Alex And America. Hate It Or Love It?

[Almighty Colin]

Gigi,

I've never won a debate in my life. I've never convinced anyone by the end of a conversation that I was right and they were wrong. I have, however, lost debates. I have admitted by the end of a debate that I was wrong. Winning is not a goal I am interested in. Losing is.

In 1996, I had the good fortune to teach a high-school debate class. One day I split the class into two groups at random. One was to argue for the legality of marijuana, the other that it should be illegal. It was a good debate and both sides made many excellent points. At the end, I asked them what their real opinion was. Seemingly miraculous, every student that had argued for it's legality was "pro" and every student that argued against was "con", even though the groups were chosen completely at random. Everyone claimed to have held their opinion all along.

I concluded the class with "there is your lesson for today".



Last edited by Colin at Mar 4 2003, 12:37 PM