Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The Debate: Final Reflections

Our debate in class was very interesting - seeing how each side defended its own point, and how the pro-fascism side (especially Nick) managed to convey the sense of insane fanaticism present so often in fascism. The central problem with the debate was the problem with all debate, which is that you can't prove philosophical postulates and each team entered with different ones. Their team continuously referenced anti-social elements being suppressed, and our team continuously said that what was more important was tolerance.
It's possible that this is a reflection of how everything worked in the actual world - there cannot be reasoned debate, and sometimes even discussion is strained, when two opposing sides have worldviews based on mutually contradictory postulates.

1 comment:

  1. A good observation of the experiential side of what the debate showed. Could you tie this into any actual examples where you see this kind of behaviour in real historical time and place?

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