"However, I fear the repercussions of offending others who do not have an open mind."
You're dead right and it's damned terrible. I long for both formal and informal debates on many topics but without my opponents becoming annoyed or offended (as so often they do nowadays). These days it seems almost impossible to debate any subject without upsetting someone.
I now long for the type of television programs that I remember from my youth—talking heads discussing and debating serious topics. For instance, I remember Bertrand Russell, Malcolm Muggeridge and A.J.P. Taylor and many others and it was wonderful and exciting television.
What so many people fail to realize these days is that one can learn so much from discussions and debates of this kind.
Incidentally, such discussions always remind me of the wonderful formal debate between Socrates and the sophist Thrasymachus in Book One of Plato's Republic on the topic of justice. It's so good that every time I read it, it sends shivers of excitement down my back.
You're dead right and it's damned terrible. I long for both formal and informal debates on many topics but without my opponents becoming annoyed or offended (as so often they do nowadays). These days it seems almost impossible to debate any subject without upsetting someone.
I now long for the type of television programs that I remember from my youth—talking heads discussing and debating serious topics. For instance, I remember Bertrand Russell, Malcolm Muggeridge and A.J.P. Taylor and many others and it was wonderful and exciting television.
What so many people fail to realize these days is that one can learn so much from discussions and debates of this kind.
Incidentally, such discussions always remind me of the wonderful formal debate between Socrates and the sophist Thrasymachus in Book One of Plato's Republic on the topic of justice. It's so good that every time I read it, it sends shivers of excitement down my back.