4 ms·

You cant debate ignorance and hate. As the quote goes, “They’ll drag you into the mud and beat you with experience.”

PaulHoule 3y ago
… not through “debate” but through discussion or maybe music, see https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-black-musician-who-converts-ku-klux-klan-members https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-bl... “Debate” is one of the words I hate the most these days, it brings back memories of high school debates where you didn’t necessarily believe in your position and the whole idea was that somebody was going to “win”. A certain kind of right-winger uses the word “debate” mindlessly the same way some left-wingers use “nazi” mindlessly for instance there was the headline “How can we have a debate if we don’t use the same language?” So often a staged “debate” is an attempt to legitimize an absurd position such as the bad theology of creationism or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky an associated “bad smell” is that idea that something said to be controversial is necessarily good or interesting because it is said to be controversial. You don’t change people’s minds about things like racism or LGBTQ acceptance through having a one-time confrontation with winners or losers, you do it through the much slower process of seeing people’s humanity.
- text0404 3y ago
  > You don’t change people’s minds about things like racism or LGBTQ acceptance through having a one-time confrontation with winners or losers, you do it through the much slower process of seeing people’s humanity. i don't think anyone sees the global struggle for justice as a one-time confrontation.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    The left doesn’t, but people on the right are fixated with the idea that they can have a “debate” which is consequential. Insofar as people on the left are anything more than “angry” they understand that their project is a project of construction.

… not through “debate” but through discussion or maybe music, see https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-black-musician-who-converts-ku-klux-klan-members https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-bl... “Debate” is one of the words I hate the most these days, it brings back memories of high school debates where you didn’t necessarily believe in your position and the whole idea was that somebody was going to “win”. A certain kind of right-winger uses the word “debate” mindlessly the same way some left-wingers use “nazi” mindlessly for instance there was the headline “How can we have a debate if we don’t use the same language?” So often a staged “debate” is an attempt to legitimize an absurd position such as the bad theology of creationism or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky an associated “bad smell” is that idea that something said to be controversial is necessarily good or interesting because it is said to be controversial. You don’t change people’s minds about things like racism or LGBTQ acceptance through having a one-time confrontation with winners or losers, you do it through the much slower process of seeing people’s humanity.

text0404 3y ago
> You don’t change people’s minds about things like racism or LGBTQ acceptance through having a one-time confrontation with winners or losers, you do it through the much slower process of seeing people’s humanity. i don't think anyone sees the global struggle for justice as a one-time confrontation.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  The left doesn’t, but people on the right are fixated with the idea that they can have a “debate” which is consequential. Insofar as people on the left are anything more than “angry” they understand that their project is a project of construction.