Gripping as a narrative, and deeply moving to those who know of Becket. Perhaps better, it is a story of a scholar doing his meticulous best to disprove his own hypothesis.
We need so much more of that in every discipline. My attitude has always been that if I can't argue against my own case as well as I can argue for it, I don't really know my case.
You're right. Certainly on Hacker News I find it nearly impossible to raise a principled opposition to something, even if I'm just playing devil's advocate. Seems like no matter how I try to phrase things they're apparently taken as personal attacks (not certain of this, because the vast majority of my downvotes are made with no feedback). I should be used to it by now, but because the minds on HN are so keen in so many other ways it's extra disappointing.
I appreciate your opinion on this and I don't quite understand it.
What if the arguments against something are simply dramatically weaker than the arguments for it? Does that still mean you really don't know your case? In my experience, sometimes (often) there really is a very clear winner, though my experience does not include anything historical at all.
It's quite fascinating to know a book that was created in Italy c. 600 CE for St Augustine still exists today, some 1,420 years later and is also in the same collection at Cambridge.
We need so much more of that in every discipline. My attitude has always been that if I can't argue against my own case as well as I can argue for it, I don't really know my case.