ARGUMENT TODAY IS NOT VICTORIAN In Argument and Debate, there is a very great di

ARGUMENT TODAY IS NOT VICTORIAN

In Argument and Debate, there is a very great difference between victorian era and today: critical prosecution against falsehood and deceit is very different from cooperative exploration with the assumption of honesty.

I know what I am doing and I know it is unpleasant, but it is precisely this assumption of honesty and integrity that has led to the failure to resist the pseudosciences that have created the current escalating conflict. So I view it just as immoral to leave undefended the intellectual commons as I do to leave physical danger un-answered within it.

Our civilization has not been destroyed in both the ancient era and the present by our persistent wars that we wrongly rail against. But by the failure of philosophers in the early twentieth century to expand rule of law, and limit etiquette, to the expansion of both the scale of our cooperation under worldwide industrialism, and the expansion of the power of the voice of deceit under propaganda in media.

We ceased competing largely militarily and moved to competing economically – and without our knowledge we now compete informationally. And our civilization could not survive authoritarian pseudoscience any more than it survived the first conquest by authoritarian mysticism.

This is not recreation for me. It’s not personal fulfillment. It’s research into the methods by which we expand our rule of law, to defend the informational commons that has been the source of our second defeat.

-Cheers