Does good debate=bad blogging?

The best advice I ever received about constructing a persuasive, fruitful argument:

Seldom affirm
Never deny
Always distinguish

I heard it from a bank executive in Chicago. He was taught it by Jesuits. I wonder, though, if their advice makes for low blog traffic.

I say this because one of my favorite bloggers-Rev. Donald Sensing-has a post up at Winds of Change on the dismal prospects on solo blogging.

AN "ARMY OF DAVIDS" OR A PLATOON?

His core argument is a good one. It takes a lot of time and effort to craft nuance, well-researched posts. It takes a steady flow of posts to build and maintain a high blog readership. Group blogs hold a real advantage here.

There is a short-cut to popularity. It begins by ignoring those three rules of argument. There are plenty of blogs that have good traffic and run on autopilot. They start out with the premise that Rummy is always right or that Bush is the worst president in history. They make liberal use of "wingnut' and "moonbat". They link to other sites just like their own blogs. Each community of blogs has a ready-made readership of intense partisans who like shallow arguments.

In his book The Fifth Discipline Peter Senge distinguishes between discussion and dialogue. Discussion (which is linguistically related to concussion and percussion) is about scoring points, winning, having our viewpoint prevail. Dialogue is a means of learning together. The blogosphere is increasingly about discussion and not dialogue.

I'll have a couple of follow-up posts on Rev. Sensing's post later.