If you have a certain argument to a certain talking point, then you're always going to repeat that same argument whenever that talking point emerges. There's nothing bad faith about that. These kinds of arguments get repetitive so you're going to see people repeat the same points.
As for the value of debate, even bad debate is better than nothing. Sometimes it feels like there's nothing being gained from it, but if you question people who have engaged in a lot of debates, you find that they're much more informed after the debates — even very acrimonious debates, where both sides are just trying to defeat the other side — than they were before it. A society needs people to communicate, for it to progress in its ability to effectively coordinate on complex social issues, and that process of communication is not going to be without warts, given how complex these social issues are, and how high the stakes are for a great number of people.
Societies which embrace civil discourse and protect free speech are far better off for it. This killing strikes at the heart of a civil society.
Charlie Kirk’s “certain argument” was “what is a woman?”. He would gish gallop weak and fallacious arguments to pretend like his definition was valuable (it wasn’t) and he would steam roll the nuanced definitions provided by his interlocutors.
And no, bad debate isn’t necessarily valuable and that dichotomy doesn’t get us anywhere. Kirk was not the only person doing valuable debates. He was a propagandist with a façade of debater.
Medhi Hasan is an eminently more honest and more skilled debater. Destiny is decent (although he does streaming debates for a living, so he gets a little too “debate bro” for my taste). Matt Dillahunty and some of his crowd are more informed and charitable than Kirk was.
We should be encouraging young minds to seek out honest interlocutors, not ones that sate their “dunking” appetites.
I’m not arguing for killing and your framing is not valuable. I’m arguing that Kirk was not a good role model for the kind of debate where people might actually learn facts.
Regarding even bad debate being better than no debate, I used to believe the same, then realized how much progress had been made in the process of low-quality arguments between 'heels dug in' interlocutors. It was like the inverse of a frog slowly being boiled.
But the question "what is a woman" is trying to get at finding this honesty. Even many allegedly highly educated professors respond to that with the answer "anyone that feels like one," which is an absurd and and demands the obvious response "but what is that thing?" Simply because a position can be correctly assailed with such a blunt question does not mean the criticism is not valid. Of course, it doesn't.
I think Medhi Hasan is among the best debaters alive, but I think he’s 100% wrong on his religious views.
Generally I’m a fan of Oxford style debates, such as Intelligence Squared.
Kirk was a rapid-fire debater who made all of his content to go viral. I don’t see much value in that style, because it steamrolls so much important nuance.
This isn't a valid accusation. I believe "both sidesism" has cursed Americans into locked thinking patterns where they can never develop, because they have to spend an eternity giving sober consideration to endless wrong-headed positions.
My viewpoints don't align with flat earthers, and also I criticize their unscientific methods.
As for the value of debate, even bad debate is better than nothing. Sometimes it feels like there's nothing being gained from it, but if you question people who have engaged in a lot of debates, you find that they're much more informed after the debates — even very acrimonious debates, where both sides are just trying to defeat the other side — than they were before it. A society needs people to communicate, for it to progress in its ability to effectively coordinate on complex social issues, and that process of communication is not going to be without warts, given how complex these social issues are, and how high the stakes are for a great number of people.
Societies which embrace civil discourse and protect free speech are far better off for it. This killing strikes at the heart of a civil society.