The art of disagreeing.

Thomas Solwell in the Washington Times has an excellent essay on the art of debate and disagreement:

Some excerpts:

My assistant sorts the incoming mail into various categories, such as “critical mail,” “fan mail,” etc. But the so-called critical mail is seldom critical. It may be bombastic or vituperative or full of pop psychology, but it seldom presents a critical argument based on facts or logic.

Too many people today act as if no one can honestly disagree with them. If you have a difference of opinion with them, you are considered not merely in error but in sin. You are a racist, a homophobe or whatever the villain of the day happens to be.

Having been handed a substantial list myself this week, I find myself nodding enthusiastically.

Mr. Solwel goes on:

Where an argument starts is far less important than where it finishes because the logic and evidence in between is crucial. Unfortunately, our educational system not only doesn’t teach critical thinking, it is often itself a source of confused rhetoric and emotional venting in place of systematic reasoning.

Instead of trying to propagandize children to hug trees and recycle garbage, our schools would be put to better use teaching them how to analyze and test what is said by people who advocate tree-hugging, recycling and innumerable other causes across the political spectrum.

The point is not to teach them correct conclusions but to teach them to be able to use their own minds to analyze the issues that will come up in the years ahead, which may have nothing to do with recycling or any of the other issues of our time.

Rational disagreement can be not only useful but stimulating. Many years ago, when my friend and colleague Walter Williams and I worked on the same research project, he and I kept up a running debate on the reasons blacks excelled in some sports and were virtually nonexistent in others.

Walter was convinced the reasons were physical, while I thought the reasons social and economic. Walter would show me articles on physiology from scholarly journals, using them as explanations of why blacks had so many top basketball players and few, if any, swimming champions.

We never settled that issue but it provided lively debates and we may both have learned something.

Very good points. Hat tip to Bonnie of the Off the Top Blog, a stimulating debate partner in her own right!

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