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Emotions can be extremely hard to separate from facts when you are debating an issue, especially when it is close to your heart. I know when I debate something I'm passionate about, I always end up letting emotions control my argument. Often times when I do this, my comments end up being exaggerated just to help my chances of winning an argument. During junior year, my history class had to do a debate on capitalism. I had never really cared one way or the other before this debate, but because I wanted my side to win, I ended up exaggerated some of my facts and playing on their emotions of fear that the economy would fall apart without capitalism.
This is the problem we are facing in civil discourse these days. Too many people are relying on emotions, like fear and anger, to rally people to their cause. They are ignoring or stretching facts to win their argument. It is not an entirely bad thing to feel passionate about something, but it can become bad if you let emotions cloud over facts. Emotions should aid in civil discourse, not hinder it.
As seen in my Atlantic article where ignorance too often wins over reality, emotion can undermine an argument. When a commentator resorts to fear, like "All parents should forbid their daughters from going to fraternities when they go to college because all frat boys will sexually assault them," is ignoring that reality that a very small percentage of fraternity boys actually do that, but simply relying on the emotion of fear to persuade. Their generalizations completely sabotage their argument because they sound unintelligent. They also do not come across as credible because it is apparent they will go to extreme distortions to get their across. However, emotion can support the values of the writer, but unfortunately their values are ignored due to their blind emotion.
What part do you think emotions should play in civil discourse?
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