: Re: Convincing argument about something I don't agree with In my dystopian novel, Day, the son of a fascist dictator, is trying to convince Analise, a young genetic mutant oppressed under said fascist

@LarsenBagley300

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There's this really amazing scene from the 2000s cartoon Justice League that shows this brilliantly. Essentially, the League make contact with an alternative Universe version of themselves that have taken a sterner hand in their "heroics" to the point where they are the villains of the episode. It was important for the audience to understand, they didn't make a universe where evil wins and good loses... this was effectively the same universe up until the "Justice Lords" decided they needed to get tougher. One of the most brilliant ways they did this was a scene where the League!Batman and the Lord!Batman were in a fight and both were perfectly capable of anticipating the other... during the fight they debate the philosophies of each other until Lord!Batman drops the one argument League!Batman coudln't counter: "We've created a world where no 8 year old child ever has to grow up alone because of some punk with a gun."

It's so effective, League!Batman, the man who has battle plans against the moon, just in the off chance the moon goes rogue, has no counter argument to this and yields the fight. The point of the scene was to highlight that these weren't different characters, they were the same, and Lord!Batman was as much Batman as League!Batman was. The scene was written by one of the more contensious writer's rooms sessions in the entire show, which divided the writing staff into two camps and had one camp argue League's POV and Lord's POV. The debate got quite heated, and people were getting really angry that the their opponent wouldn't admit the other was write... until the Lord Camp used the same line and the room went silent... everyone agreed that it was the winning argument... even though everyone wanted (or even needed, given that good guys win in cartoons) League Batman to win.

In order to properly debate, you need to know the other's side so well, that you could argue for the side you disagree with. Any debate teams and mock trial teams would often require you to prep both arguments and you would only know which side you were on the day of the the actual competition. The entire origin of the term "Devil's Advocate" originates in this concept and was a historical part of naming someone to Sainthood in the Catholic Church. It was the Devil's Advocate's Job to present an argument as to why the potential saint was not deserving of the title... essentially, presenting the argument of the devil himself. The role requires a separation of two seemingly similar convictions... that an advocate's job is to present his client's best arguments in his client's stead, and his own personal convictions.

I highly recommend that, specifically for your topic, you look into some of the major supreme court cases such as National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie and Snyder v. Phelps (though do not stop there... Other cases on Free Speech Cases are very important and generally very interesting reads) specifically from the arguments of Village of Skokie and Snyder... they're points are good arguments that were ultimately determined to be not consistent with Free Speech in the United States (which is arguably the most Liberal Nation in the world with respect to the matter). A quick warning, the cases were major wins for Freedom of Speech, but you won't like the people who won (The American Nazi Party and the Phelps Family... as in the Westboro Baptist Church people).

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