When you exist in the centre of a debate, as a topic, a hypothesis - otherised and stigmatised - you become the prop in a proposition.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As I say, I'm a discourse advocate. What form it comes is less important to me than the fact that there is discourse.
But the need for conflict to expose prejudice and unclear reasoning, which is deeply embedded in my philosophy of science, has its origin in these debates.
I got my degree in rhetoric.
One comes to believe whatever one repeats to oneself sufficiently often, whether the statement be true of false. It comes to be dominating thought in one's mind.
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
The power of real debate is in the language and intellectual honesty of the debaters, alongside the engagement of spectators.
But I do think its necessary to have debates.
Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.
People's minds are changed through observation and not through argument.
A debate has one purpose, one purpose only, and that is to facilitate the exchange of ideas directly between two candidates, and that's it.