Indeed, indeed. To contribute to the jibberish, we might all puff our pipes and ponder this musing from writer Samuel Johnson, who had a great deal to say on this very issue of spirited debate (and by god i think he's onto something!):
"It cannot but be extremely difficult to preserve private kindness in the midst of public opposition, in which it will necessarily be involved a thousand incidents, extending their influence to conversation and privacy. Men engaged, by moral or religious motives, in contrary parties will generally look with different eyes upon every man, and decide almost every question upon different principles. When such occasions of dispute happen, to comply is to betray our cause, and to maintain friendship by ceasing to deserve it; to be silent is to lose the happiness and dignity of independence, to live in perpetual constraint, and to desert, if not to betray; and who shall determine which of two friends shall yield, where neither believes himself mistaken, and both confess the importance of their question? What then remains but contradiction and debate? and from those what can be what can be expected but acrimony and vehemence, the insolence of triumph, the vexation of defeat, and, in time, a weariness of contest, and an extinction of benevolence? Exchange of endearments and intercourse of civility may continue, indeed, as boughs may for a while be verdant when the root is wounded; but the poison of discord is infused, and though the countenance may preserve its smile, the heart is hardening and contracting."
Johnson: Rambler #64 (October 27, 1750)
EDIT: also including a picture of the fine gentleman author himself, he looks to be quite baked and pondering whether to purchase puffed cheese or popped tarts!
I curse this man for writing the dullest memoir I have ever had the misfortune of reading.
