![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
on argument
Jul. 18th, 2005 08:06 amSome time ago I addressed some principles for persuasive discourse in public places.
Fred Clark, and Patrick Nielsen Hayden (The Slacktivist and Making Light respectively (though Making Light is now a collective) recently weighed in on what merit balance serves.
More to the point, as I also said some time ago, balance isn't always needful; when something is patently wrong, one may say so.
As Fred says, Rogers is a stand-up comedian, and therefore an honest man. What is the duty of an honest man when confronted with the ridiculous? What else but to meet it with ridicule? To defend the ridiculous in the name of civility is uncivilized. Civility requires honesty, and honesty often requires that the ridiculous be ridiculed and the laughable be laughed at. This is a form not only of honesty, but of justice. Justice can, of course, be tempered by mercy, and charity can transcend justice, so it need not always be a sin to refrain from the duty of ridicule. But sometimes it really is.
While we're briefly on the subject of such ridicule, it's probably necessary, yet again, to point out that an insult and an ad hominem argument are not the same thing. The latter is a logical fallacy (often merged with a nice bit of question-begging circular reasoning); the former is a sometimes-rude, sometimes delightfully honest bit of classification.
I reserve the right to fulfill the honest person's duty to ridicule the ridiculous. In our long-running encounter with the Left Behind series of books, for example, I will engage the books arguments wherever possible, and also where possible construct arguments in support of my criticism. But engagement and argument are not possible in the face of transcendent absurdity and ridiculousness. When faced with that, our obligation is to point and laugh. This is what Rogers does with the liberal-and-therefore-anti-American-Hollywood nonsense.
Patrick's take on it was just as pointful. I’m reminded of the number of times I’ve seen modern reporters and editors announce that they get flak from angry right-wingers and angry left-wingers alike, so they “must be doing something right”. (If I had LEXIS/NEXIS I could probably compile pages of links to media professionals regurgitating this odious cliché.) In 1859, many Americans were angry about slavery, and many other Americans were angry about the idea of limiting slavery. You know something? The justice of the matter wasn’t “halfway in between.” Quite the contrary, the radicals on one side were pretty much entirely right. Slavery was wrong.
As always, one should go forth and read the comments. Heck you can even add a few, I doubt they'll mind.
Fred Clark, and Patrick Nielsen Hayden (The Slacktivist and Making Light respectively (though Making Light is now a collective) recently weighed in on what merit balance serves.
More to the point, as I also said some time ago, balance isn't always needful; when something is patently wrong, one may say so.
As Fred says, Rogers is a stand-up comedian, and therefore an honest man. What is the duty of an honest man when confronted with the ridiculous? What else but to meet it with ridicule? To defend the ridiculous in the name of civility is uncivilized. Civility requires honesty, and honesty often requires that the ridiculous be ridiculed and the laughable be laughed at. This is a form not only of honesty, but of justice. Justice can, of course, be tempered by mercy, and charity can transcend justice, so it need not always be a sin to refrain from the duty of ridicule. But sometimes it really is.
While we're briefly on the subject of such ridicule, it's probably necessary, yet again, to point out that an insult and an ad hominem argument are not the same thing. The latter is a logical fallacy (often merged with a nice bit of question-begging circular reasoning); the former is a sometimes-rude, sometimes delightfully honest bit of classification.
I reserve the right to fulfill the honest person's duty to ridicule the ridiculous. In our long-running encounter with the Left Behind series of books, for example, I will engage the books arguments wherever possible, and also where possible construct arguments in support of my criticism. But engagement and argument are not possible in the face of transcendent absurdity and ridiculousness. When faced with that, our obligation is to point and laugh. This is what Rogers does with the liberal-and-therefore-anti-American-Hollywood nonsense.
Patrick's take on it was just as pointful. I’m reminded of the number of times I’ve seen modern reporters and editors announce that they get flak from angry right-wingers and angry left-wingers alike, so they “must be doing something right”. (If I had LEXIS/NEXIS I could probably compile pages of links to media professionals regurgitating this odious cliché.) In 1859, many Americans were angry about slavery, and many other Americans were angry about the idea of limiting slavery. You know something? The justice of the matter wasn’t “halfway in between.” Quite the contrary, the radicals on one side were pretty much entirely right. Slavery was wrong.
As always, one should go forth and read the comments. Heck you can even add a few, I doubt they'll mind.
