Social media encourages us to have a comment. It encourages us to react, to “engage.” But of course, it’s not real engagement – there is no looking into one another’s eyes, no listening to the tone of voices alongside the words said.
I welcome dialogue with my students, with my friends and colleagues. Dialogue isn’t debate – it’s being open to new ideas when you engage with another person. Debate is sport, it’s a competition. I loved this recent image outlining the differences on Instagram
A long time ago I disabled commenting on this website. Part of that is that 99% of the comments were spam that I had to manage; but the remainder were people not looking for a dialogue but looking for a debate. There are lots of ways to have that conversation, but a comment thread isn’t the place.
Let’s dialogue! But let’s not have a debate. No comment.