I resemble this (Wonder)remark
Jul. 1st, 2015 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerhttp://wondermark.com/c1136/
As anyone who has followed my waspish maunderings at all closely over the years will know, I have often done what this irritating person does, though never at parties, and while I've more or less given it up now, I would nonetheless defend the practice in itself and recommend it to others.
(I wonder, incidentally, how many of my friends saw this and thought of me. Maybe none. I don't know.)
Not for the reasons that seemingly impel Mr Malki's character, I hasten to add. I do not play devil's advocate for fun. I don't have any urge to prove I'm smarter than anyone else, which is on the whole a good thing because I'd fail. I don't get any pleasure out of irritating people (I mean me irritating people, not people who are irritating...you know). Nor am I compensating for being short and having no chin. And getting the last word is only satisfying if it's because the other person has understood what you're saying and thinks it worth thinking about. Otherwise you've just exhausted people to no good purpose.
There are "discussions" that take place, mostly online, in which neither participating party has the remotest interest in communicating anything to anyone, or in receiving any communication from anyone. They're there to Say Something. They have Something to Say, and by jiminy they're going to Say it. They may have Said it 3,817 times before, but that won't stop them Saying it again, and if anyone says anything that isn't "Word!", "Preach it!" or "You are so right!", that just gives them a reason to come up with a slightly different wording for number 3,818. These "discussions" cover a variety of subjects, not just the one in which I used mainly to interest myself, and I used to imagine that they were actual thoughtful explorations of those subjects and not just cheering rallies, and try to take part. And, yes, if I saw a point of view with which I had some sympathy argued in a faulty or unconvincing way, I used to take issue with the argument.
No more. If someone wants to argue that there is no God because clouds are composed of water vapour and an old man with a beard would fall through and by the way you're a poopy head, then that's fine with me. If someone wants to argue that there is no evolution because look at this magnificent peacock feather and how could that have evolved eh eh eh and where were you when God was handing out the brains, I remain unruffled. (It's true that I hardly ever argued with that side anyway; that's mainly because I had no interest in trying to improve an argument for a cause with which I didn't sympathise. Also because that side of the discussion made no particular claim on rational precision; their stock-in-trade was passionate conviction, and you only strengthen that by arguing with it. That's my excuse anyway.)
So yes, I was and to some extent am That Guy. And I take the point made in the following strip, that "it's possible to poke holes in someone's argument and still be wrong yourself." Certainly it is. There are myriad ways of being wrong. None of them preclude the recognition of someone else's faulty argument, and if that argument is being seriously advanced in a debate, and not simply reeled off because it's Something to Say, then I still think drawing attention to the holes in it, while unrewarding and often conducive to ill feeling, is no bad thing.
I just don't have the energy any more.
As anyone who has followed my waspish maunderings at all closely over the years will know, I have often done what this irritating person does, though never at parties, and while I've more or less given it up now, I would nonetheless defend the practice in itself and recommend it to others.
(I wonder, incidentally, how many of my friends saw this and thought of me. Maybe none. I don't know.)
Not for the reasons that seemingly impel Mr Malki's character, I hasten to add. I do not play devil's advocate for fun. I don't have any urge to prove I'm smarter than anyone else, which is on the whole a good thing because I'd fail. I don't get any pleasure out of irritating people (I mean me irritating people, not people who are irritating...you know). Nor am I compensating for being short and having no chin. And getting the last word is only satisfying if it's because the other person has understood what you're saying and thinks it worth thinking about. Otherwise you've just exhausted people to no good purpose.
There are "discussions" that take place, mostly online, in which neither participating party has the remotest interest in communicating anything to anyone, or in receiving any communication from anyone. They're there to Say Something. They have Something to Say, and by jiminy they're going to Say it. They may have Said it 3,817 times before, but that won't stop them Saying it again, and if anyone says anything that isn't "Word!", "Preach it!" or "You are so right!", that just gives them a reason to come up with a slightly different wording for number 3,818. These "discussions" cover a variety of subjects, not just the one in which I used mainly to interest myself, and I used to imagine that they were actual thoughtful explorations of those subjects and not just cheering rallies, and try to take part. And, yes, if I saw a point of view with which I had some sympathy argued in a faulty or unconvincing way, I used to take issue with the argument.
No more. If someone wants to argue that there is no God because clouds are composed of water vapour and an old man with a beard would fall through and by the way you're a poopy head, then that's fine with me. If someone wants to argue that there is no evolution because look at this magnificent peacock feather and how could that have evolved eh eh eh and where were you when God was handing out the brains, I remain unruffled. (It's true that I hardly ever argued with that side anyway; that's mainly because I had no interest in trying to improve an argument for a cause with which I didn't sympathise. Also because that side of the discussion made no particular claim on rational precision; their stock-in-trade was passionate conviction, and you only strengthen that by arguing with it. That's my excuse anyway.)
So yes, I was and to some extent am That Guy. And I take the point made in the following strip, that "it's possible to poke holes in someone's argument and still be wrong yourself." Certainly it is. There are myriad ways of being wrong. None of them preclude the recognition of someone else's faulty argument, and if that argument is being seriously advanced in a debate, and not simply reeled off because it's Something to Say, then I still think drawing attention to the holes in it, while unrewarding and often conducive to ill feeling, is no bad thing.
I just don't have the energy any more.
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Date: 2015-07-01 12:52 pm (UTC)