Hi Matt, good stuff, several points ... (1) Love or trust ... I introduced the word "love" with Nick Lowe's ironic quote, for attention-grabbing value - simply for the same effect, that it's a non-PC word in serious conversation .... in reality we are talking about trust, agreed. Though, now you mention it, what is so funny 'bout ... ;-)
(2) I don't believe any of the Socratic rules of debate apply unless there is a "stock" of trust either presumed or explicitly built up. Innocent until proven guilty or shown innocent. But of course once destroyed it's very tough to recover. (This is my main point) Anyone starting a conversation assuming mistrust is wasting everyone's time. (3) The "accidental" straw man - accidental misrepresentation. As you say I would preferentially always assume the latter (I'm a cock-up theorist not a conspiracy theorist) and very rarely (openly) accuse anyone of a deliberate straw man (even if I may suspect one) ...because trust is worth preserving (see above). (We're only talking about it now, even suggesting it in examples, because it's on the table.) (4) Once we have open accusations of motivated deliberate (weasely) misrepresentation, we have that topic on the table ... and I simply believe it is worth pausing to fix the lost trust, before returning to the contentious point(s). I do accuse dmb of not taking this point seriously - it may be water off a duck's back to him that half the people here don't seem to love him - but blood is thicker than water (gratuitous inappropriate metaphor alert.) Stick around Matt, we need your educated common sense. Ian On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 8:29 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey Ian, > > Ian said: > As I said in the other thread, by agreeing with Arlo aparently against > me, you were actually dis-agreeing with his straw man, not me, that > somehow I was suggesting we need to be some unconditional > love-in - nothing could be further from the truth. Trust and respect > have to be earned, and that starts by giving a little, getting inside the > other person (not just saying you're doing it). > > Matt: > I think you inflated a little bit my meaning in saying, "I also think Arlo > is right to think against Ian that love isn't the right thing to talk > about." I can grant your intention to have meant "love" in the poetic > sense I called nice for utopic formulas, and that Arlo may have > misperceived that intention (I have no sense one way or the > other)--I can grant both of those things, yet I still think that the word > "love" is the wrong word to use to name the object I'm concerned > with in this context. It seems your concerned with that same object, > which makes us jointly concerned with the same set of > consequences. I know you never meant a "love-in," but I think "love" > is the wrong way to formulate the issue, under which you also stick > "trust and respect." I wanted to say against that, that it does make > a practical difference at times to distinguish trust and love, as you > don't in this particular formula. > > I haven't articulated what practical differences and where they might > occur, but it's a supposition I would maintain. Perhaps you have no > particular truck with dubbing the object of this discussion "love" or > "trust," and think this is a nit upon which nothing hangs. Even that > being the case, rhetoric does matter, even if it isn't the rhetoric of > covering insults with insincerities. Rhetoric matters sometimes to > be able to see the right conceptual distinctions to make. Rhetoric > matters for intellectual, as well as social, reasons. And it's the > intellectual matter I'm concerned with in dubbing it "trust" against > "love," though this is to bring into better view our social > responsibilities. > > Might I also remind you of this passage from my post: "Straw men > have nothing to do with sincerity. The trouble is that accusing > others of _deploying one as a trick_ implies that they are > knowingly being malicious, are being insincere." You have not > done this. However, I find the attribution of a straw man a little > disarming in this context. I would think a straw man is something > built, and usually over time. Can we not get somebody wrong > without thereby building a straw man? > > Perhaps Arlo has been attributing this wrong intention to you for > some time (I again plead ignorance), in which case it makes > sense for you to call it a straw man (if, of course, you've also > spent time trying to correct him on this count, corrections gone > unheeded) and to say that I accidentally followed into its > conceptually scope makes sense. Granting all of that: I still can't > help but think that attributions of the straw-man fallacy create > more emotional hay than they do in helping clear the landscape of > misapprehensions (excuse my mixed metaphors). Too many fires > are lit from the remains, which just adds to our heat problem and > obscures our vision. > > Matt > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
