Calmly and carefully engaging with someones claims on an intellectual plane is a sign of respect. Unfortunately, it shows respect both for the person and for the claims. Sometimes, its important to mark a claim as ridiculous without seeming to personally attack or condemn its proponent. The proponent might not be at fault for the mistake, even if its a big mistake. Or ey might be at fault, but you have goals in the conversation other than allocating blame and/or shame. For example, you might care more about teaching evolutionary biology than about mocking a creationist; but how can you critique the creationists ideas in an interesting, informative way without obscuring the magnitude of creationisms silliness? You might also want to act in a way that models your conversational ideals. If you act verbally abusive and antagonistic toward people who are Especially Wrong, you might make those instances of wrongness go away. But youll also be teaching onlookers (who may be much less restrained or discerning) to be similarly abusive and antagonistic to anyone they •think• is Especially Wrong. The way you act helps shape the way others act, so its wise to pick actions that can be safely and productively emulated by people who are much less wise than you. We need a way of clearly indicating how lacking-in-merit we think a claim is, thats consistent with fairly and patiently critiquing the claim, and with treating the claimant like a human being. What are some ways yall try to express that? Or: Whats a norm you think we could try out that would make this easier to express?
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 23:51:50 +0000
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