Saturday, June 04, 2005
The Best of Both Worlds- a challenge.
The Daily Demarche has long sought to be a place where divergent ideas can come together to be debated, explored, refined and commented upon. Unfortunately, things don’t always work out as planned and an echo-chamber of sorts has developed in our little corner of the web. While we have greatly enjoyed the interaction between ourselves and our readers, and the group-blog projects we have run in the past, we are always looking to grow the site and to find new directions.
If one is to believe the media reports on the subject we, as Americans, are becoming increasingly polarized politically and socially, and yet we are increasingly upset at the inability of our elected officials to work together. This combination of unilateral, party-centric thinking and general political malaise is especially evident in the blogosphere- this site is often a perfect example. We like to envision the web as a place where intellectual honesty (and courage of the anonymous sort) can be exercised. To that end we are inviting bloggers from the left and the right to pair up for a cross blog debate on the future of global democracy and the role which the United States should play in the spread of democracy to oppressed or less developed nations. The theme is wide open within that umbrella. Here is how it works:
We have e-mailed several of our fellow right-of-center bloggers and asked them to participate. Each of theses writers will then find and invite a blogger from the left with which to partner. Together the two will decide if they want to refine the topic any further, or if they want to keep it general. Each blogger will then produce an initial piece, aiming to release them at the same time so that neither initial offering is a rebuttal to the other. After the release of the first pieces each author will link to the other’s post and produce a rebuttal. The idea is not to simply deconstruct, or to “fisk” the other writer’s piece, but rather to examine the ideas offered and provide an honest evaluation and reply. This back and forth can go on as long as each pair wishes. We will host links to each debate as well, so that there is a central repository. Should a third (or beyond) blogger wish to contribute to the debate they would of course be welcome to do so- but the first two are under no obligation to respond.
It is our hope that at the end of the process, between the various posts written and the comments left that some of the pairs will have arrived at an agreement of sorts on their chosen topic. We do not expect that each pair will achieve bi-partisan unity, and I fully expect that some of the debate will degenerate into outright flame throwing. There will be no moderating of the debates, other than that provided in the comments by the various readers, so it is up to the authors to keep it civil and on topic.
While we have seeded this by inviting some of our blog-buddies the debate is open to anyone who wishes to participate. Just find yourself a partner and send us an e-mail so that we can post links. As always anyone who wants to participate but does not have a blog can utilize My Blog is Your Blog.
Thanks for reading and for participating- we are looking forward to the debates!
(End of post.)6/04/2005 04:03:00 AM posted by Dr. Demarche
If one is to believe the media reports on the subject we, as Americans, are becoming increasingly polarized politically and socially, and yet we are increasingly upset at the inability of our elected officials to work together. This combination of unilateral, party-centric thinking and general political malaise is especially evident in the blogosphere- this site is often a perfect example. We like to envision the web as a place where intellectual honesty (and courage of the anonymous sort) can be exercised. To that end we are inviting bloggers from the left and the right to pair up for a cross blog debate on the future of global democracy and the role which the United States should play in the spread of democracy to oppressed or less developed nations. The theme is wide open within that umbrella. Here is how it works:
We have e-mailed several of our fellow right-of-center bloggers and asked them to participate. Each of theses writers will then find and invite a blogger from the left with which to partner. Together the two will decide if they want to refine the topic any further, or if they want to keep it general. Each blogger will then produce an initial piece, aiming to release them at the same time so that neither initial offering is a rebuttal to the other. After the release of the first pieces each author will link to the other’s post and produce a rebuttal. The idea is not to simply deconstruct, or to “fisk” the other writer’s piece, but rather to examine the ideas offered and provide an honest evaluation and reply. This back and forth can go on as long as each pair wishes. We will host links to each debate as well, so that there is a central repository. Should a third (or beyond) blogger wish to contribute to the debate they would of course be welcome to do so- but the first two are under no obligation to respond.
It is our hope that at the end of the process, between the various posts written and the comments left that some of the pairs will have arrived at an agreement of sorts on their chosen topic. We do not expect that each pair will achieve bi-partisan unity, and I fully expect that some of the debate will degenerate into outright flame throwing. There will be no moderating of the debates, other than that provided in the comments by the various readers, so it is up to the authors to keep it civil and on topic.
While we have seeded this by inviting some of our blog-buddies the debate is open to anyone who wishes to participate. Just find yourself a partner and send us an e-mail so that we can post links. As always anyone who wants to participate but does not have a blog can utilize My Blog is Your Blog.
Thanks for reading and for participating- we are looking forward to the debates!
(End of post.)
