Golden rules of a good debate.
A significant part of our life is spent on discussions and debates. Some of these discussions are very productive and serve to stimulate the intellectual growth of individuals and of the society as a whole. However sometimes, these discussions and debates end up being counter-productive resulting in mental fatigue, dispute and even hate.
Debate
So here are some golden rules to help you make your debates productive, more often than not.
1) Choose a good debate worth your time. For example, there is no worth debating, for hours, the colour of your clothes.
2) Choose a suitable person for debate. You will look quite funny discussing the Theory of Relativity with a typical star plus addicted house wife.
3) When you find yourself in the middle of a debate, evaluate your targets. If you are debating to put your point across or to convince someone on your point of view then carry on. But if your target is to just win the argument or to prove that you know/understand more than someone, then you are wasting your as well as your opponent’s time.
4) Remember, try your best to prove yourself right but you better not prove your opponent wrong. Invariably when people are proven wrong, their ego is hurt and then they will never accept your point Of View. Unless they are legends, which is quite rare.
5) Try not to lose your friend in the process of winning a debate.
6) Do not put forward your emotions as an evidence of your point because they are not. The minute, emotions come into a debate, devil will take over from there.
7) Be logical, scientific, factual and precise. Support your point with examples and evidence.
8) Do not be repetitive, dismissive or arrogant. Acknowledge your opponent’s right points.
9) If you find yourself banging on the keyboard/clinching your fists/raising your Voice, Then it is probably a good time to stop.
10) Last but not the least, law of probability says that 50% of times you will be in the wrong. So its OK to get convinced some times.
To develop consensus on any issue in the society, it is important to debate, but it is equally important to debate with grace.
Happy debating.
Originally published on WordPress.