New Essay on The Zompist: 'On Arguing'

[matt_arnold]

Is there a lull in flamewars, or am I just not on the right forums anymore? Summer time, and the living is easy. So I choose now to post this. There's very little point in pointing out essays like this to anyone who is currently hunkered down in a fortress of defensiveness. They'd just feel you're making up rules to impose; and will promptly ask

Comments

[matt_arnold]

Yeah. There is weight to be pulled by both speaker and listener. Either one of them can unfairly carry all of it. When the only way to continue is to carry a disproportionate amount of the weight as an interpreter or clarifier, I ask myself how much I care about the outcome. Possibly I can carry on as if the entire section of the conversation is a wash.

Now, if they are more than just not carrying their weight, and are actively dragging in the other direction through hostile interpretation or slippery language, and I can't seem to get them out of it, I would only continue for masochistic purposes. It's like the Special Olympics: every time I have won, I was still retarded.

Case in point. I should tell stories some time about the home bible study I used to attend, which was an outreach for non-religious people. I got them to admit that in order for their supernatural premises to be true as they defined them, they would need to question each other's existence, their own existences, and whether reality exists. So as a last-ditch effort, they started considering that. I felt my work there was done.