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i think that debate can be interesting if there is adequate information involved so that arguments can get cycled back through a common reference point--things seem to get out of hand when they drift from that base and end up floating about in a space where one side or the other is no longer making arguments, but simply repeating the same points over and over.
i cant find a consistent pattern that lets me determine what differentiates these two modes, however.
however, after i few rounds of this, i have started to figure signs that indicate when this is coming and have started just checking out.
if i could alter the general framework in here, i would try to figure out some prompt that would enable people to relativize their frame of reference, subject it to argument, see through argument if the frame holds up. but of course i have no idea how you could do it.
in a classroom situation, you can push toward it because you have common text reference points, and snippiness can get referred back to them. it is also a coercive environment.
on a board.....no idea.....
what i have figured out is that this willingness of relavitize ones own position assumes particular dispositions up front---that these are particular (i assumed them everywhere, just goes to show how naieve a certain professional trajectory can make you)---so i cant assume others share it---and in citizen mode i have to check myself from assuming that if people do not share that starting point that there is something wrong with them.
on the other hand, i confess (mea culpa) a real impatience with the conservative position that conflates matters of politics with the structure of faith.
and frankly i think that almost nothing about conservative ideology provides an adequate description of the world. and i find that to be a prompt that runs me into a more confrontational mode. [[[[[btw this is not a polemical statement. it is a statement about my personal point of departure]]]]
this is the bind that i fight with every time i turn up here in the politics space.
first, there are real constructive debates in here, which is good.
second, i am surprised often, which i enjoy.
so 1 plus two means i still play here.
an aside: i do not mind if things get heated so long as they are moving logically or argumentatively.
and there we are.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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