I’ll get started on an interperetive dance describing the finer details of MES. Olevetto can do the brankdancing bits.
maybe it will be as popular as Keynes v Hayek rap…
I don’t think Rothbard has any recorded debates. Block has some, I think he is pretty close with Rothbard as far as political postions go. But I tend to agree with some of the sentiment on here that ones debating skill is not really related to ones actual knowledge in many cases.
No, Rothbard didn’t smack down people in debates. If you have seen him in videos, he could barely put together a cohesive sentence when prodded by live discussion. A fine writer, a terrible orator.
Rothbard and George Schuller:
1 - Schuller’s review of Human Action
3 - Schuller’s rejoinder to Rothbard
4 - Rothbard’s reply
“No, Rothbard didn’t smack down people in debates.”
Please source the debate you witnessed. Thanks.
“If you have seen him in videos, he could barely put together a cohesive sentence when prodded by live discussion.”
Yeah I’ve seen him in videos, he cut to the core of the issue every time.
“A fine writer, a terrible orator.”
My money is on him being a better orator than you.
So defensive. =p
Here’s an example, not of written debate, but of his speaking abilities.
Check him out at 8:55, I call that fumbling for words. I apologize for saying “terrible” and Rothbard in the same sentence. Sorry for somehow defaming your God-man. I was not saying he wasn’t intelligent or witty, just not a good speaker.
This is just my opinion. I generally have found his nasal voice off putting in the past, and more likely to put the listener to sleep than to educate them. I blame the body, not the brain.
EDIT: I thought this topic was about verbal debate, not written. I am sure he handled himself just fine when he had time to write it out.
tu quoque?
I don’t call that fumbling for words at all.
What’s telling is your inability to back up / source your statement that he was a bad debater.
That’s because you can’t. I’m merely suggesting it is completely disingenuous to make the claim he wasn’t, when you’ve never even seen him debate.
I’m not making the claim he was good, because I don’t know. And yet neither do you.
*"*tu quoque?"
Obviously not, since consistency has nothing to do with it. I’m merely offering added perspective.
Dondoolee, yes. Rothbard and Block have a lot in common, and they are both terrible speakers! Who 'thunk it? Check the Mises archives for his TV appearances. They would be funny if they weren’t so sad.
EDIT: Conza, as others have stated, there are no video taped (or audio either?) recordings of Rothbard debating. I’d be curious to see them and compare them to his mumble shuffle elsewhere. Still, from what opponents and witnesses have said I can say with only a hint of doubt that he was probably worse among enemies than he was among friends. I will take back all I have said and hang my head in shame if someone can show otherwise, but educated guesses are all we have for the moment.
I will add the Walter Block links in a sec, stay tuned.
And yet Walter Block and Rothbard appear to be the most prolific when it comes to enlightening people!
Who 'thunk it? [sic]
When introducing friends, many take very warmly to Walter Block lectures both because of his humor & presentation.
Of course consistency has something to do with it. You said, “My money is on him being a better orator than you.”
Why would Tp’s oratory even be a topic for discussion in this thread? You brought it up either as a tu quoque or a strawman. Either way, it isn’t good argumentation.
Clarified my above post.
I think you’re starting to lose the plot now. I don’t know much about Rothbard’s public speaking, but what little I have heard delivering lectures, and yes, he has a heavy brooklyn accent. Block less so. But I think Walter Block is a very serviceable speaker.
For you to set the standard so high, you’re really talking about maybe a tenth of a percent of all public intellectuals qualifying as good public speakers. Maybe you’re right by that standard, but I think that standard is ridiculous to begin with, because it excludes hundreds if not thousands of public intellectuals who educate people with discourse and rhetoric throughout their careers.
Who said it was to become a topic up for discussion?
The comment was a dig at the 'holier than thou’ type of attitude being displayed, which I don’t think is necessary.
And it wasn’t even close to being a strawman. I believe the word you are looking for is red herring.
@ tp
Futhermore in your example, Rothbard is simply recalling facts and history. He is not presenting an argument or counter-argument (as you do in a debate). And as such your attempted comparision fails remarkably.
Okay, here is Walter Block. By the end of the show they think he is a racist, not because of his ideas, but the way he describes them.
EDIT: They have him on a second time at a later date. http://mises.org/media/4208
Block made way more sense then the hosts!
I’ve seen Block speak in a debate before and he held his own quite well, I don’t care for his New York accent, but that isn’t his fault.
If he’s arguing with idiots, you cannot blame Block for the misrepresentations they themselves form. Some people are also just plain disingenuous. He’s not the best speaker but neither is he the worse.
Apparently he used to have meetings with anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin. And Murray Bookchin left because a lot of the communists on his side were converting to Rothbard’s side.
“Apparently he used to have meetings with anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin. And Murray Bookchin left because a lot of the communists on his side were converting to Rothbard’s side.”
Source?