After you’ve listened to your opponent, you need to make sure that you understand what they have said before you shoot into your rebuttal and on to your argument. As pointed out in comments of the last post, this is just as important, possibly more so, online as in verbal conversations. Failure to understand the position leads to poor rebuttal, and building your case without rebuttal can easily become a exercise in finding whose voice is loudest.
If your opponent has built a good case, a good test for your understanding is attempting to rephrase it in your own words, possibly in the form of a question.
“Ok so you’re saying because of varying shadow angles on photographs, you think the moon landing was faked?”
Now if your opponent’s argument is not well built or possibly just the off-handed comment that is the initiator of a conversation:
“Obama is a foreign-born, Muslim, Communist, Liberal, Nazi extremist (who kills puppies)”
You may need to do some questioning to draw out their support. Simple questions are best for this: Why? What did he do that was “Nazi” like? How do you know he was foreign-born? Have you seen him eat a puppy? But chances are, the more blatantly insane and unsupported the claim is, the more likely this will result in a shouting match to see who is the loudest and therefore the winner. Here’s a friendly tip: ask your questions; if any of them are not answered, ask again with different phrasing. If you don’t hear the support for the argument after two attempts, disengage. It is not worth your time or energy to pursue this argument. Some rabbit holes are best left unexplored; they don’t all lead to Wonderland.
A note for online: considering the frequently slow speed of online conversations, this is an even more important time saver. Arguments are frequently longer and more thorough (especially if you’re in a good discussion group) and jumping the gun and replying to an assumption instead of clarifying can lose you days online versus the minutes you may lose in a verbal conversation. Think about this before proceeding.
Once you are clear on what your opponent has meant, it’s time to rebut. Rebuttal seems to be a lost art. Like grammar, spelling, and handwriting we have neglected this ever important part of good discussion. As indicated above, this is not the presentation of your argument and, regardless of the sound of it, it is not the replacement of a mannequin’s posterior. It is the meeting head-on and attempted defeating of your opponent’s argument. This is where you start knocking down their supports.
“You say that the multiple light angles needed to produce such shadows looks like a TV studio, but look at all the lights on the lunar module. They could have easily produced such shadows.”
Don’t try to build your own building first; knock his down. This helps avoid the piling of statistics, the weighing of mountains of evidence. In short, this can prevent added length by reducing your opponents ability to repeat himself. Think of the subject as a tract of land; I build a barn and call it a farm; you put a hydro-electric generator on the stream and call it a power plant. Who’s right? One claim needs to be knocked down, otherwise you could have two people making claims that are not exclusive claiming that they are.
A few of notes before I close:
First, don’t expect that everyone you talk to has read “Uncle Justin’s Pontification on Civil Discourse.” Actually, assume they haven’t; Uncle Justin doesn’t have a very large reading base. Anyway, you may need to prompt your opponent for a rebuttal to your argument.
“I understand your case, but you haven’t responded to the evidence I have given to my contrary conclusion” (please don’t talk like this; it’s just an example.)
Second, you might need to rebut your opponents case before you can push a rebuttal from them. I must make a confession: one of the things I looked at for this series was some of the more uncivil back-and-forth comments on this blog. When a respondent did not rebut, I called the him on it but I should have also rebutted his argument. Instead what transpired was his continuing to prop up his claim and me saying he was not rebutting mine. It degraded rather quickly and was quite contrary to the civility in discourse that I aspire to and I would thank you to not bring it up again.
Lastly, assault the argument, not the speaker. Even sideways or back handed comments like “well you just don’t understand” are not beating the argument; they are just pompous, arrogant bloviating; a slightly nicer way of saying “you’re stupid.” For the record, throwing a “bless your heart” in doesn’t help (my southern friends know what I’m talking about.) My favorite slice that I’ve received in a theological debate was “you’ve just been sold a bad bill of goods.” So I got the added bonus of not only being called stupid, but being told that those whom I had listened to and trusted were the clergy equivalent of used-car salesmen (no actual assault on the arguments was ever made in this discussion and, surprise, it went south fast.) Never good, don’t do it.
Remember, the head-on confrontation that is a rebuttal is paramount in moving conversation forward. You may go back and forth a bit on views of a particular support; that’s ok. It will still be productive, or more so than skipping this step would be anyway. If you have trouble confronting, remember that you are going after the argument not the person. This confrontation is necessary for civil discourse. Without a rebuttal, you can easily draw parallel lines of reasoning; never meeting, never crossing. I encourage you: cross those swords; be perpendicular.
Thoughts from the Fringe 