Debates and stuff
I saw the Obama vs. Keyes debate on thursday and it was everything I wished the presidential debates were.
Both candidates were extremely articulate and gave very intelligent answers, and for the most part they actually talked about issues. Granted, a lot of them were moral issues that Keyes had based his campaign on--issues that I always get a kick out of and find easy to follow because it's impossible to support one's stance on them by spewing out ambiguous statistics. In fact, what each candidate said was interesting enough that both of them had to be stopped by the arbitrator nearly every time because they broke their time limit.
This reminds me of something I read about in Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. One of the things Postman discussed was how absurd the length of most of today's debates are: how well can one really examine an issue when they're given ninety seconds to talk about it? Apparently the Lincoln-Douglas debates lasted an entire day. I remember when, in one of the Bush-Kerry debates, the arbitrator kept asking the candidates how they planned on reducing the nation's deficit, complaining that neither candidate ever gave him a straight answer. Although there are plenty of reasons they probably didn't give him a straight answer, I think that one of them was this: how the hell is someone supposed to explain a solution to solving the nation's deficit in ninety seconds? I mean, imagine if someone had gone up to Einstein and said, "So, everybody's talking about this so-called 'theory of relativity' you've come up with. How does it work? You've got a minute and a half."
Clearly, Einstein would punch them in the face.
Anyways. All that said, I thought Keyes was very good at pointing out flaws in other people's arguments, but not terribly good at making his own. The important thing, though, is that he actually creates his own arguments and presents them articulately, so it's not hard for me to figure out where I disagree with him, and why--hopefully having a decent understanding of someone's beliefs can help reach some kind of solution or agreement. I mean, it's definitely more enlightening than responding to every question with "my opponent flip-flops."
God, those presidential debates were boring as hell.
Both candidates were extremely articulate and gave very intelligent answers, and for the most part they actually talked about issues. Granted, a lot of them were moral issues that Keyes had based his campaign on--issues that I always get a kick out of and find easy to follow because it's impossible to support one's stance on them by spewing out ambiguous statistics. In fact, what each candidate said was interesting enough that both of them had to be stopped by the arbitrator nearly every time because they broke their time limit.
This reminds me of something I read about in Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. One of the things Postman discussed was how absurd the length of most of today's debates are: how well can one really examine an issue when they're given ninety seconds to talk about it? Apparently the Lincoln-Douglas debates lasted an entire day. I remember when, in one of the Bush-Kerry debates, the arbitrator kept asking the candidates how they planned on reducing the nation's deficit, complaining that neither candidate ever gave him a straight answer. Although there are plenty of reasons they probably didn't give him a straight answer, I think that one of them was this: how the hell is someone supposed to explain a solution to solving the nation's deficit in ninety seconds? I mean, imagine if someone had gone up to Einstein and said, "So, everybody's talking about this so-called 'theory of relativity' you've come up with. How does it work? You've got a minute and a half."
Clearly, Einstein would punch them in the face.
Anyways. All that said, I thought Keyes was very good at pointing out flaws in other people's arguments, but not terribly good at making his own. The important thing, though, is that he actually creates his own arguments and presents them articulately, so it's not hard for me to figure out where I disagree with him, and why--hopefully having a decent understanding of someone's beliefs can help reach some kind of solution or agreement. I mean, it's definitely more enlightening than responding to every question with "my opponent flip-flops."
God, those presidential debates were boring as hell.