I’ve become increasingly skeptical of the useful nature of direct debate. In theory, its purpose is to exchange ideas, perspectives and opinions with the result being both sides reassessing their perception of the world and stance, etc. However, in my experience such an outcome from a debate is in the severe minority, literally less than 1%. So, is it worth it?
From my late teens to early thirties I loved to debate and did so in person, not online, for literal hours on end. A few particular instances stand out, such as when I had engaged in intellectually intense debates for in excess of five hours at a time and had a shared breakthrough of understand with the person that I was debating with, one on one. Both of us having declared that our understanding had increased and some core ideas that we held had been altered. Then, I met said person a few weeks later and, wouldn’t you know it, but they had reverted back to the exact same core ideas they had prior to out deep debate and their “breakthrough” moment. It’s likely that I had the same thing happen.
I had that happen on a number of occasions and those incidents demonstrated to me the futility of direct debate.
My views have altered tremendously since I was in my early twenties, but not because of direct debate, because I have looked up studies to gain a deeper understanding of the history of our society and the influences perpetrated by biases, etc. Studying those thing was half of it. The other half was, from my perspective as a white guy, reading first person accounts, in books and articles, of the experiences of people who aren’t white guys in America. Doing that really opened my eyes. Had I not done those two thing and instead just debated with people, one on one, I don’t believe that my views would have altered at all.
Thus, my stated reluctance to engage with someone who is an “online debate machine”. Granted, that’s an unfair characterization in some cases, but if someone really wants people to understand their perspective and experiences, the most profound way of getting it out is to write about it directly, in a stand alone article.
That’s part of my problem with where Medium seems to be going.
To your point about discussions on Medium going in the direction of them on Twitter and Facebook, I think that’s a natural result of people being people and just how debates progress. The more people debate, the more they realize how futile it is, since it so rarely changes anyone’s perspective, thus, one’s response becomes more emotional and then eventually they approach each discussion from a standpoint of general aggression.
More to the point, if you look at what happened here. I made a statement in response to what someone I’ve long held discussions with wrote and then someone demanded that I substantiate it for them. If I were smart, I would have ignored that demand and moved on, but I’m not, so I engaged. Then, belatedly, I looked up the form of engagement that the person had here and found that they were here to debate and little more. I wasn’t interested in debating, just making a comment.
But, for some people, if someone makes a comment, that makes them beholden to engaging in a debate with everyone who pipes up and substantiating the claims made in said comment. And stuff like that tends to go on forever and, as I’ve pointed out, goes nowhere.
If you don’t mind my asking Roger J Carlson , seeing as I’m sure that your opinions on things or understanding of them has changed during your lifetime, what general form of event, interaction or exposure has prompted such changes? IE. X% first hand experience, X% from autobiographies/first hand narrative articles, X% review of studies, X% direct debate either on the internet or in person.