Promoting healthy public deliberation by understanding both sides

I'm going to use this blog to lay out best arguments, bolstered by history and psychology.

Back when I taught Philosophy (including Ethics, Logic, and Comparative Religion) I followed a few simple rules that let students from over 130 countries (I taught in a minority-majority community that was an immigration hub), from all religions, of all ages, discuss sex, politics, and religion in a way that agonistically let everyone express themselves and grow from hearing arguments for different beliefs.

Rule 1 - Never make it personal. Every idea was fair game, no arguments were prohibited, but no one was ever allowed to make it personal. “God does not exist” was fine, but “People who believe in God are idiots” was not.

We went over the best arguments for and against every position, held Lincoln-Douglas style debates, and I aimed to have everyone be able to recite both sides of every position.

That’s what I’m going to do here on this Substack. Towards that end, my plan is to lay out both sides’ positions as best I’m able, go into the relevant history, biology, and psychology, lay out alternative points of view, and then engage in social media such that anyone who is arguing can use this as a tool.

Ideally if I can encourage good debate I’d like to use the podcast feature and bring on guests who disagree and host formal debates, in the hopes that a civil discussion can be a model of good public deliberation for others.