Why Debate is Destructive
Let's argue about it!
It’s not that debates can’t be fun! They can be entertaining and even instructive! It’s just that, when it comes to the more serious topics, debates can also do the way-less-fun stuff of normalizing bad faith, legitimizing bigotry and establishing a basis for global destruction, which, again, way less fun!
We still debate why the Civil War happened, even though the Vice President of the Confederacy and confederate states themselves explicitly said it was about slavery. A little over a month ago, all the pundits were debating again whether or not slavery was about race, even though the hereditary nature of slavery was literally written into colonial law before we even had a country.
Back in May, City Journal published the article, “The Left Thinks Drug Criminalization Is Racist. Minorities Disagree”. “Thinks”? “Disagree”? Drug laws were created for the specific purpose of persecuting people of non-white races and the chief architect of the War on Drugs literally admitted it, but somehow there is room for debate?
There has never been a more baseless claim proven more wrong more times in more ways than white supremacy. Regardless of how often a goalpost has been set or moved, Black and brown people have defied every single limitation put upon us. So, why does white supremacy remain a foundational aspect of our systems and institutions? I hope you don’t think it’s because white supremacists are so good at debating.
The truths around race aren’t the only ones avoided by debate. Guns are the leading cause of death for children in this country and we’re still debating if guns laws are necessary. The ten hottest years on record are the last ten and we still debate if climate change is real. If there’s a better world to be made by accepting an undeniable truth, you can bet there’s folks out there profiting from us denying it.
Anyway, like I said, some debates can be fun and entertaining—even instructive! In that spirit, here’s one for the ages that we should all see: