I am a contrarian and enjoy arguing. But most people are not like that. Many are happy to accept popular ideas without too much examination, because it doesn’t seem worth taking the time to find out why the idea is dominant. So I find this dogmatic attitude understandable if not really excusable. Then this anti-platformIng thing becomes just a strategy to win cheaply. Arguing requires effort. Denunciation doesn't require much effort, and can be fun.
If the anti-platformers really believed that their position would lose in a genuine debate, they would have cognitive dissonance and it would bug them. It seems more likely that their attitudes are the results of lazy overconfidence. Sort of, “my group are the good guys, and we are rarely wrong, and certainly not in this obvious case. So it isn’t worth the effort to learn how the other side argues or how our side should respond to their objections. “
And it is a fact that bad ideas don't disappear after they lose the argument or have their falseness demonstrated. It can be tedious having to bone up on what ought to be a dead issue. But that dialogue helps to keep good ideas alive.
Great article. An empirical observation. In many public sphere debates, the winner (the person who seems to "own" the other person) is often not the more reasonable one, but the one with more rhetorical tricks up their sleeves.* Indeed, the more public/viral the debate, the less reasonableness correlates with victory. Hence, if Believers of Harmful Ideas (Hs) get platformed and debate Believers of Good Ideas (Gs), there's a real chance Gs lose the debate and Harmful Ideas spread. This in itself is probably fine. But I think more likely that Hs and Gs *appear* to be on equal footing (e.g., both rapid fire many vague arguments, present many weird statistics, descend into personal/meta-debate attacks, or something like that). Given that Gs are generally more reasonable than Hs, that systematically disadvantages Gs, since a bystander might thus believe "oh, both Gs and Hs have a point. idk what to think now." when they shouldn't believe this! Do you think that's part of the real issue here?
*If this is not the case, moral philosophers would be dominating moral and political discourse. Analytic philosophers will have the ability to sway voters in key elections.
Elections involve combining many issues into one decision, which puts them at even more of a disadvantage. I don’t think you can use empirical claims about elections as evidence about how single issue ideas become popular without a much more careful explanation.
Plus, we usually are electing persons, not ideas. Maybe the states that have ballot initiatives would provide better evidence. But even there, the gatekeeper effect (how is the initiate worded?) has a distorting effect.
PS: I think one reason you might think that debate winners are better thinkers is that you're probably surrounded by smart people, and this is generally true for smart people. But for most people, debate winners aren't better thinkers. Think the comment section of YouTube "debates" or TikTok ragebait. That's where platforming people with harmful ideas and bad thinkers is risky. They might win. (Indeed, sometimes they even appear MORE convincing than good thinkers, since, unlike good thinkers, they don't have to stick to the facts. So engaging with them in public is especially dangerous. And just to reiterate, I think the most likely result is "both sides have made some good points, let's agree to disagree, this issue is complex, ..." but this 50/50 result is BAD for the good thinkers, since good thinkers' ideas--climate change/vaccine is real, etc.--should be widely accepted, not just one choice among many.)
I was not defending a position about debaters, whether formal debates, X, or comment sections. I was challenging your use of election experience as evidence where it has weak (or no) relevance.
It's just an offhand example to illustrate what I take to be a plain fact about people... Instead of getting hung up on that maybe you can critique my main argument?
You're missing the point. All I'm saying is that audiences of popular debates often don't react rationally (update their beliefs according to the evidence/arguments presented). The election point follows very indirectly (basically, if debates resolve rationally, we should expect philosophers to win most of them, and thus influence politics).
It seems more likely that you have missed my point. Even if philosophers did win ordinary debates, elections are different enough that it seems unlikely that elections data provide evidence for how debates work. They are too different. Voters are deciding multiple issues, as well as other factors like the candidates' personalities. If you want to use election data as evidence for a theory of debate, you have a lot of work to do to persuade someone that it is relevant.
It's just one evidence among many. I don't think "In many public sphere debates, the winner is often not the more reasonable one" is a controversial claim. I think the election stuff follows; you don't; whatever. That doesn't really affect the truth of "In many public sphere debates, the winner is often not the more reasonable one".
Also here's one way election stuff can follow.
Philosophers consistently win debates. -> They win political debates. -> They change people's political beliefs. -> Candidates with a philosophically valid set of beliefs get an advantage. -> They sway election results.
All my life I’ve been willing to debate anyone I disagreed with. I seldom changed anyone’s mind. I assumed most people would listen to reason. They don’t.
I also assumed they enjoyed arguing the way I did—as a kind of game or contest. I was wrong. Most people just get pissed off.
More recently, I’ve been trying a more Socratic approach: asking questions that aren’t threatening, but that might prompt someone to examine their own beliefs. I read an example about a canvasser in the South who went door to door asking about same-sex marriage:
“Do you favor same-sex marriage?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the Bible forbids it.”
“Do you know any gay people?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“My cousin.”
“What kind of person is he?”
“Honestly, he’s a nice person.”
"Etc."
Even if you don’t change anyone’s mind, you can at least learn why people believe what they do. I’ll admit, though: this is hard when you’ve been hardwired to argue for decades.
