It is not necessary for discussion to turn into arguments. Discussions are vital to enhancing one's understanding of a topic by being able to formulate their thoughts as well as hear the oppositions side. However, peaceful and intellectual discussions are more frequently turning into heated arguments. This is because of bad faith argumentation--where people will argue about the bad aspects of the oppositions stance, rather than the good found in their beliefs. This tends to anger people because of its attack on not only the person, but also their beliefs. People also throw out facts with no proof, allowing people uneductaed on the subject to join in on the argument, moving father and father away from constructive discussion.
I found a clip to examine featuring Bill O'Reilly and a counter-attack of his launched against Jon Stewart. In the clip, O'Reilly criticizes Stewart for taking his clips out of context, and spinning them in Stewart's favor to appeal to his 45% liberal audience (a statistic of O'Reilly's). However, when O'Reilly illustrates this point, he is extremely hypocritical because he ends up cutting the clips short, thus taking them out of context as well. O'Reilly then takes an attack at Stewart's credibility by calling him a satirist as another attempt to diminish any truth found in Stewart's arguments. The clip cuts back to an interview containing the two where O'Reilly says Stewart is "paid to cheap shot people" illustrating yet again another personal attack on Jon Stewart as an attempt to discredit his beliefs, and career all together. O'Reilly is known for using bad faith arguments and it is shown in the clip.
An example of a type of bad faith argumentation: name calling. 
It's true and rather unfortunate that our society doesn't really do much about the existing bad faith arguments. The only shows on the air that seem to even discuss these bad faith arguments are the ones that shows like Bill O'Reilly and other news networks talk down about as satirical. For example, as you said, Jon Stewart makes great points about the news, as we saw in class, as does Stephen Colbert, but they are seen as comedians who make fun of the news, rather than making comments that are supposed to induce some thought from the audience. Perhaps if the audience took more time to contemplate what these satirical shows were saying, we would have a society that really looks down upon these bad faith arguments and exposes how far they are from facts.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. Instead of coming together to solve problems, our society creates separate outlets to tailor to various opinions. Republicans watch Fox, and Democrats watch NBC. This is why we will never get along, unless a change happens. I love satirical news, because so much of it tailors to both sides. I specifically like SNL's weekend update and their political skits, because it is clear that they are making fun of everyone. It's funny how satire happens to succeed at what realistic news fails to do.
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