Fireside Chat: Starting Rebuttals

I feel that I have been lacking in my Polemic writing as of late, mostly due to both the topic at hand and want to get as much information on the issue before I officially publish the essay on the matter. Until then, I was planning on having a couple of Polemics on smaller topics, like Shaun King wanting to remove statues of Jesus and pedophiles wanting to rename themselves “minor-attracted persons”. It was here that I ran into a little bit of a snag however, seeing that these smaller topics didn’t quite match to the research load necessary to my standards for my version of a Polemic. When I initially made the attempt of arguing the three biggest points for removing Jesus from the public squares, or the renaming of pedophiles, I couldn’t find anything which advocates were using for their sides of the argument, other than the constant touting of discrimination and racism. This makes it quite difficult for me to accurately write about both sides of the issue and come up with my conclusion in an objective fashion, thus forcing me to make a snap judgment if the opposing side does not attempt to offer anything during the debate. Therefore, I had to make a new format for a new essay system, one which I loathe, but one which will be necessary to tackle these one-sided, non-sourced arguments: The Rebuttal.

There are three reasons why I can’t stand this type of essay. One, I’ve always considered it the “lazy man’s” Polemic. There are many different styles, flares, and formats involved, but the overall layout of a Rebuttal is pretty much the same:

-Standard Open

-Discredit their points, one at a time

-Standard Conclusion

Since the layout is simple, most people just assume that this would imply that a proper Rebuttal would be simple to write. However, this is quite a popular fallacy, and is the second reason I don’t like them because YouTube is filled with critique videos that are cups running over with cringe! A proper Rebuttal should stick only to the topic at hand, offering solutions as it goes, not simply bashing another’s claims or making unsubstantiated claims, as doing so wouldn’t be a rebuttal so much as it would be simply a mirror of the very source material you were attempting to rebut in the first place. Finally, I abhor rebuttals which are not at least twice as well-sourced as the content being rebutted. This may just be more of a personal thing, but I cannot respect a Rebuttal if I don’t have confidence in the writer’s capability of researching the topic to the point where they could offer a substantial retort.

Moving forward, I plan on writing these Rebuttals when I am not ready to publish Polemics on Wednesdays, keeping to the above rules, with the hopes to shed some light on topics that do not deserve to be given the time and effort to be turned into a Polemic.