http://info-fetishist.org/2007/12/22/more-metathinking/ yeah, it's long -- I didn't have time to make it shorter Fri, 18 May 2012 17:15:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://info-fetishist.org/2007/12/22/more-metathinking/#comment-4 Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:23:40 +0000 http://infofetishist.wordpress.com/2007/12/22/more-metathinking/#comment-4 Great post. I have never been a good debater, perhaps it takes training. I can talk fast but not always think fast. However I think of Aristotle who observed that audiences are often (perhaps more and more often nowadays) persuaded by emotion not by logic. So a logical and fast debater is relying on logic, which is not what motivates most folks. Otherwise advertisers would quit using photos. Smithsonian magazine in October 2007 has an article on “In the name of the law: how to win arguments without really trying” by Richard Conniff. For example, Conniff mentions someting called “Godwin’s Law” which “holds that the longer an argument drags on, the likelier someone will stoop to a Hitler or Nazi analogy” (128). Conniff doesn’t mean real, i.e. trained, debaters, but average folks. And aren’t the average folks the ones in my class?

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