If both polls and discussions with my friends are anything to go by, Americans feel forever locked in a state of political conflict.

Part of the problem is debate.

Debating others about politics is deeply embedded into American culture, and indeed Western culture more broadly. It is baked into how we are taught to write essays, report the news, attend meetings and even dinner parties.

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We force our politicians to do it.

On both right and left, many assert that debate is what enables real consideration of ideas. When someone says, “We should leave the issue up for debate,” they are implying that it is primarily through rhetorical combat that people can truly discover what they believe. Underlying it all is the assumption that as we allow ideas to circulate in a “marketp

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