Posted by
Steve Smith on
May 17, 2010; 12:58am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/WARNING-Political-Argument-in-Progress-tp5060628p5063290.html
Nick -
>
> re: argument vs discussion
>
Perhaps we should "rethread" again. Owen is our strongest advocate for
thread hygiene, I will defer to his opinion, if this is enough of a
discursion to warrant re-threading.
> Point taken. I guess the distinction between the two is that in an
> argument, each protagonist knows in advance where he hopes to come out,
> whereas in a true discussion, nobody knows where they are going to come
> out.
Precisely. Well stated. I was not poking at you with this disctinction
by the way... I was poking at precisely what you elaborate nicely below...
> I like to be a realist, as you know,
I've seen you on both sides of this one, but I acknowledge your capacity
and interest in such ;)
> and I think people mostly argue, in
> the sense that their highest motive is to protect their own minds against
> having to change.
I agree that this is a common experience around argument... one I've
often succumbed to myself.
> Changing one's mind on anything important is HARD, NASTY
> work, and we all resist it. However, the moment AFTER we have changed our
> minds, when we suddenly see the world in a different light and some things
> fall into place that didn't before, is like a revelation. It's almost
> sexy. Definitely a bifurcation, here.
>
You have nailed something very important here. It *can be* hard, nasty
work. It can also be glorious, freeing work.
As I have aged, I have gone through phases of more or less receptivity.
An Annealing Schedule perhaps, for the machine learning types here.
The times when I had come to a point in my well-earned opinions were no
longer serving me so well, and I found a new paradigm or a new mentor
(too often by reading, not in-person) I was astounded at the shifts in
world-view possible, and the rewards in them. Once the tectonic plates
of my crustal mind gave up their stress and found a new configuration,
there was a period of wonderful self-awareness and adventure in coming
to understand the new landscapes of my mind. Then the ambiguities,
contradictions and such would begin to build again, leaving me to
stubbornly ignore other's differing opinions and advice and to choose
arguement over discussion for the reasons you give above.
And then another shift would take place. A few times, my massive
missives here represent some kind of "come to realize" that the
discussions here have spurred in me. I'm not sure I always give credit
to the numerous folks here who have helped to lead me out of my
stubbornness... the nature of this forum is that I can listen (lurk) a
lot and only chime in when I have a "come to realize", often pretending
that I perhaps "knew this all along". Not that I don't sometimes chime
in arbitrarily with low quality signal/noise.
> The trouble with calling these things "discussions" is that it allows us to
> pretend to ourselves that our deepest selfprotective instincts are not
> engaged, whenever we talk about something important. There is nothing
> worse than arguing with somebody who is pretending to be (or worse,
> actually is) disaffected.
> Sophists should be shot!
This is why I carry a soda straw in my pocket... you can most always find a bit of paper to chew on and make a glorious spitwad. One good puff and the Sophist is rewarded for his or her disaffected style!
This perhaps is one reason I don't attend FRIAM often (a question left to the reader as to whether I don't want to be faced with smacking some of you with spitwads, or fearing that one of you will take the same tactic with me).
All arguments are more fun when they involve appropriately benign but irritating projectiles. Just go watch the monkeys in the zoo.
- Steve
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