Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
I think it's too bad that the conversation has gone into the topic of censorship, which is in a lot of ways an easier issue to settle. Obviously part of the negative cost of free speech is that from time to time we have to listen to cretins like Kirk Cameron flogging their snake oil on public airways. That's just how it works--it's the price we pay for being able to say whatever we want to, when we want to say it.
In fact, the real counter-action to someone like Kirk Cameron is not censorship: it's ridicule.
Kirk Cameron has every right to be an idiot. We also have every right to call him an idiot, and to make fun of him for his utterly risible ideas. That's called the marketplace of ideas, and if it works as it should, eventually the truth will win out, and morons like Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron will sink into infamy and obscurity, which is where they belong.
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To some degree I agree with this statement - BUT - ridicule as a tool is one of the biggest reasons the debate in this society has reached such toxic levels. To use a political example, ridicule by republicans of democrats and vice versa has lead to a very polarized public, one where people cannot agree with each other on some topics, and then disagree with each other on others, because the debate has become very personal, mean, and vicious. Ridicule also leads to attacking the method of the argument, instead of the substance of the argument, which is also not healthy. If someone who is not very good at public speaking has a good idea, or an interesting way of thinking of things, yet presents it poorly, all too often if it doesn't sound like what someone wants to hear, he then makes fun of it.
I used to argue with someone who would make a point, I would make a counter point, then he would push my buttons till I got flustered, then, because I got flustered, he would declare victory in the argument, without addressing the substance of my point - or even of his own point. That's not constructive, it just made me mad. He "won" because he was better at mocking, not because his argument was more valid. I don't think that's what you were advocating, but that's how it works.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't use ridicule, just that it doesn't work as well as many people think, and the side effects are very bad. If you want to change someone's mind, the last thing you want to do is to mock them - people aren't willing to listen to that. It tends to escalate things, which only makes the situation you were trying to solve worse.