NationStates Jolt Archive

Having a look around the various political/moral threads i noticed how most debates (for lack of a better name) show a shocking lack of real discussion based on facts. There is a lot of insulting, stereotyping, weaseling out, 100% adaption of the media of choice (down to the actual words) and very little facts. Often some discussion revolves around believes, which is by itself non-debatable, because viewpoints can not be underlined with facts. Worse still are even mixups of politics with religion, which are seperated from each other for apparent reasons in most enlightened countries.
Is this lack of communication culture stemming from too little education, tv-culture, youth of the average user or something else?

Worse still are even mixups of politics with religion, which are seperated from each other for apparent reasons in most enlightened countries.

that's your OPINION...


now that was your point again? :cool:

my answer... you are generalizing. Maybe because there are a lot of people being dimwits (myself included), I dunno. But there are plenty of people hhere that argue facts and do it well (and I am talking about all teh shades of grey here). SOme of us just have ADD from the way they are poisoning our groundwater with industrial pollutants.

A very interesting question, and a though one to answer.

I think we can dismiss youth and too litle education. The reason for this is that I see professors and people with PhD's, who should really know how to put forward well argumentet oppinions, are doing just the same thing; stereoptying of the opponent, name calling, using emotional arguments, oversimplifying of the opponents arguments etc.

TV-culture? Maybe. Fast, simple and demagogic arguments are suited for the TV screen, where the longer well thought out arguments are much more difficult to convey. However, a very similar way of arguing is very well suited for a panel debate with an audience, where making the audience laugh at your opponent can be much more effectfull than presenting a good argument. And it's much easier to give a quick remark appealing to the prejudice of the audience than getting a more complex argument presented without being interrupted. So I don't hink we can blame the TV for this culture, but I think this kind of debate culture is much to blame.

Also I think a lot of people just don't know what they really support, in the sense that they've never really thought it through. They have an emotional attachmenet to their side, and just parrot the arguments, makes fun of the opponent, laughs at each others jokes and reinforces the feeling of belonging to the right side. Putting forward a real arguments takes some effort. One needs to take the time to write it down, but even more one needs to have a clear idea of what one wants to say. And I am not sure everyone has a clear thought about what they argue about.