When we think we've got the other entirely figured out, we're fooling ourselves, and are probably missing an opportunity to learn something.
It is a fundamental principle of honest debate that when you present your opponent's ideas or positions, you should do so in a way that your opponent would agree is accurate. Real debate requires hospitality, an open, welcoming, and genuine attempt to understand the other and his or her ideas. If we can't state the ideas we're debating accurately, then we are locked into ourselves and our ideas, hindered from talking with each other and enslaved into talking past each other. Such failures to communicate don't help ourselves or our "opponents" reach a closer encounter with truth.
The internet, television, talk radio, and the printed press really offer us opportunities to have a fruitful exchanges of ideas. I think it's safe to say that we're not taking advantage of those opportunities. We prefer to structure our media into organized camps separated by ideology and political allegiance. Debates between opposing sides are seldom more than theatrics designed to boost ratings. Our side is all good; the other, all bad. And of course we know exactly what our intellectual opponents are all about. I get irritated when examples are not put forth to support assertions, so, in order to avoid self-irritation, some examples: here , here, and here.
The media personalities are intelligent and articulate people, but their talents are wasted when their discussions of ideas are reduced to profit-driven entertainment. Is there a remedy for all this? I think so, but it requires changing our whole culture to where we value a shared pursuit of truth. Currently we value others so far as they are fodder for our intellectual wars. We have to drop the hermeneutic of war and adopt a hermeneutic of hospitality. Such an exchange is a prerequisite if we want our ideas to bear fruit beyond merely ourselves.
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