B
BlueBeard
Guest
It can be so exhilarating when a discussion takes off, vigorously explores a topic, pushes the limits of our own beliefs regarding it – sometimes even helping us just learn what we believe. If the discussion hadn’t come up, we’d have never learned what we believe, never have had to articulate it. We grow from that – unless it’s something we “need” to believe.
But it can also mean some people feel stifled. Some may even feel bullied, as if it's about "winning or losing," someone trying to beat them into the ground. That’s no fun. No one here wants that.
So, what can you do when it feels you’re outgunned? One is to identity some tricks used ... let's say, not completely fairly ... by some in the thread. You don't have to become as aggressive as some others do, but realizing which cards they're playing actually have weight, and which ones are just flashy, might be all you need to hang in there, not feel so intimidated.
No, we don’t all have the luxury of a higher education, let alone one that includes courses in persuasion or debate. I did teach logic and argument for 24 years, and I was a debate coach for most of that, so maybe I can give a couple insights into common sleights of hand that really don't have merit on their own. They “should” either resonate with your own high school teacher’s lessons or college freshmen courses in rhetoric, or else just dismiss them as BlueBeard’s fantasies. That’s okay.
High IQ. There's one you've probably seen. It's handy to have one, but do you really think just flashing a number means highest number gets to speak, everyone else, sit down, be quiet?
Argument to authority
A similar bit of nonsense comes from people who repeatedly assert that either they are "experts" of some kind or that the person that they're citing is. Yet, their area of expertise has little to do with the subject at hand. A person with a degree in engineering or even has a PE (professional engineer certification) is probably really, really good in math and systematically solving physical problems -- yet has no more right to tell you who to vote for in the next election than anyone else on the street. Nor has a superior view on global warming. Nor on gun control. Nor on human sexuality. Period.
Don't be afraid of "degrees." Don't let letters behind a name shake you up too much.
Classroom jargon.
Oh oh. Someone had a course in argument. Or maybe not even a full course but a section from a composition course that introduced them to it. These are “highbrow” posters lean on their familiarity with some the language of logic and argument, mostly the "nicknames" for some common fallacies. Fallacies only mean that no one committed to the rules of logic is bound to concede a fallaciously derived conclusion.
Most "jargon leaners" actually have only a little knowledge of the terms, but they want to impress upon others they are "above them" in reasoning ability. Heck, maybe they just did a quick scan of “fallacies” in Wikipedia. Or maybe they've heard others using them. Don’t place too much stock in their assertions or dismissals, since use of jargon already means they aren’t interested in honest, clear communication. Their pomposity or highbrowism alienate anyone in earshot, isolating themselves from the discussion as "superior," and therefore, right. Low-level highbrow folks shoot down arguments with words like straw man and red herring. But they might whip out Latinate words. It's fun to know these things. And studying them can help you spot weaknesses in an argument faster. Yet, they don't mean a conclusion is "wrong." They just mean the way it was arrived it doesn't necessarily mean it's *right*. You can take any valid and reliable conclusion and *create* a fallacious way to arrive at it. It's still a sound conclusion.
So don't back down from someone who likes flashing fancy jargon as if they're laying down trump cards over your aces. Someone interested in honest discussion uses common language. They can explain why an argument isn't convincing them in a way that is most clearly understood by all those taking part. And if someone doesn't understand, they don't shame them for not being as "smart" as they are. They consider the misunderstanding is in part their own fault. They might apologize and then make adjustments, try again. Those who resort to fancy-sounding terms in a conversation with a general audience -- especially if they belittle people for not knowing the same terms they do -- that’s a huge clue about that person's character, their insecurities and motives. Their alienating jargon puts you “onto them.”
We are all human beings. Regardless of our scholastic achievement, we share certain cerebral abilities that can help us cut through the “noise” of people desperate to show us how superior they are. Poor things.
Google Meisters
Okay, next we have those folks who remind me of Neo on Matrix. Remember the scene where he opens his eyes while plugged into the machine and blurts out: "I know kung fu!" Just like that. It was downloaded into his brain. Well, we have something similar to the Nebuchadnezzar's library. We have Google (or whatever browser) letting us access anything ever uploaded to the World Wide Web.
