capefeather said:
Well, so far, it seems to me that useful discourse grinded to a halt as soon as this petty exchange between Kristoph/von/valk/myzozoa/idek started.
The reason it ground to a halt is that people like Pwnemon felt more interested in policing the theatrical flair of the posts in question than they did in addressing their content (which was all pretty calculated and meaningful, I thought!). This is exactly what you did with the bingo card, by the way. It's also identical to people being swayed by speakers they find "charismatic" who in actuality provide zero argumentative substance (just in reverse). Pretty disappointing that you would fall into such a ubiquitous rhetorical trap, I guess.
The rest of your post is mostly unrelated to what anyone is talking about. No one is saying that you have to agree with people who believe different things from you, and I don't know why you even brought that up. What I am saying is that intentionally targeting someone's message not[/i] for its content, but purely for its presentation, is one of the least constructive things you could ever do in a debate. It is equivalent to saying "it is better to be cordial and wrong than expressive and correct." I think maybe Thomas Jefferson said that or something.
Even worse--and this is the actual main point of my last post-- is criticizing someone's message specifically on a personal, emotional level. Like if you say that it's stupid of me to mar my posts with humor and theatrics or whatever, that's no big deal. I don't take that personally and I'm not offended by it, I just think it's extremely counterproductive to any sort of discussion. But if you say that it's wrong of someone to
express anger at an idea that they find personally abhorrent, then that's a subtle form of personal attack, and that's something that offends me. It's also exactly what you implied when you said, among other things, that "What you've described is constructive because the other person's just saying their views in a matter-of-fact manner." So if someone states their views in an upset,
non-matter-of-fact manner, that's
not (or at least less) constructive?
Again, I personally
do not have emotional outbursts when someone disagrees with me, even when it's about something extreme like racism or homophobia. I think emotional expression is largely
less effective as a persuasive 'tool' than calm dispassion. I am also
not saying that I would be happier if everyone went out and started screaming in everyone's faces about second-hand smoking or gay rights or whatever.
All I am saying is that, when someone
does have an emotional response to something, it should be respected whether you agree with them or not. I respect the emotional outrage someone feels when they're racially discriminated against, even if I don't share it. I also completely welcome and accept the emotional outrage felt by, say, members of the Westboro Baptist Church. That's because my disrespect for them begins and ends with the
actual substance of their message (as well as some of the legitimately hurtful things they end up imposing on others as a
result of their outrage, but that's another story). I would never even think of criticizing them on the basis that they are activists for a cause they honestly believe in, or that they are "upset." Why would I? The alternative is to stifle and criticize someone's message for unrelated,
personal reasons-- which is the definition of an Ad hominem argument. Is this really your "civil discourse"? Can we not dismantle bad arguments by focusing on the actual "argument" part?
Pwnemon said:
While sarcasm and "theatrics" (condescension, angry outbursts, ad hominem, strawman, etc.) may be glossed over in an irl debate,
What? They totally wouldn't be. That's exactly the problem.
capefeather said:
I ultimately don't see the difference between "yelling at people for supporting things you are totally morally opposed to" and straight-up forcing your beliefs on others
presented without comment