Two cheers for Robert Cavalier, writing “We have better ways to talk together than Charlie Kirk’s” (Oct.1). He makes a thoughtful case for why debate is not enough: by narrowing the focus of deliberation to a single proposition for debate, important considerations may be ignored simply because they don’t fit — i.e., not relevant to the debate proposition.

But Mr. Cavalier sets up a straw man when he ignores that Charlie Kirk was about more than debate. Kirk used debates not as ends in themselves, but as a way to start the conversation, to engage in the give and take of listening to each other.

Listening is everything, yet it is increasingly ignored in a world where I can cocoon myself in an echo chamber validating “my truth” rather than confront another point of view.

In an all-too-comm

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