Countering

Many academic writers, including myself, have a tendency to try and prove another view point wrong rather then counter it. According to Harris, the aim of countering is to use another text's faults to create or refine a new line of thought. I could relate to Harris's example when he wrote a paper for graduate school, and his professor responded by saying, "Why are you spending so much time discussing the work of somebody you seem to think isn't very bright?". My senior English teacher and I had extrememly different view points. I believe that the principles of countering can also be applied in a discussion. We read Heart of Darkness and Empire of the Sun Mr. McBride and I frequently disagreed about the way the novels should be analyzed. For the first half of the semester we argued mulitple times a week, but there was never any resolution. After a few weeks I began to 'counter' his stance, rather then just argue with him. I'm not sure if his opinion changed in the slightest, but I know mine did. I still don't agree with him, but when I used the positive adn negative aspects of his views to refine my way of thinking I came to new conclusions that I never would have developed on my own. When we counter rather than argue we are able to develop new ways of thinking, which in my opinion, is the entire objective of academic study.
When considering the concepts of countering, I found a really interesting blog on the Daily Dish. A few months ago the records of a conversation between Thatcher and Gorbachev that took place two months before the fall of the Iron Curtain was released. In it Thatcher stated, “A destabilization of Eastern Europe and breakdown of the Warsaw Pact are also not in our interests.” In the blog "Margaret Thatcher, Secret Defender of Soviet Security" on September 10 the author underhandedly attacked the former Prime Minister for the above statement. The blogger simply stated, "...what's interesting is to see Thatcher, a neocon idol, acting in such brutally realist fashion. Toryism, even Thatcherism, is not neoconservatism, is it?". Although this does not seem particularly aggressive, the blog is topped by a picture of Bush awarding Thatcher with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In the contradiction, lies the biting critisicm. In response to the first blog, a second blog defended the same quote made by Thatcher twenty years ago. The author compared Thatcher to a cop in a room full of hostages trying to calm down a criminal with a loaded gun. Rather then try and argue with the previous blogger, the second blog took the same quote and countered the other writer by providing more history and background information to put the same quote into a different context. By doing this the blog was able to better accomplish its goal of defending Thatcher then if he had just argued the points made by the first author.