A Debate Where No One Wins

Debate is overrated as a method of arriving at truth when whatever strictly logical deductions that could be made in a debate can be known prior to the debate from reason and reflection alone, but it is also something that is only "won" by someone who uses no fallacies (in their beliefs, not just their rhetorical approach) and is interested in truth for its own sake instead of merely manipulating the perceptions of other people.  Irrational glorification of debate over looking to pure reason and sidestepping the need to listen to others--after all, anything knowable through reason and introspection could be accessed by anyone without debate and unprovable ideas (scientific models, promises of specific future events, and so on) are unprovable no matter who thinks of or articulates them--can distract people from realizing that there is a kind of debate no one wins.

A debate between two irrationalists is not won in an ultimate sense by either party; only the truth itself is victorious, and only a rationalist can know the truth about anything directly, intentionally, and thoroughly, having at least the potential to reach all knowable truths by starting from the epistemological infallibility of logical axioms.  A debater who uses fallacies and whose stances arise from assumptions does not "defeat" another fallacious, philosophically incompetent debater.  Neither side wins in such a debate because neither is actually aligned with the truth to any significant extent.  The only debaters in this context are pretenders, hypocrites, and other fools, all of them unworthy of being respected as intellectually competent.  Perhaps one is more consistent or less prone to make assumptions, but all of them are irrational.

There is nothing to celebrate in one imbecile doing somewhat better than another imbecile in a formal or informal debate.  Since all anti-rationalists and non-rationalists have no excuses for their irrationality (because reason being true is one of the only self-verifying, self-evident facts about reality, and it underpins all other facts), any debater who is not a rationalist already has little to nothing going for them in terms of deserving to be listened to or taken seriously.  There are degrees of greater or lesser stupidity, self-deception, and insincerity among non-rationalists, but the only debate won by a non-rationalist is over a random issue where they just happened to be rational, whether it was due to a happenstance correct conclusion or selective alignment with reason.

Debate is not ultimately about rhetorical manipulation, hiding behind the construct of language, or merely appearing better than an irrational opponent.  At its core, rational debate is about demonstrating truths, remaining consistent with verifiable starting points, and honesty motivated by concern for reality.  Anything else is a distraction from this or a distortion of it.  Whoever is on the side of truth, with or without the opportunity to debate another person, is in the position of superiority.  There is no such thing as a person winning a debate apart from this standing.  Irrational people do not "win" debates except by happening to be right when going against someone more irrational than they are, and even then their best efforts are incomplete and devoid of true enlightenment.