View Single Post
Old 06-02-2009, 10:26 PM   #77 (permalink)
FoolThemAll
Walking is Still Honest
 
FoolThemAll's Avatar
 
Location: Seattle, WA
Quote:
Originally Posted by filtherton View Post
Though it is interesting to note that your opening question exemplifies the type of debating style I'm attempting to avoid, in that you're clearly feigning ignorance with a question and your question is phrased in such a way so as to betray your contempt for whatever you're pretending to be ignorant about.
Sure, I'll cop to an instance of annoying style there. I do indeed have contempt for a style that responds to "Uh, that very thread counters your criticism" with "That's not the only thread that supports my criticism!"

Quote:
The thread I abandoned wasn't the our first conversation. We have a rich tradition of me saying something, you pretending like you don't understand what I'm saying so that you can ask a question about it. Then when I answer your question, you just respond with another question, ad infinitum, until I stop responding.
Nah, excepting that one snipe above, I can't remember an exchange between us where that was the case. It's not a matter of pretending, it's a matter of getting your unstated assumptions, headwork, and leaps into the open. When, for instance, you call those gay marriage falsehoods 'convenient', you're making an implicit claim as to whether opponents in general earnestly believed those falsehoods. And you're making that claim without being bold enough to outright say it, detail it, and defend it.

Quote:
The reason I abandoned the above-mentioned thread is that it finally dawned on me that there isn't any point in attempting to have a discussion when my every response is going to be met with some form of "but why?"
I'll point out again that my posts in that thread weren't exactly as homogenous as you portray. Consider that maybe the other posters were doing something that you weren't.

Quote:
And you're deluding yourself if you think you can pass off your questions as some sort of honest effort to get beyond some sort of lack of clarity on my part. The questions you frequently ask often drip with the kind of derision that would be completely out of place if all you were trying to do was understand my perspective.
You take issue with derision now? (Crap, did it again.)

It's entirely possible that you have some new angle on an issue that I hadn't yet considered and it would honestly be easier to see such an angle if you weren't so averse to my questions. In the interim, though, apparently shallow thinking phrased in shallow ways will tend to strike me as shallow. And here's a personal stake for that last issue: your shallow statement amounted to the idea that many of my friends and family are bigots, with all the ugly things that term connotes.

Quote:
Beyond that, your questions are typically leading, which to me means you think you already know the answer to them and are asking them to point the conversation in a particular direction.
Yes, that direction is the unstated - possibly unexamined - parts of your argument.

I won't complain if the light is shone on mine.

Quote:
Now, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. You're clearly intelligent, passionate and thoughtful. I'm just trying to explain to you why I'm not particularly inclined to engage you in message board discussions.
I'm not all that hurt by an attempt to rationalize a dodge via deflection - just annoyed.
__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.
FoolThemAll is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360