Argument

For some people the word argument bears a negative connotation. For me there is only argument, argument in favor of this position or argument in favor of that position. There is an excellent essay, The Argumentative Jew, by Leon Wieseltier, in the Jewish Review of Books, Winter 2015. Wieseltier says: "...disagreement is not only real, it is also ideal..." "It is the aspiration of a mentality that is genuinely rigorous and genuinely pluralistic." "...we are not only permitted to make a quarrel, we are obliged to make a quarrel." "We are to learn to live with disagreement..." "pluralism" "...commitment to many-mindedness..." "It is never too late for a rational objection or a logical advance." This is the intellectual tradition that I grew up in, this is the tradition that I embrace.