That means we also have people who are masters of Google “one-upmanship.” They try to beat everyone else at being the first to dump URLs in a spur-of-the-moment hotlist. As if to end the argument like in a hotdog eating contest. "Winner!!!" Well, whoopty do. Do they actually “comprehend” what they just posted. (Most often not). They can *prove* that martians exist, since... they found it on the internet (actually, on the Web). Finding a page on the Web is not an argument in and of itself. That it seems to back up the poster's claim is not a sound argument. Cursory readings of a webpage are not substitute for solid education. Don't be scared off by hotlists. The Web is similar to the problem Bible bickerers have known for years: Anyone can prove anything with cherry-picked excerpts from either one.
They *might* be right, the posters. But a list alone shouldn't make you cower before them. What are the domains? Statistics given in a blog are not as reliable as statistics given by a educational institution posting results of its study. And the results get used differently by different sources. One doctor studying the brain mass and dimensions of nine cadavers noticed something similar of four brains belonging to men who happened to be gay. The doctor himself suggested this might be reason to do research on this difference. He did not say anything else. But it was reported by the media who got it in two very different ways: The doctor had just discovered proof that
Name-calling
Attacking the intelligence or character of the responder. Or the claim. "That's retarded." "You're stupid." "You're an idiot." "You're on drugs."
Nothing of persuasive weight here. Shrug it off. Even if you were the world's dumbest, stupidest, most retarded person high as a kite on drugs -- you could be right. Whether an argument is sound or not has nothing to do with the person who said it. Or even the way it first sounds to a person. That our own eyeballs project the world to our retinas upside down sounds completely wrong at first. But it's true. That you do *not* walk or run forward but are "pushed forward" by the normal force of the floor or ground resisting you sounds whacked. But the explanation is scientific fact.
Slanted language
Instead of using an emotionally neutral, more objective term, posters or respondent leverage the connotative bias of select pejoratives or euphemisms to gain an upper hand. A prostitute is not just a prostitute, a neutral term for her profession, but a "call girl" or "lady of the evening," if we see no wrong, but a "whore" if we do. Connotations are of words are not arguments but are like the butcher putting his thumb on the scale, appearing to add weight where this is no actual weight to add.
Denigrating condescension
Even been the victim of condescendingly apologetic posters? They say they’re sorry for not “adjusting their argument down to your level.” Nice, eh? Mighty fucking white of ‘em: “Oh, so sorry. Had I known you were so stupid and slow-minded, I would have dumbed my post down for you.” LOL. You can call that for what it is and blow it off. You might want to put these bastards on ignore. They are malicious.
Misrepresenting you and what you said
This is a great source of heartburn. You know, if you're like me, you don't mind that people disagree with what you believe, but you it really leaves a burning ember in your gizzard that they tell you what *you* think, and it isn't true. They misstate what your beliefs are, or misquote you, or take something that you said out of context, to make you look stupid. Blow it off. Or just simply say, "Nope, not what I said." Or, "Were you talking to me or someone else? Because that's not my opinion."
If they persist, count on this: Other people see what they're doing. You often don't need to argue back at all. If someone has been unfair to you, *everybody* saw it. People have their number. In fact, looked at from that perspective, you kinda sorta wanna have the forum's most malicious or incompetent responders after you. If the bad apples are dogging you, it must surely mean you'r one of the "good guys or gals."
HOTS ladder – Higher Order Thinking Skills
This might help you get a feel for whose opinions matter to you most. As teachers plan their courses in school, they aren't interested so much in students learning big, fancy words but in expanding their students' mental skillsets. That requires much more than mere lists of terms and their definitions. Teachers want students to be able to use apply concepts and thinking skills intelligently, to gain utility from them. So they give students practice that requires increasingly complex cognitive abilities, higher order thinking skills.
To be able to Google something and past it is a lower order skill, pretty much bottom of the list. You might want to hold off being impressed until you see demonstrations of greater facility with a term or concept.
Lowest to highest (first three, low order thinking skills; last three higher order thinking skills)
Hope this helps you. Have fun in the threads!
