Civilized polemics

This should be the beginning of the discussion. Doesn't matter who you are, what your family and income are. Your ideas and the force of your arguments matter.

RULES OF CIVILIZED POLEMICS
Established at the Oxford University, in 1890

In any scientific, social and politic polemics, the discussion should confine to the change of ideas and only at those ideas which have affinity with that issue.

The parties in polemics use as argument either scientific theories, or concrete facts, relevant in respect of the problem discussed.

The parties do not have the right to bring into discussion the opponent’s character, temperament or past, as those neither confirm, nor invalidate the validity of the ideas they assert.

The parties do not have the right to discuss the reasons which determine the opponent’s ideatic attitude, as he diverts the discussion from the issue itself.

Labeling the opponent by mentioning the thinking school, professional organization or political party he belongs to constitutes a violation of the polemics rules and proves the lack of arguments weakness.

In a civilized polemics it matters only the arguments brought by the opponent as a person and not as member of a school or organization. You are not right because you are a materialist thinker, an owner or a worker, but only if your arguments are convincing or not.