audio tape link: Ward Churchill/David Horowitz debate

This turned out to be much calmer than many had anticipated, given the history of Horowitz to suddenly explode to a challenging question from the audience, and his high drama newsletters and fundraising appeals written in all capital letters. He appears to have an extreme form of black-white thinking.


Basically, Churchill never gets angry, and he actually takes care to give more concrete examples for the general audience, and use vocabulary that won't leave anyone behind. He doesn't use the precisely the same style as among activist audience.

Horowitz uses his traditional style of first making a statement that almost no one could disagree with about how freedom of speech is good, and teachers who give bad grades based on a students political position are bad, then he lists anecdotes about classes that used Howard Zinn's U.S. history book. The problem with making an argument via anecdotes is that one is logically required to show that the anecdote is representative of the large trend. Otherwise, the other side could just list matching anecdotes that suggest a different story. It can be a good technique for people who aren't applying logical rules of debate, but want concrete emotional stories that back up what they initially thought. But listing an anecdote does not constitute an argument that society should be run according to certain rules, or demonstrate that the present situation is run according to your anecdote.
Also, he seems so agreeable with Ward Churchill, and even makes statements that Churchill isn't as bad as these other brainwashers who he implies are out there.
http://rightalk.listenz.com/!ARCHIVES/ChurchillVSHorowitz2-64-44M.mp3