Posted by chujoe on July 23, 2010, at 7:42:36
In reply to Re: argument, posted by Dinah on July 23, 2010, at 7:19:05
>>Isn't it possible to have discussion, and even argument, without criticizing statements?<<
No. That statement is wrong, at least if you accept 2000 years of rhetorical theory going back to Aristotle. The prohibition has always been against ad hominem arguments. For instance, if I said, "Anyone who thinks that is an idiot," that would clearly be out of bounds. Beside, if we followed your suggested procedure and merely posted what we think is correct, two consequences would follow, both of which lead to intellectual sloppiness: 1) We are prevented from making global judgments about right and wrong; 2) In reality, all we'd be doing is covering our judgment with a PC fig leaf because by posting what we believe is right we'd be implying anyway that the previous position was wrong.
I am in favor of friendly, supportive discussion and fair argumentation; but the current system of social control at Psychobabble leads to (often unintentional) forms of dishonesty. The great French psychoanalyst Jacques Lecan pointed out that all communities impose various forms of social control in the form of rules and regulations and customs, etc., but that some of those systems are transparent, so that people know that they are submitting to coercion in a given instance, while in other systems people internalize the rules to such an extent that the coercion becomes invisible to them. I like my coercion straight, no chaser.
poster:chujoe
thread:955458
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20100714/msgs/955583.html