--
*Ditch digger's aren't all that uneducated today, since most ditches are now dug either by wireless remote-control earth-moving machines or by operators in climate-controlled cabs of high-tech rigs to precise grade and profile using GPS/GNSS-based software. No offense intended, ditch diggers.
But it can also mean some people feel stifled. Some may even feel bullied, as if it's about "winning or losing," someone trying to beat them into the ground. That’s no fun. No one here wants that.
So, what can you do when it feels you’re outgunned? One is to identity some tricks used ... let's say, not completely fairly ... by some in the thread. You don't have to become as aggressive as some others do, but realizing which cards they're playing actually have weight, and which ones are just flashy, might be all you need to hang in there, not feel so intimidated.
No, we don’t all have the luxury of a higher education, let alone one that includes courses in persuasion or debate. I did teach logic and argument for 24 years, and I was a debate coach for most of that, so maybe I can give a couple insights into common sleights of hand that really don't have merit on their own. They “should” either resonate with your own high school teacher’s lessons or college freshmen courses in rhetoric, or else just dismiss them as BlueBeard’s fantasies. That’s okay.
High IQ. There's one you've probably seen. It's handy to have one, but do you really think just flashing a number means highest number gets to speak, everyone else, sit down, be quiet?
- How was it measured? Actual IQ tests are typically administered by psychologists, and they are expensive. Depending on the test and the location, they can cost from several hundred dollars to nearly a thousand. They are only free to the taker if someone in a school or institution ordered it to be done. So a followup question might be, "Why was your IQ measured?" since it's not likely they laid down a lot of money just out of personal curiosity. Bottom line? Most people who brag about their IQ have never actually had a real IQ test. Some actually take a 20-question quiz someone passed on to them in Facebook and report the inflated score they get. Ask Mensa to see if a Facebook quiz qualifies for entrance. LOL (Someone brags about their high IQ? -- ask them how it was measured, the name of the test battery, when it was measured, where and why. Otherwise the number is meaningless.)
- Those who actually have a significantly higher than average IQ, actually have to put it to use. Hi IQ offers no advantage to people who sit on their laurels.
- High IQ doesn't mean the person is mentally or emotionally stable. Mentally ill people can have high IQs, too. Socially maladjusted people can have high IQs, too. If someone repeatedly refers to their IQ, if might be a case of clinging to dear life at the only thing they have going for them (real or not).
- Although in regard to general intelligence, the law of nature tends to be "correlation over compensation," some people exhibit the gifts of a savant in one specialized area but are quite daft in almost everything else. Similarly, high IQ and "gifted" aren't always the same thing. Someone who can almost eerily do complex math in their head without a calculator, recite pi to 1000 places -- might be unable to carry on an intelligible conversation, appearing "retarded" to others in casual encounters.
- Most importantly, in our threads, high IQ never grants any assurance that a person’s opinion is “right." Whether someone is smart or dumb does not change basic facts. Neither does it have any bearing on the validity or reliability of their premises or conclusions. "The cards speak for themselves," in other words. Or using another analogy, whether a brain car is a Geo or a Corvette, both can be counted on to take the driver to his or her destination. Eventually. The destination doesn't move.
- Neither is a high IQ proof someone *wants* to come to a fairly argued conclusion with you. After all, some serial killers have had high IQs, just saying. Malicious people might be more interested in "winning" the argument, in knuckling you under, than pursuing truth with you.
Argument to authority
A similar bit of nonsense comes from people who repeatedly assert that either they are "experts" of some kind or that the person that they're citing is. Yet, their area of expertise has little to do with the subject at hand. A person with a degree in engineering or even has a PE (professional engineer certification) is probably really, really good in math and systematically solving physical problems -- yet has no more right to tell you who to vote for in the next election than anyone else on the street. Nor has a superior view on global warming. Nor on gun control. Nor on human sexuality. Period.
Don't be afraid of "degrees." Don't let letters behind a name shake you up too much.
Classroom jargon.
Oh oh. Someone had a course in argument. Or maybe not even a full course but a section from a composition course that introduced them to it. These are “highbrow” posters lean on their familiarity with some the language of logic and argument, mostly the "nicknames" for some common fallacies. Fallacies only mean that no one committed to the rules of logic is bound to concede a fallaciously derived conclusion.
