the truth in general.
Now while the author did make a comment that would make this point moot, I decided to add this in as to further my perception of the problem of contemporary debates and not a problem with the post. Nonetheless, if your side isn't knowledgeable in one aspect or can't counter a point, it gives an easy victory to the opposing side and makes your side ridiculous that they couldn't even counter it. It gives the opposing side a chance to appeal to a portion of your side's crowd, whom might have equal or worse education on the matter to the debaters, to show the (false) cracks in your side and why they should ditch their current position. This very danger not only presents the influential power of the enemies but reflects heavily the need for education on your side is needed. There's no greater shame then loosing people because of the lack of education in one's side.
So my solution to not debating extremists
So, how do we address their views without debating them? We can provide many things, but I will provide three major and sincere ways: responses, full-blown critiques and analyses of their work to point out the flaws and incorrect stances on their side. These avoid not only the three main problems of contemporary debates but also the problem of spotlighting and giving credibility to ideas/people implicitly. Since responses, critiques and (most) analyses are in a non-debate format that don't implicitly honor the other side and could suggest that they aren't credible enough to have a serious face to face debate. Essentially we don't dignify the other side but notice them enough to stomp out since they have something that is wrong with it. Until debates and philosophy in society is taken more seriously, inner circle debates and debates between truly intellectual figures of any political realm ought to be the only debates we ought to dignify.
Video(s) to watch
In reference, if you want a more clear version to this text blob and examples, I suggest watching this DemocraticSocialist01 video:
People referenced and related works
Aristotle - "Rhetoric" (On Aristotle's Delivery)
DemocraticSocialist01 - "Stop dignifying fools with live debates!" (On "Video(s) to watch")
