Rarely do debates become the object of critical scrutiny. That is the case probably because they are often viewed as public and publicized banter rather than rigorous discourse. The most likely reason, however, is that debates, oft-times regarded as critically thin and rhetorically heavy, usually end or seem to end at an impasse. The debate unfolds as a dialectic that remains suspended rather than resolved in any clearly satisfactory way. Depending on who the audience is, both sides seem to be right and wrong—at the same time. If most debates pause or end in suspension, they seldom experience or manifest distension as the debate’s inner dynamic quickly allocates any particle of pressure into a neat locus of productivity or improductivity. Thus, the debate operates in an economy of gain and loss. In distension, however, there is neither gain nor loss. Pressure creates more space that conversely enables a new type of visibility, which strikes down the notion that right and wrong can coexist spatially and temporally. Distension creates more room for the critical gaze to zoom in to show that if both sides can be right and wrong at the same time, then, both sides prove to be not so discrepant after all. Distension can be richly productive.
Realism 