Hi John, Agreed, there is little intelligent criticism, and much virulent vitriol on MD.
In fact I was tempted to respond to this from Arlo .... "...As I tell students I work with, the simplest progression is "A said B. A was wrong about B. This is why A was wrong about B. I propose C instead of B. Here's why C is better." Each step in this progression is subject to examination for accuracy, and you can't conflate criticism with one step as criticism for another (or all)." That this is the problem. It's all criticism, the cart before the horse. Nothing before the disagreement. Whereas, these are the rhetorical habits we should really aspire to: QUOTE This excerpt from neurologist-philosopher Daniel Dennett's new book Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking lays out a set of rhetorical habits that I immediately aspired to attain: How to compose a successful critical commentary: 1. Attempt to re-express your target's position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your target says: "Thanks, I wish I'd thought of putting it that way." 2. List any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement). 3. Mention anything you have learned from your target. 4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism. And if that wasn't enough: "whenever you see a rhetorical question, try – silently, to yourself – to give it an unobvious answer. If you find a good one, surprise your interlocutor by answering the question." And then, "A good moral to draw from this observation is that when you want to criticise a field, a genre, a discipline, an art form …don't waste your time and ours hooting at the crap! Go after the good stuff or leave it alone." UNQUOTE Criticism is to be used very, very, very, very sparingly, and only after 1, 2 and 3 are established in the conversation. Regards Ian 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
