Kalb about "Arguing Over Argument in the Internet Age"

There are a number of reasons for how things have turned out. The ease of entering discussions has meant a lot of very bad discussion, much of it hardly worthy of the name. Obstinate people who have one answer for everything and ignore what others actually say find it easy to churn out commentary. Combox exchanges especially tend to devolve into repetitious gibes, slogans, and personal abuse. Normal people give up, and the bad drives out the good.

It is true that discussion can seem pointless today. How often do we convince anyone? How often do we even think we’ve made ourselves understood? Saint Ambrose commented that it has not pleased God to save His people through argumentation (“non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum”). If so, it seems even less likely He’ll save His people through blog posts and combox rejoinders, or even thoughtful essays on esteemed websites.

Nonetheless, the pointlessness of argument is easily exaggerated. Discussion is important because man is a rational animal. That doesn’t mean he is always sensible, but it means that in most respects he is mostly so. If people weren’t mostly rational they wouldn’t survive. - James Kalb