Most "jargon leaners" actually have only a little knowledge of the terms, but they want to impress upon others they are "above them" in reasoning ability. Heck, maybe they just did a quick scan of “fallacies” in Wikipedia. Or maybe they've heard others using them. Don’t place too much stock in their assertions or dismissals, since use of jargon already means they aren’t interested in honest, clear communication. Their pomposity or highbrowism alienate anyone in earshot, isolating themselves from the discussion as "superior," and therefore, right. Low-level highbrow folks shoot down arguments with words like straw man and red herring. But they might whip out Latinate words. It's fun to know these things. And studying them can help you spot weaknesses in an argument faster. Yet, they don't mean a conclusion is "wrong." They just mean the way it was arrived it doesn't necessarily mean it's *right*. You can take any valid and reliable conclusion and *create* a fallacious way to arrive at it. It's still a sound conclusion.
So don't back down from someone who likes flashing fancy jargon as if they're laying down trump cards over your aces. Someone interested in honest discussion uses common language. They can explain why an argument isn't convincing them in a way that is most clearly understood by all those taking part. And if someone doesn't understand, they don't shame them for not being as "smart" as they are. They consider the misunderstanding is in part their own fault. They might apologize and then make adjustments, try again. Those who resort to fancy-sounding terms in a conversation with a general audience -- especially if they belittle people for not knowing the same terms they do -- that’s a huge clue about that person's character, their insecurities and motives. Their alienating jargon puts you “onto them.”
We are all human beings. Regardless of our scholastic achievement, we share certain cerebral abilities that can help us cut through the “noise” of people desperate to show us how superior they are. Poor things.
Google Meisters
Okay, next we have those folks who remind me of Neo on Matrix. Remember the scene where he opens his eyes while plugged into the machine and blurts out: "I know kung fu!" Just like that. It was downloaded into his brain. Well, we have something similar to the Nebuchadnezzar's library. We have Google (or whatever browser) letting us access anything ever uploaded to the World Wide Web.
That means we also have people who are masters of Google “one-upmanship.” They try to beat everyone else at being the first to dump URLs in a spur-of-the-moment hotlist. As if to end the argument like in a hotdog eating contest. "Winner!!!" Well, whoopty do. Do they actually “comprehend” what they just posted. (Most often not). They can *prove* that martians exist, since... they found it on the internet (actually, on the Web). Finding a page on the Web is not an argument in and of itself. That it seems to back up the poster's claim is not a sound argument. Cursory readings of a webpage are not substitute for solid education. Don't be scared off by hotlists. The Web is similar to the problem Bible bickerers have known for years: Anyone can prove anything with cherry-picked excerpts from either one.
They *might* be right, the posters. But a list alone shouldn't make you cower before them. What are the domains? Statistics given in a blog are not as reliable as statistics given by a educational institution posting results of its study. And the results get used differently by different sources. One doctor studying the brain mass and dimensions of nine cadavers noticed something similar of four brains belonging to men who happened to be gay. The doctor himself suggested this might be reason to do research on this difference. He did not say anything else. But it was reported by the media who got it in two very different ways: The doctor had just discovered proof that
- Homosexuality is normal, not an issue of morality or choice but resulting from a difference in the brain
- Homosexuality is the result of an abnormal brain, a defect
Name-calling
Attacking the intelligence or character of the responder. Or the claim. "That's retarded." "You're stupid." "You're an idiot." "You're on drugs."
Nothing of persuasive weight here. Shrug it off. Even if you were the world's dumbest, stupidest, most retarded person high as a kite on drugs -- you could be right. Whether an argument is sound or not has nothing to do with the person who said it. Or even the way it first sounds to a person. That our own eyeballs project the world to our retinas upside down sounds completely wrong at first. But it's true. That you do *not* walk or run forward but are "pushed forward" by the normal force of the floor or ground resisting you sounds whacked. But the explanation is scientific fact.
