The Four Things Ruining Discourse
1. Easy Labeling of Our Opponents: It is not hard to understand the temptation to “tag” our ideological opponents to simplistic terms. It reduces them to a type and their idea a result of them being that type and therefore can be dismissed without question. The methodology goes something like this: That person is an X (because I say they are), therefore their argument must be Y , so they can be shut down outright. On the flip side, their argument is Y (and me thinking it is makes it so), so they must be an X and don’t deserve a platform. Reducing a person and their argument into a stereotype allows you to build up a moral superiority from which one can feel justified in dismissing them easily. This is a folly for people are complex and few fit neat ideological terms. Likewise views and stances are complicated and arrived at through unique experiences, backgrounds and lenses. It is dangerous and dishonest (not to mention lazy) to dismiss an argument because of the speaker or a sp...