Amateur Psychoanalysis
Why is it that every time I am involved in a discussion here and strangers come wandering in, their response to my request for a rational explanation of a position contrary to mine is to claim that I think I am the only person who is capable of thought, or that I think I can't be wrong? Wouldn't the logical, and in the long run less volatile, response be to provide the explanation I sought.
I will not argue that I get passionate about things. And some of those topics, like my on going gay rights arguments, are very important to me. Very emotional for me. One of the most difficult elements in these issues is trying to get past built in prejudices with logical discourse. Something that frequently seems like it is a waste of time.
Yet every time I request someone to give me an argument that makes sense, they turn around and accuse me of refusing to acknowledge that someone else could be right. They accuse me of arrogance, or acting on some past hurt or any other thing to eliminate the concept that I am thinking about the issue. To minimize me in what I can only assume is a defensive gesture because they can't support their own side. I can only assume that because they don't.
However I will say that I am sick of people coming here and deciding to address what they think they know about me, instead of what we are actually discussing. So I will issue this statement now. If you come here looking for a fight, you will get it. If you come here looking for a conversation, you will get it. How will I determine which you are looking for? Simply by looking at whether you are discussing the topic or me. Because you may know the topic, but you don't know me, so the latter choice means you are just looking to piss me off. Odds are, you will succeed.
Just some observations on life, or something close to it.
I will not argue that I get passionate about things. And some of those topics, like my on going gay rights arguments, are very important to me. Very emotional for me. One of the most difficult elements in these issues is trying to get past built in prejudices with logical discourse. Something that frequently seems like it is a waste of time.
Yet every time I request someone to give me an argument that makes sense, they turn around and accuse me of refusing to acknowledge that someone else could be right. They accuse me of arrogance, or acting on some past hurt or any other thing to eliminate the concept that I am thinking about the issue. To minimize me in what I can only assume is a defensive gesture because they can't support their own side. I can only assume that because they don't.
However I will say that I am sick of people coming here and deciding to address what they think they know about me, instead of what we are actually discussing. So I will issue this statement now. If you come here looking for a fight, you will get it. If you come here looking for a conversation, you will get it. How will I determine which you are looking for? Simply by looking at whether you are discussing the topic or me. Because you may know the topic, but you don't know me, so the latter choice means you are just looking to piss me off. Odds are, you will succeed.
Just some observations on life, or something close to it.
posted by Wanderer at 3:00 PM
5 Comments:
steve,
having pissed you off previously I give you my word that i am only here intending not to piss you off.
sigh- i just read the comments on the previous post (which i should have done before making my first comment here) and feel compelled to say---oops.
I meant it as a joke, but under the circumstances it might not have carried that way. I forgot to add the little winky ;- ) indicating my comment was tongue in cheek.
I thought it would be more polite to explain than delete my comment.
Steve, you're being disingenuous. Laughably so, when you say that people only find a fight here if they provoke one. I've tried numerous times to engage you in friendly conversation, and you react to the most harmless comments like a big, mean dog whose chain has just been rattled.
And that pattern you describe? The one where you request a logical explanation of a viewpoint that differs from yours, and then the person irrationally turns around and accuses you of being arrogant or emotionally blinded? You're leaving out a couple of steps: the one where the other person presents numerous arguments, and the one where you shoot them all down as simply not good enough for you without actually answering them. I've never seen you acknowledge that any viewpoint that differs from yours has any merit, and it's hard to believe that you alone have the one right way of thinking in this world.
If it was anyone else but you, I would find it impossible to believe that you asked to be admitted to a group based around a religion that is not yours, they offered to start a new forum that would accomodate you instead, and you are insulted by that. Please, just get over yourself. You seem like a smart guy, and a promising writer. Many of us out here would like to enjoy interacting with you. But you make it hard.
(By the way, in this post, you are the topic. So you can't say I'm spoiling for a fight by talking about you.)
You are correct in your parenthetical comment at the end. However, your comments here lead to the gulf between our understandings of the world. When I "shoot down" the other arguments I am engaging in the conversation, if we are on opposite sides this should be going on in both directions. In our personal arguments I am sure I can get much support for the fact that my chief complaint was that you wouldn't back up your statements. Yet you claimed despite many verbose responses on my part covering every angle of what I was saying I hadn't done the same. Then you claimed I thought I was the only one who was right.
As was the case in this most recent argument referenced, I asked you primarily to explain one point. As in this last case, it was avoided until the accusation against me. Further, when I turned from the narrowed scope of your argument to the larger portion of mine, having difficulties with the one point, you ignored the larger scope and focused on the unfounded narrowed portion.
I will admit that part of the situation is that I am a blunt individual, and most people assume that when one responds bluntly, emotion is involved. This is not always the case. Rarely in my case. I call a spade a spade. When I say I think someone might not be supplying the argument because there isn't one, and that they don't realize the prejudice that drives them, this is not intended as an insult, it is an observation of a possibility when the explanation is lacking.
Many people have had many discussions with me, and both sides have benefited from it. It is the small minority of you who make no attempt to see that my attempt at logical discourse is that, and the quickest way to anger me is to remove logic from your discourse.
I think you are probably referring to the gay marriage blowout back in the spring.
As I remember it (and I'm not going to go back and re-read all those dizzying miles of posts) your many verbose statements consisted mainly of variations on "you're stupid/you're a bigot/you have no idea how to think for yourself without propaganda" and yet they didn't actually present any evidence to disprove what I was saying (or, more importantly, to prove that it was not rational, independent thought). To me, if there's name calling involved, it's a fight rather than a conversation.
And I'd like to point out that the whole mess got started in the first place because I posted a comment expressing my SUPPORT for the main point of your original blog post.
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