Blogs

Benjamin Faber

The Offense-defense paradigm is seriously flawed.  There’s no need to raise hackles; it certainly makes sense to distinguish, on an argument-by-argument basis, between a "plan doesn't do that" argument and a "plan prevents that" argument, i.e.  between a ‘no link’ and a ‘link turn’.  But as a paradigm, offense-defense is problematic, because it undervalues indicts.  Many common arguments that are actually powerful indicts of a position are casually swept away without solid refutation because they are "just defense”.