Rational Debate No Longer Exists

It occurred to me earlier today that all debate based upon rational axioms may have stopped making sense. Thanks to the internet, we can find people who will make or justify almost any argument (see: Westboro Baptist Church). This is particularly obvious in light of the Orlando shooting, in which a gay Muslim democrat... but we all know about that. To stay on topic, things have changed so much that most of our recent dialectics no longer make sense (see: Communism without a proletariat, or literally interpreted Christianity without poverty), so all we are really doing here is seeing who can be more clever. If there is any value to this forum, it's probably in the opportunity for spiritual progression, or to transcend petty bitterness and a lifestyle of incriminations.

 

its all political now days. Does not matter how foolish the arguments are that are put out there is always some single digit dumb ass hanging on the skirts of authority who will believe anything that authority or their propagandists tell them to instead of thinking for themselves..

 

Well, all you need are two people who are interested in it really. If they do it well enough, they'll buck the trend.

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That's fair, but it's also true that two people don't matter very much in the grand scale of things.

Sometimes I've felt like, every time I write something good, people respond to me with total BS. But I realized today that this isn't just my problem or my curse. It happens to everyone these days; right, left, Christian, Muslim, it's all nonsense and deflection. Even when someone writes a bad argument, people usually come back with idiocy instead of taking their bad argument apart.

The culprit is mostly the internet. A related problem is when people pretend that being able to run a Wikipedia search makes them an expert on a subject. If Wikipedia were wrong about something, that's not really a hypothetical, most keyboard warriors wouldn't know the difference. Nor does it seem like they would care.

 

People here have an urgent to be right whatever the cost. But remember that people are a mass of contradictions

 

IMO, it is the nature of the media, & a symptom of social change. Civility & manners are not considered 'virtues', but weakness. Aggressive, rude, mocking ridicule, & snark are thought as 'cute' instead of sound reason, facts, or common sense. it is part of the dumbing down of society, & the 'anti-science' trend in the world, taking us backwards to the dark ages. In fact, just about everything from the progressive left is backwards.. dragging us away from self rule, individual liberty, freedom, responsibility, reason, science, & reality. They build their dream world, & demand that everyone lives in it, & embraces it, even though it is destructive & anti-human ideology.

History is revised, words redefined, narratives based on lies promoted, & agenda over truth pursued. Reality is not their goal, but a mythical belief.. and since they control all the public institutions, they have been pounding the propaganda drum for decades. It is a flawed worldview, but it is the majority view, due to the successful propaganda tools they have used. Academia, the media, entertainment, marketing, govt, & just about every human institution is infested with progressive ideology. They have been building their dream world for many decades, now, & it is a nightmare.

 

This is not a rational argument. I understand that irrational discourse may dominate most media or general discourse, but rational argument still exists. However, even so, rational argument does not always mean truth, fairness, or that sort. The Nazi regime was quite rational in executing its ambitions.

 

your very post confirms your point, you are a practitioner of the very thing you protest. The most difficult thing for any objective person to fathom is why do conservatives still cling to conservatism despite seeing decades of results? I hate to break it to you but since 1980, our economics have been conservative, the media has turned conservative, the talking points of every national media outlet is a response to conservative criticism, issues are framed to appease or acknowledge conservatives, our foriegn policy has been conservative, our tax policy is conservative, even our positions on voting, abortion, race relations are conservative. The only thing that has not been conservative is the people's attitudes towards moral issues framed by the Moral Majority (conservatives). Conservatives have lost the battle for the culture but do not even try to fool anyone that our government is anything but conservative. A liberal POTUS might get a few things done that are not fully right wing but even then the compromise to get it passed is to go far to the right of the liberal position. No, the results are in, conservatism has run its course and this election is the final statement on the Reagan Revolution. It's over.

 

May have stopped making sense? Good one.

