HOW DO YOU WIN A DEBATE?

That's easy. Pick the "con" side; con wins two out of three times.  That's because the very structure of debate favors the audacious attacker, no matter what the subject.

Pity the poor person who's job it is to defend what he thought was an unassailable eternal truth. Let's say he's defending the idea that we should love our mothers. As the attacker you casually ask why. The rattled defender, rattled because he's not used to hearing the idea questioned, awkwardly replies that mothers earn the love by doing so many favors for their children. "Oh, I see", says the attacker, "So in your opinion, favors buy love. Love is something that you can buy and sell, like apples." The defender winces and starts to wish that he were somewhere else.

The attacker takes out a dollar bill and asks; "Would you love me if I gave you a dollar?" The audience howls with derisive laughter.  The debate's only just started and the defender's already lost. 

But we all know that loving your mother is a good thing, whether we can prove it in debate or not. So why is debate such a horrible way to discuss some issues?

It seems to me that debate fails because it gives too much weight to the attacker.  It's just too easy to make the other guy look like a monkey, especially if he's not as funny as you, and not as inclined to exaggerate common ideas til they sound crazy. 

Add to that the fact that the defender's burdened with defending every real-world decision his people ever made, going back to the days before he was born.  The attacker, on the other hand, can argue from a Utopian idea that's never been tried, and therefore has never been found wanting. In debate both views have equal weight.

Of course sometimes attackers are right, which is one reason that we still need debates.

THE ACHILLES HEEL OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Fernandel: Hey, you guys like Greek philosophy don't you? Good, so do I!

Uncle Eddie asked me to tell you that he really liked the two "Kill Bill" movies but when a commenter asked him to defend them he cringed, and for good reason. The fact is that it takes twice the energy to defend something than it does to attack it.

That's because Greek philosophy, which shaped the way we make arguments, never devoted much time to the defense side. The Greek philosophers arose during a time of change in Greece and their job was to pave the way for that change by attacking the establishment. The poor establishment never got it's share of philosophy.


The best the Greeks could do for the defense side was to come up with rhetoric and oratory. Rhetoric teaches the arguer to flatter the audience and establish himself as a likable and trustworthy speaker. He's saying, in effect, "If you like me then you should like my argument. Trust me. "

That seems like a shabby way to argue but really, what choice is there? Surely the establishment can't always be wrong. Surely revolutionaries can't always be right. There has to be some way to argue the defense side of things and the Greeks haven't given us much to work with.

Actually the Greeks came up with another way to argue for the defense. That way was to limit the people debating to the landowners. The thinking was that people who had a financial stake in stability and tradition could be trusted not to carry attack arguments too far.

I don't agree with this but you have to admit that it's interesting.