Rex Kerr
3 min readFeb 10, 2022

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Since you are taking a virulently anti-intellectual stance beloved by dictators and the far-right (albeit with some tweaks about who you don't listen to), and since I believe your position: Hissss HISSSSS! Begone, foul one! You are hereby exiled to the remote...oh, wait, never mind. I don't accept your position. So I can argue against you.

There are legitimate reasons to not debate someone. For instance, perhaps a link to Wikipedia is more than adequate, they can't even present something that has the shape of an argument (c.f. HISSSS!), or the view they're espousing is so infrequently held that it is not worth the effort. An additional reason is that you might over-estimate your debating skills and your command of the relevant material, so you might inadvertently lose the debate, bolstering wrong or harmful ideas not because the wrong or harmful ideas have merit, but simply because you are an inadequate advocate for non-wrong, non-harmful ideas.

However, in principle, when wrong and harmful ideas are non-obviously wrong (to them), are presented in the form of an argument, and are believed by a non-negligible number of people, a comprehensive response must include debate.

The reasons are twofold.

First, absent reasons, nobody first encountering the ideas has any evidence-based cause to join one side or the other. If they already believe harmful nonsense on the basis of non-rational psychological factors, the "wrong" side obviously can employ those tools more to recruit more adherents. That your reason-independent persuasion will be better than theirs is not remotely guaranteed. (For instance, lies spread faster on social media than does truth, on average. It is only that the truth is true and we can demonstrate this that allows the truth to have any chance at all.)

Second, if it is not easy for a decently skilled debater to score an absolutely resounding debate victory, in an area of very strong emotional salience, we should be highly vigilant for our own cognitive bias. Maybe we are actually wrong, and the opponents have some good points (or are correct!) and it is only the strength of our feelings that prevent us from seeing it. Being willing to always defend beliefs rationally is a powerful if not foolproof cure for self-delusion.

So, no thank you. The far right should be debated, with relish, by someone up to the task (or someone who trains themselves in debate skills until they are up to the task). The far right promotes a number of incredibly stupid, self-contradictory, and harmful ideas that are well worth revealing in all their stupid harmful self-contradiction. They might not realize just how badly they're doing in a debate, but others will recognize their position as an unmitigated garbage fire and will steer clear. At the very least, if people aren't going to steer clear after a resounding defeat of that side, why would any other strategy be more competitive (keeping in mind that it's possible to employ the other strategies simultaneously, e.g. both being friendly and welcoming AND subjecting the other side to a withering critique of their numerous logical fallacies and the extensive evidence contradicting them).

This does not apply only to the far right. Every group with foolish ideas deserves to be debated with relish. And, since being correct is difficult, sometimes the foolish ideas will be held by you, and sometimes the foolish ideas will be held by me, and we should be grateful when through dialog we can come to a better understanding of things. And if there is a great deal of debate, that one happens to have another one on some new topic is even less a tacit endorsement that the idea is even plausible.

In summary, the flaw in your position is: HISSSSSS!!!!

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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