In a simpler time, many will remember Shana Alexander debating James J. Kilpatrick on 60 Minutes’ “Point-Counterpoint.” And for those who don’t, there will always be Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin’s Saturday Night Live homage, immortalizing the opening salvo, “Jane, you ignorant slut.” This is, of course, the bar by which all debates have since been measured.
A new website has been developed to host debate on subject of interest in the blawgosphere called Public Square. It’s mission is:
There is also a forum section, which at the moment consists of a single post by the website administrator. You have to register to post a comment in the forum. It appears that they have not yet had a mad rush of people registering.
Starting tomorrow, Paul Lippe will be debating Florida State LawProf J.B. Ruhl on the subject of the future of law school. I stuck my nose into the debate, which was the apparent source of their interest in my being a third wheel. Unfortunately, my upcoming week is already booked, and the likelihood of my finding time to play in their sandbox on top of my own was slim.
I love the idea of head to head debates. While the mechanics of debating issues across blawgs works fairly well, and allows blawgers to engage each other on their own terms, putting it all in one place has the advantage of allowing readers to go straight throw the action, post by post, without having to switch blawgs. Of course, it suffers from the awkward positioning problem, where the last post is atop its predecessor, requiring one to scroll down to find the initial post and reading down to up, but that’s the nature of the beast (though it doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it to be, Bloggerheads guys).
However, for this to be worth a second look, it’s got to offer a whole lot more debate than demonstrated in the Crawford/Rosenblum lovefest. If this is going to turn out to be one of those brutally civil, bordering obtuse, highly-nuanced-type contests that lawprofs are so enamored of, then it should die a swift and painful death. They aspire to be boring. If bloggerheads is going to pit lawprof against lawprof, by and large, then I hope they rented the office furniture on a short term lease.
On the other hand, if this is to be a forum for vigorous debate, it may have a chance. But that means that the participants will need to be willing to write clearly, express their disagreement and positions in forceful terms and, most importantly, reflect opposite point of view. It means that they can’t blow kisses at one another and spend most of their time expressly their undying love and respect for their opponent. If you want a debate, then have a debate.
Whether Bloggerheads has any blogging legs has yet to be seen. Certainly, the initial infatuation with lawprofs as “leading experts” bodes poorly for getting anyone other than fellow lawprofs to care, and they already have enough of their own blogs to blow kisses at each other.
Ironically, Public Square announces that it has been set up as a not-for-profit. I don’t think they have to worry about that, unless they are able to get some robust debate going. And if they want to get any juices flowing, they would do better to take their lead from Dan Aykroyd.
A new website has been developed to host debate on subject of interest in the blawgosphere called Public Square. It’s mission is:
PublicSquare.net is an independent, non-partisan webzine that aims to encourage stimulating debate on the political, legal, religious, and social issues of the day. We invite today’s leading experts to engage one another in thoughtful, intelligent discussion.The “leading experts” language may be a bit hyperbolic, as I learned about this site when they invited me to participate in a debate next week. Still, it alerted me to its existence and gave me cause to take a walk around. The debate section is called Bloggerheads, and hosted a debate last week between Bridget Crawford of Feminist Law Professors and Darren Rosenblum, a professor at Pace Law School also listed as a feminist law professor. The topic of debate was the criminalization of indoor prostitution. It fell somewhat short of lawprof mudwrestling.
There is also a forum section, which at the moment consists of a single post by the website administrator. You have to register to post a comment in the forum. It appears that they have not yet had a mad rush of people registering.
Starting tomorrow, Paul Lippe will be debating Florida State LawProf J.B. Ruhl on the subject of the future of law school. I stuck my nose into the debate, which was the apparent source of their interest in my being a third wheel. Unfortunately, my upcoming week is already booked, and the likelihood of my finding time to play in their sandbox on top of my own was slim.
I love the idea of head to head debates. While the mechanics of debating issues across blawgs works fairly well, and allows blawgers to engage each other on their own terms, putting it all in one place has the advantage of allowing readers to go straight throw the action, post by post, without having to switch blawgs. Of course, it suffers from the awkward positioning problem, where the last post is atop its predecessor, requiring one to scroll down to find the initial post and reading down to up, but that’s the nature of the beast (though it doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it to be, Bloggerheads guys).
However, for this to be worth a second look, it’s got to offer a whole lot more debate than demonstrated in the Crawford/Rosenblum lovefest. If this is going to turn out to be one of those brutally civil, bordering obtuse, highly-nuanced-type contests that lawprofs are so enamored of, then it should die a swift and painful death. They aspire to be boring. If bloggerheads is going to pit lawprof against lawprof, by and large, then I hope they rented the office furniture on a short term lease.
On the other hand, if this is to be a forum for vigorous debate, it may have a chance. But that means that the participants will need to be willing to write clearly, express their disagreement and positions in forceful terms and, most importantly, reflect opposite point of view. It means that they can’t blow kisses at one another and spend most of their time expressly their undying love and respect for their opponent. If you want a debate, then have a debate.
Whether Bloggerheads has any blogging legs has yet to be seen. Certainly, the initial infatuation with lawprofs as “leading experts” bodes poorly for getting anyone other than fellow lawprofs to care, and they already have enough of their own blogs to blow kisses at each other.
Ironically, Public Square announces that it has been set up as a not-for-profit. I don’t think they have to worry about that, unless they are able to get some robust debate going. And if they want to get any juices flowing, they would do better to take their lead from Dan Aykroyd.
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They might do better to make a rule that says they’re always having a face-off (pun intended) between a law prof and a practicing attorney.
One could argue about how things should be; the other, what they’re really like. One could extol the wonders of the American system of justice; the other could opine how nice it would be to have one.
That would definitely be one way to make it more interesting, and the Lippe/Ruhr debate may be just that. I hope it works out well.