Find a forum anywhere and at any time...where you can read people making statements such as this:

"You make an excellent point ____________, and I would have to say you have changed my mind on that matter." (or any variable of that type of statement)

It doesn't happen, because it is not a debate that has a ruling at the end of who won by scoring effective points on an audience of judges that is capable of reasoned logic beyond their ideological mindset (or at least not completely dominated by it)

Personally, I find my enjoyment on these types of forums comes from watching the different herds on either side of the political and ideological camps rumble back and forth on well worn paths of false moral positions. The God Herd rumbles past the Save the Earth, minorities and Death to all Gods Herd, which rumbles past the Bring it all to Ruin Herd that often times will join in and run with the One Government will solve everything Herd.

The truth of the matter, is that by and large...most people do not even have a sense of being a genuine individual anymore.

The Herd...provided by God or Government grants movement as the distraction to many uncomfortable realities about ourselves and others.

 

Is it opposite day? You're progressing spiritually on this forum? How? How could you take anything on this forum seriously? You're transcending petty bitterness? I think the definition of this forum is, "a place where people can debate politics with a healthy dose of sarcasm and petty bitterness."

So Ben I've got one word for you, just one. What?

 

I would say that your post is evidence of the success of propaganda in whatever system you have been indoctrinated in. Actual Truth is relative, & partisanship is more important. Loyalty to groupthink control your thinking processes, & that becomes more important than Truth, facts, reason, or common sense.

What i 'protest' in my posts, is lying propaganda. Narrative over reality. Opinion over facts. But that is the Brave New World that the progressive left has brought us, & is why there can not be 'rational debate' as the OP laments. I cannot address any issue without some phony narrative from the left muddying the discussion & turning into partisan shouting matches. I have tried for years, & it cannot be done. Progressives do NOT reason, they aggrieve, they deflect, they distort, & they pitch their narrative over any truth.

Here are some examples:
1. AGW 'debate' = science denier! flat earther! No real science is ever presented, or allowed to be questioned, but it is mandated for belief.
2. Abortion = women haters! No discussion allowed about the humanity of the baby, or when life begins.. that is muddied & deflected.
3. Immigration enforcement = Racist!! The right of a nation to control who, where, & when they can allow other nationalities to emigrate is distorted into a hate meme, like they do with so many other issues.
4. Urban crime = Racism!!
5. Govt dependency = Racism!!

There are plenty of other phony narratives from the left, who are enemies of reason & civil discussion. Name the debate, here, & i can show you plenty of examples of this tactic. Reason is dead, for the left, as propaganda, deflection, distortion, & ridicule are more useful to promote their agenda. That is embedded in their ideology, & they only give lip service to science, which they hijack & distort for ideological purposes.

 

Well, chin up, and keep fighting the good fight. If you want an audience, make sure you're using the right media for it, and the right platform beyond that. If you just want a good to great exchange, keep leaving the invites, don't set your hopes too high and allow yourself to be pleasantly surprised. I imagine that most of us in a forum fit the latter more than the former, and there are bound to be plenty looking for the same level of communication as either of us. The connections are just waiting to be made. Don't lose heart.

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What constitutes a rational debate, who decides this and by what authority? What is a rational argument if not one that you agree with?

 

How does one discern the actual reality when we base our reality upon our inherently flawed senses?

 

Who gets to decide whether what you write is good and by what authority? Is your assessment of self without bias?

 

Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing. ~John Locke

 

Thank goodness then that all is not a dream. Reason is subjective as is truth which is why there is so much dissent in debate. In truth, what is the best system of politics? Ask 100 people that question and you will get many different and conflicting answers. If there is a true best form of government then who gets to decide this for all and by what authority?

 

New technologies always ushers in a change. Until protocols and acceptances are understood they are like the wild wild west in the infancy.
Also, a reflection of our current society, substantially divided. Have been since 2000. The 1980s and 90s were pretty calm in the country.
Of course, we were in no wars during those decades either.

 

Actually, every single point you made has been debated ad nauseum for decades.

AGW: If you care to delve into the science, it is available. I doubt if you have the chops to fathom it but it is all there online if you care to do your research. My bet is you also do not believe the scientists at CERN will find more elemental particles either...if you have an opinion that conflicts with scientific consensus then you must back it up with your own scientific evidence, submit it for peer review and defend it. I doubt if that type of "reason" has occurred to you yet.

