gwern comments on Help, help, I'm being oppressed! - Less Wrong

30 Post author: Yvain 07 April 2009 11:22PM

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Comment author: gwern 18 October 2010 03:24:03PM *  6 points [-]

"Polemic—persuasive writing—only works when it doesn't feel like propaganda.
The audience must feel that you're being absolutely fair to people on the other side."

--Orson Scott Card, "Characters and Viewpoint"

EDIT: yes, I realize the irony of quoting Card on this, given his own utter failure to respect this principle in his own polemical writings on things like homosexuality. But it's still true.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 21 March 2011 03:36:09PM 1 point [-]

Are you sure that this is true in general?

My impression is that polemic has been a lot more raw in other times and places.

Comment author: gwern 21 March 2011 04:21:07PM *  0 points [-]

My impression is that polemic has been a lot more raw in other times and places.

This is true (American political discourse has been astonishingly crude in in the past).

But was it more effective? That is the issue. To use a Revolutionary War example, it was not one of the crude blood-libelous circulars that sold 500,000 copies, but Paine's Common Sense.*

* It struck me as pretty well argued and reasoned when I read it in middle school, but that was a long time ago.

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