The thing that strikes me more and more—and it strikes a lot of other people, too—is the extraordinary viciousness and dishonesty of political controversy in our time. I don't mean merely that controversies are acrimonious. They ought to be that when they are on serious subjects. I mean that almost nobody seems to feel that an opponent deserves a fair hearing or that the objective truth matters as long as you can score a neat debating point.

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.

....death stills the bitterest controversy.

Controversy... What Controversy?

Even with objective metrics in hand, the argument about which is better or which is worse without first establishing a common standard creates nothing more than debate.

There aren't any even halfway reasonable dogmas around nowadays, not one that doesn't offend or outrage either the intellect or the intuitions.

Consciousness becomes a matter of philosophical debate; it's not scientifically reliable.

There is no shortage of disputes.

Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss.

At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.

All of them cite that toxic spew, even though there’s not a syllable of supporting evidence. Because the controversy itself became news. Save a country, save a world, save a child—it doesn’t matter. You don’t need proof or even evidence to burn down a man’s soul. All you need is accusation.

Controversial' as we all know, is often a euphemism for 'interesting and intelligent.

Disputes with men, pertinaciously obstinate in their principles, are, of all others, the most irksome; except, perhaps, those with persons, entirely disingenuous, who really do not believe the opinions they defend, but engage in the controversy, from affectation, from a spirit of opposition, or from a desire of showing wit and ingenuity, superior to the rest of mankind. The same blind adherence to their own arguments is to be expected in both; the same contempt of their antagonists; and the same passionate vehemence, in enforcing sophistry and falsehood. And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles.

But in vitriolic conflicts there is neither appropriateness nor proportion, so the arguments of history and justice become lost in vengeance.