I think the “tradition of adversarial competitive rhetoric” is as much symptom as cause, and in particular I am doubtful about the statement “By training children in the tradition of adversarial competitive rhetoric, Western society trains its population to ignore context because in a debate, the map really is the territory.”
Here in the UK, for instance, there isn’t much of a tradition of adversarial competitive rhetoric. I don’t mean that there are no debates ever in schools, but they certainly aren’t a major element of education. (I don’t think I ever participated in or attended a debate at school, for instance.) I am not aware that Brits are any less contextualizing than Americans.
I think the “tradition of adversarial competitive rhetoric” is as much symptom as cause, and in particular I am doubtful about the statement “By training children in the tradition of adversarial competitive rhetoric, Western society trains its population to ignore context because in a debate, the map really is the territory.”
Here in the UK, for instance, there isn’t much of a tradition of adversarial competitive rhetoric. I don’t mean that there are no debates ever in schools, but they certainly aren’t a major element of education. (I don’t think I ever participated in or attended a debate at school, for instance.) I am not aware that Brits are any less contextualizing than Americans.