Ran across this and thought it might engender some interesting discussion...
1.You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way."
2.You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3.You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4.Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
Daniel Dennett poses an apt question that probes some of the basic tendencies and dynamics of today’s everyone-is-a-critic culture: “Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent?”
In Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking — the same fantastic volume that gave us Dennett on the dignity and art-science of making mistakes — he offers what he calls “the best antidote [for the] tendency to caricature one’s opponent”: a list of rules formulated decades ago by the legendary social psychologist and game theorist Anatol Rapoport, best-known for originating the famous tit-of-tat strategy of game theory.
1.You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way."
2.You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3.You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4.Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.