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Refutation, the process of checking or critically exposing the other side of an argument made by another person or faction is so quintessential for a proper democracy to function. It is true that the cost paid for refutation is a slow and grueling process of decision making and law making. However, I think that that see-saw motion of the right and the left battling it out, or of any two sides taking issue with one another, is what proliferates truth and rationality (or what theoretically can do so.) Social rules in many cultures and religions, as pointed out by the textbook, look down upon the challenging of ideas, especially those who dare to challenge an elder or a person in authority. To encourage an inquisitive mind is a righteous undertaking. Though deferring to experts is needed at times, and elders have seen the sun rise and set far more than teenagers, inquisitive and often indignant minds are less likely to retreat in fear and cooperation to a tyrant or to the majority. Being ones own source of opposition is also a good exercise. Being able to acknowledge and then respond to the errors in ones own argument helps to substantiate the argument.

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