I am a contrarian and enjoy arguing. But most people are not like that. Many are happy to accept popular ideas without too much examination, because it doesn’t seem worth taking the time to find out why the idea is dominant. So I find this dogmatic attitude understandable if not really excusable. Then this anti-platformIng thing becomes just a strategy to win cheaply. Arguing requires effort. Denunciation doesn't require much effort, and can be fun.
If the anti-platformers really believed that their position would lose in a genuine debate, they would have cognitive dissonance and it would bug them. It seems more likely that their attitudes are the results of lazy overconfidence. Sort of, “my group are the good guys, and we are rarely wrong, and certainly not in this obvious case. So it isn’t worth the effort to learn how the other side argues or how our side should respond to their objections. “
And it is a fact that bad ideas don't disappear after they lose the argument or have their falseness demonstrated. It can be tedious having to bone up on what ought to be a dead issue. But that dialogue helps to keep good ideas alive.
Great article. An empirical observation. In many public sphere debates, the winner (the person who seems to "own" the other person) is often not the more reasonable one, but the one with more rhetorical tricks up their sleeves.* Indeed, the more public/viral the debate, the less reasonableness correlates with victory. Hence, if Believers of Harmful Ideas (Hs) get platformed and debate Believers of Good Ideas (Gs), there's a real chance Gs lose the debate and Harmful Ideas spread. This in itself is probably fine. But I think more likely that Hs and Gs *appear* to be on equal footing (e.g., both rapid fire many vague arguments, present many weird statistics, descend into personal/meta-debate attacks, or something like that). Given that Gs are generally more reasonable than Hs, that systematically disadvantages Gs, since a bystander might thus believe "oh, both Gs and Hs have a point. idk what to think now." when they shouldn't believe this! Do you think that's part of the real issue here?
*If this is not the case, moral philosophers would be dominating moral and political discourse. Analytic philosophers will have the ability to sway voters in key elections.
Elections involve combining many issues into one decision, which puts them at even more of a disadvantage. I don’t think you can use empirical claims about elections as evidence about how single issue ideas become popular without a much more careful explanation.
Plus, we usually are electing persons, not ideas. Maybe the states that have ballot initiatives would provide better evidence. But even there, the gatekeeper effect (how is the initiate worded?) has a distorting effect.
PS: I think one reason you might think that debate winners are better thinkers is that you're probably surrounded by smart people, and this is generally true for smart people. But for most people, debate winners aren't better thinkers. Think the comment section of YouTube "debates" or TikTok ragebait. That's where platforming people with harmful ideas and bad thinkers is risky. They might win. (Indeed, sometimes they even appear MORE convincing than good thinkers, since, unlike good thinkers, they don't have to stick to the facts. So engaging with them in public is especially dangerous. And just to reiterate, I think the most likely result is "both sides have made some good points, let's agree to disagree, this issue is complex, ..." but this 50/50 result is BAD for the good thinkers, since good thinkers' ideas--climate change/vaccine is real, etc.--should be widely accepted, not just one choice among many.)
I was not defending a position about debaters, whether formal debates, X, or comment sections. I was challenging your use of election experience as evidence where it has weak (or no) relevance.
It's just an offhand example to illustrate what I take to be a plain fact about people... Instead of getting hung up on that maybe you can critique my main argument?
You're missing the point. All I'm saying is that audiences of popular debates often don't react rationally (update their beliefs according to the evidence/arguments presented). The election point follows very indirectly (basically, if debates resolve rationally, we should expect philosophers to win most of them, and thus influence politics).
It seems more likely that you have missed my point. Even if philosophers did win ordinary debates, elections are different enough that it seems unlikely that elections data provide evidence for how debates work. They are too different. Voters are deciding multiple issues, as well as other factors like the candidates' personalities. If you want to use election data as evidence for a theory of debate, you have a lot of work to do to persuade someone that it is relevant.
It's just one evidence among many. I don't think "In many public sphere debates, the winner is often not the more reasonable one" is a controversial claim. I think the election stuff follows; you don't; whatever. That doesn't really affect the truth of "In many public sphere debates, the winner is often not the more reasonable one".
Also here's one way election stuff can follow.
Philosophers consistently win debates. -> They win political debates. -> They change people's political beliefs. -> Candidates with a philosophically valid set of beliefs get an advantage. -> They sway election results.
All my life I’ve been willing to debate anyone I disagreed with. I seldom changed anyone’s mind. I assumed most people would listen to reason. They don’t.
I also assumed they enjoyed arguing the way I did—as a kind of game or contest. I was wrong. Most people just get pissed off.
More recently, I’ve been trying a more Socratic approach: asking questions that aren’t threatening, but that might prompt someone to examine their own beliefs. I read an example about a canvasser in the South who went door to door asking about same-sex marriage:
“Do you favor same-sex marriage?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the Bible forbids it.”
“Do you know any gay people?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“My cousin.”
“What kind of person is he?”
“Honestly, he’s a nice person.”
"Etc."
Even if you don’t change anyone’s mind, you can at least learn why people believe what they do. I’ll admit, though: this is hard when you’ve been hardwired to argue for decades.