Abortion: It has already been settled law, you can read the majority opinion in Roe if you want the details. No person has ever truly defined what a human being is and until we do, a zygote is not a human being. This too has been debated ad nauseum since the decision. I suggest you use your reasoning skills to look the debates up but focus not on political or religious debates, try the science and the law. You might find it illuminating.

Immigration: Again, this has been debated constantly since our founding. I challenge you to ever find an anti-immigration argument that was not based on nativism, racism, fear and ignorance. Everyone knows our immigration system does not function correctly, fix it. But the way this debate has been framed is indeed racist, at least the way the right wing has framed it. The left has framed it the way any sane, rational, compassionate person should frame it. Try using your "reason" to understand the difference.

Urban Crime: Look at the enforcement of the law, look at who gets felony convictions, who is in prison, who represents them and then look at the complete destruction of union jobs, the lack of educational equality based upon location, the selective use of force by the police and courts, then try this type of reasoning "there but for the grace of God, go I". I notice that folks who talk about urban crime forget to mention the millions upon millions of white people who are actually criminals but never get caught. I can guess that roughly 50% or even more college kids use illegal drugs that would land them with a felony but guess what? Those cops who could bust every kid in a frat house on Friday night for possession are actually down in the urban areas busting brothers for the same crime.

So, please let us know how your reasoning skills respond to reasoned debate, that is what you want or lament is lacking, correct?

 

Let us hope the neoliberalism brought back by the GOP from the Gilded Age is over, but I am not so sure, since another neoliberal, Clinton will run the show for a number of years. Conservatism, neoliberalism, is still entrenched in both parties, and the democratic party of today is not the party of FDR. His policies have been dismantled. And the America you see today, in regards to the lower middle and middle middle class, is the result of the democratic party no longer representing the people they built their name on, working people, the common man.

Under the policies of FDR, we saw history's largest middle class created. And a better income disparity between the top and the rest of us. We saw the rise of the American dream, greater job security and financial security for our working people. And what have we seen with the return of neoliberalism? So objectively, we can see which way worked out the best for the majority of people. And yet, this makes no difference, and neoliberalism is still supported by both parties, and up until this election, most of the voters. But the damage of neoliberalism is just too deep, too wide spread, and its the economic suffering that woke masses up, on both the left and the right. When both sides get angry at neoliberalism, perhaps if it sustains, we can reverse what Reagan brought back from the 1920s, and which Clinton bought into in the 90s, basically dooming the very people the democrats used to represent.

 

"Rational Debate" transpires regularly even here...however when one begins the debate with incendiary commentary it immediately become defensive argument.

 

You're making an assumption that rational debate has ever been commonplace. It hasn't.

 

I think this is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Wikipedia can indeed be reliable, if the article being used is decent (i.e. not a stub and has no significant issues) and if all claims are properly cited, with reliable sources. We on Wikipedia work hard to make it that way; I've been editing and translating there for a good few months now, and many articles are genuinely valuable and truthful sources of information. The issue is that people do not really care about intelligent discussion. We just want the last word. This is going to be an issue anywhere. The only method which has any chance at all of making discussions perfectly intellectual and logical would be to close forums off to everyone but a few theoretically literate, established members who have proven themselves to be reasonable in argument. And this does not contribute much to general popular discourse, or help people to progress theoretically: all it does is make useless little ivory-tower intellectual clubs. So we're going to be stuck with this problem. However, patience and remaining logical does pay off.

 

The two parties who share an interest will recognize it when they see it.

 

I once argued with a Wikipedia editor and used a Wikipedia source. It took him months, but he came later on and necro-posted the argument saying I was wrong. I went back to Wikipedia and saw that the sources had been altered to make him right and me wrong. Sources can be wrong too. There is no substitute for first-hand knowledge. Related: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/new-study-studies-wrong-article-1.2340301

Since most social science studies are wrong, but people use the sheer number of studies to push for agenda items and cover that up; studies and even compilations of sources are regularly wrong and are built to prove a point.

Another, unrelated thing is that one might think it's better in person than on the internet. It's usually not. You say anything remotely politically correct, people shout you down these days. Colleges have also become a joke, deans of highly respected institutions get forced to resign for invited conservatives onto the campus to speak.