The Argument Clinic

  • The fact that we have clinics for behavior issues with students relates here, but the more obvious point is that either/or debates do not get us far.
  • Insult versus debate: Tone, purpose hang-ups create these problems.
  • Civility in discourse is obviously being sent up for being lacking here.  How strange that we have come to      resemble these figures more than even their creators could have realized.  And then debate just breaks down.
  • The method here and discussion about how to define argument–and the endless “automatic gainsaying” that goes on are both hilarious and all-too-common nowadays.
  • How we frame arguments matters.  Practice framing some debates in ways that would be more or less liable to create looping, endless arguments.