Slanted language
Instead of using an emotionally neutral, more objective term, posters or respondent leverage the connotative bias of select pejoratives or euphemisms to gain an upper hand. A prostitute is not just a prostitute, a neutral term for her profession, but a "call girl" or "lady of the evening," if we see no wrong, but a "whore" if we do. Connotations are of words are not arguments but are like the butcher putting his thumb on the scale, appearing to add weight where this is no actual weight to add.
Denigrating condescension
Even been the victim of condescendingly apologetic posters? They say they’re sorry for not “adjusting their argument down to your level.” Nice, eh? Mighty fucking white of ‘em: “Oh, so sorry. Had I known you were so stupid and slow-minded, I would have dumbed my post down for you.” LOL. You can call that for what it is and blow it off. You might want to put these bastards on ignore. They are malicious.
Misrepresenting you and what you said
This is a great source of heartburn. You know, if you're like me, you don't mind that people disagree with what you believe, but you it really leaves a burning ember in your gizzard that they tell you what *you* think, and it isn't true. They misstate what your beliefs are, or misquote you, or take something that you said out of context, to make you look stupid. Blow it off. Or just simply say, "Nope, not what I said." Or, "Were you talking to me or someone else? Because that's not my opinion."
If they persist, count on this: Other people see what they're doing. You often don't need to argue back at all. If someone has been unfair to you, *everybody* saw it. People have their number. In fact, looked at from that perspective, you kinda sorta wanna have the forum's most malicious or incompetent responders after you. If the bad apples are dogging you, it must surely mean you'r one of the "good guys or gals."
HOTS ladder – Higher Order Thinking Skills
This might help you get a feel for whose opinions matter to you most. As teachers plan their courses in school, they aren't interested so much in students learning big, fancy words but in expanding their students' mental skillsets. That requires much more than mere lists of terms and their definitions. Teachers want students to be able to use apply concepts and thinking skills intelligently, to gain utility from them. So they give students practice that requires increasingly complex cognitive abilities, higher order thinking skills.
To be able to Google something and past it is a lower order skill, pretty much bottom of the list. You might want to hold off being impressed until you see demonstrations of greater facility with a term or concept.
Lowest to highest (first three, low order thinking skills; last three higher order thinking skills)
- Knowledge – Mere familiarity. For instance, a person can parrot back the term “straw man” and perhaps even define the term by rote. They might be able to find its definition and post it from a website. But that’s it. (And sometimes a poster might say they know a word or concept but have confused it for something else. That's a step *less than* mere familiarity. They're not even on this skill list yet.)
- Comprehension – This means they know the concept well enough to paraphrase it, put it in their own words. That’s wonderful! But that alone has little persuasive power. Push back and see what they got. Take them to the point of failure, testing how *well* they comprehend.
- Application – Okay, here we go. They not only can tell you what "straw man" means but can spot a it in an example. That will them some points on a quiz in class.
- Analysis – Now you have our attention. Analysis shows much higher cognitive capability with a term or concept. The person not only can spot the example and correctly name it but separate it from the argument, break it down for you, explain why it works or doesn’t work in the argument.
- Synthesis – Okay, now they're getting jiggy wi' it. They not only can create their own example of a straw man but maybe fix it, find the way around it, play with it, bend it, shape it, offer options to it, use it as a springboard to new formations. They’re dancing with a term creatively, adroitly.
- Evaluation – This is usually given as the ultimate in higher order thinking skills, but really it's sort of a compilation of them at a metacognitive level ("big picture"). They can tell you how the straw man contributes to the argument as a whole, whether it’s all that significant or not in trusting the opinion. They will provide a case about whether the strawman is a superficial, cursory dismissal of the argument or is fundamental to it as a whole, or to its rebuttal. A person who can this deftly handle the argument at this level commands your respect. This is Jedi-level dexterity. Concede the point and move on to the next point unless, of course, you see a weakness in it. It ‘still’ doesn’t make your opponent right.
Hope this helps you. Have fun in the threads!
--
*Ditch digger's aren't all that uneducated today, since most ditches are now dug either by wireless remote-control earth-moving machines or by operators in climate-controlled cabs of high-tech rigs to precise grade and profile using GPS/GNSS-based software. No offense intended, ditch diggers.
Last edited by a moderator: