America gets a lot of things right, I think, precisely because it includes people who have gotten it badly wrong. Most societies shun people who err; a senior business executive in Germany who has been attached to a failing company should not expect ever to be trusted with responsibility again. America, on the other hand, is a nation of failures, and has always been more hospitable than anywhere else to the people who made an honest mistake, even a lot of them. I believe that our economy works better than our foreign policy process precisely because foreign policy tends to be decided by either the successes or the failures, but never both.
Growing up, I lived in a family of debators. I was the smallest and probably because of that (not trying to make excuses) the most defensive. We all wanted to win... well the 3 brothers and the mother. My Father would normally tell us to stop fighting and we would argue that we weren't, we were just debating.
I think all three brothers have had issues with girlfriends at various stages that we raise our voices when we get into heated discussions. It is not fighting, or aggressive, but simply the only way we got heard.
I enjoyed/enjoy the debating, but when a friend Dale Roteveel pointed out to me in first year that I just seemed to want to win... it hit me. I made a conscious attempt to stop doing that, and in fact stopped getting involved in as many arguments.
Discussions/Debates/Arguments often become a competition. Someone is trying to win. I think trying to argue from the side of the opponents is quite a useful skill.
Getting back into this blogging world thing made me realise though that you can't just abstain... you need to have opinions, but a `disinterested search for the truth' is bloody difficult though admirable.
In the few more `heated' posts in this blog, I have occasionally felt like I am being attacked with opinions being called `silly' and `irritating' amongst other things. My immediate response is to try and get defensive and attack back. I wonder how I would respond if I started getting the virtriolic comments McArdle does.
Anyway, I think McArdle gets the balance fairly well... but I am not convinced there is much value taking on some of the people who clearly still love the `Goebell's like language and tit for tat playground language'.
4 comments:
" made me realise though that you can't just abstain"
Why not, I think this is often a good idea, surely better than having an opinion on something we don't know anything about?
"you need to have opinions"
We don't have any right to our opinions.
I like it when McArdle gets exasperated though she is admirably self restrained.
Whether we admit it or not, we do have opinions. It also depends how the opinions are stated as well. I like your stance of saying I am probably wrong. There are few things as annoying as discussing something with someone who writes/says their opinion as if it is the truth that they are condescendingly trying to `teach' you.
I agree, you can admit that you haven't really got a leaning towards either side of an argument, but to abstain implies a certain apathy. Sometimes you have to make a call, inaction is an action that has consquences. If by abstaining you think you absolve yourself of responsibilty/involvement in an outcome, I think you are wrong.
`we don't have a right to our opinions'???
Really? Why? Isn't that what Free Choice is all about?
I don't think abstaining implies apathy. Sometime you do need to make a call. Abstaining doesn't imply that you refuse and responsibility.
Here's an article arguing that we don't have the right to our opinion.
http://articles.wallstraits.net/articles/1376
"I don't think abstaining implies apathy."
I agree, sometimes it takes a lot of soul searching to abstain. But there needs to be an awareness that abstaining doesn't absolve you of responsibility. Mr Charles Dempsey (? I think that was his name) should know all about that.
Abstaining without consideration implies apathy, and apathy is no good.
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