How to Disagree
paulgraham.com
paulgraham.com
(trivia about Aquinas: his handwriting was so bad, that there are only about 10 people or so in the world today that can read it.)
Unfortunately, when you look at the link where you can find it online at http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/dp3.html, you will see why so few people still read this book:(
DH-1. Flamebaiting.
This is when you preempt that with which you would disagree by stating your case in such a way as to elicit quick disagreement (in the form of DH0 to DH6). Usually done by noticing a subset of all data, forming a hypothesis to explain only that subset, and presenting it as a conclusion. Often done without even realizing it.
The relational database model is dead.
There is no future in enterprise software.
<Language du jour> is clearly the best.
No one else is doing <xyz>, so it must be a deadend.The new category brings to mind an interesting property of this hierarchy though, namely that it seems to be difficult to respond to an "argument" with a higher order technique than that which was originally presented. For example, if one were disagreeing with a purely ad hominem rant, one would find it futile and nearly impossible to disagree with the rant at any higher level; how can one truly refute an argument that has no central point? It's somewhat depressing because, if true, it implies that a discussion is upper bounded at the level of discourse that initiated the discussion.
The way out of this, as far as I can tell, is recognizing that statements are not made in a vacuum. Sometimes the only way to raise the level of discourse is to engage in a sort of meta-disagreement. In other words, sometimes the point of a statement is not the content, but the context. While it works to classify criticisms of tone, for example, as weak if one were dealing with a substantive argument, the metadata (tone, speaker, etc) around the content of a non-argument may allow one to say something intelligent about the statement by tying it to the broader context in which it was made.
edit: btw my experience is that more often than not i get downvoted if i do this
Actually, I've used this as a fairly effective technique for arresting flamewars. It doesn't always work, but when it does, subsequent posts are usually at the DH level of your own response rather than that of the parent comment.
The key seems to be drawing 3rd-party onlookers in before the original flamer responds. If someone else responds to your comment at a high DH level, the original flamer has a choice. He can respond to your comment with another flame, which makes him look stupid and petty because there's a sibling comment that's much more well-reasoned. He can respond with a real argument, in which case you've raised the level of discourse. Or he can go away, which seems to be what happens most of the time. Regardless of what he does, you're free to ignore his reply and continue responding to the person who engages you with actual arguments.
A corollary is that educated, rational lurkers hold a lot of power on discussion boards. If you don't get directly involved in arguments but instead cherry-pick the comments you respond to, you can set the whole tone for a community.
BTW, the same trick works in face-to-face conversations, as long as there are more than 2 people involved. The person who asks the questions controls the conversation, by virtue of which questions they choose to ask. And the person who sits back and shuts up controls whose ideas get developed, by virtue of who they choose to respond to. That's why the quietest person at a meeting usually controls it, as long as they're not just a passive onlooker.
1. Original flamebait
2. Congent response to flamebait (posted by you using username 1)
3. Congent response to post 2 (posted by you using username 2)
This might be slightly unethical, but it means that the original flamer will always be dissuaded from posting again, and you're more likely to get more congent discussion participants.
If using multiple usernames bothers you, you could probably just check yourself with a small counterargument at the end of post 2, and it seems likely that the original flamer would still be dissuaded.
The proven technique for dealing with flamebait is to tag it immediately for what it is, and not waste any reader's time with a detailed discussion of an idea that is not even worthy of refutation.
And yes, even Aristotle in the Topics agreed that there are propositions/arguments that are so silly or vain, they are not worthy of a serious refutation. Flamebait certainly counts as one of these. (BTW: I see there are Aquinas fans here, so I will point out that Aquinas expressed his agreement with this in, of all places, his commentary on the Ethics: I think it was Lecture I).
The only problem is that there really are people who are too quick to tag someone else's post as 'flamebait', even when it is not. This happens on those very topics that most need to be seriously discussed, simply because they are so important, yet so many people hold strong opinions on them, opinions that are not founded on sound logic, but on passionate attachment of one kind or another. So they are strong opinions, but they are wrong opinions. These are the discussions that are the most difficult. They should not be attempted by amateurs. But there is no enforcing of _this_ principle on the Internet;)
(Admittedly, this is not always possible or desirable.)
Seasoned trolling pros are usually very good at this. I think it helps a lot to look at their underlying motivation and to crank up the bullshit detector.
The problem on those sites is that their is not only poor comments but also tons of users who upmod them.
This is a legitimate problem, and ironically it is a symptom that a news concentrator is becoming a victim of its own success. As the signal-to-noise ratio attracts a progressively larger crowd, the types of information that are viewed as 'signal' broaden to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's similar to hiring in a small company -- but at least in that situation you have control over the purse strings. (Even the trolls get dumber as time goes by and a site grows more popular.) Thus the comments on an arbitrary story suffer, and it requires more work to pick through them. However, if you 'listen' to subcommunities (eg. economics, programming, math on reddit) you find that (unsurprisingly) the baseline rises again. If you have no interest in those subsets, however, you're kind of out of luck. (But if you're here you already knew that)
You could probably model this as a logistic process, provided that you account for renormalizations (such as the literal renormalization that took place on reddit recently).
but also tons of users who upmod them.
This part (or at least its independent, non-interaction effect) is irrelevant; if you focus solely on people who have strong and demonstrated critical thinking skills, you can learn a great deal, and also gain a different perspective. Their input is much more harmful when it comes to filtering in or out the news to be concentrated.
Most of the interesting threads in which I have participated eventually lost the interest of the masses because they had descended into minutiae. But that's where the interesting bits lay, so that's where they went.
Ignore the riffraff. Lord knows they'll usually ignore you if you're presenting anything challenging. Even in a swamp like Slashdot, there is occasionally a perspective-changing comment that is worth reading.
If you want to expose yourself to a wide variety of opinions, you have to be willing to do a bit of work yourself, and determine which ones hold merit. It's a two-way street, in many respects, and your priorities (in addition to your time pressures) will determine how far you are willing to take it.
It appears to me that the 'social news' sites on the Web are simply recapitulating the arc of the special-interest BBS nodes and Usenet cliques of years past. Everything old is new again.
Unfortunately this rarely works in the sense of eliciting a reply. But when it doesn't, it does at least tend to shut them up.
The God perspective (Yeah, you the expert?) "This restaurant is the best in town"
The 2nd person perspective (Why should you know what I should do) "You really should try this restaurant."
The 1st-person perspective (the only one you can truly own) "I really like this restaurant. I like the cooking and I feel like I am welcome here."
The second person perspective is just a suggestion. Of course you're free not to go there if you don't want to.
Finally, the first person perspective is just one other way to put things. In this case it's more verbose and, before the second phrase, don't even give you as much information as the god's perspective (in god's perspective you know this restaurant is the one the person likes the most, in 1st person perspective you just knows this person likes it). Saying "This restaurant is the best in town. Cooking is great and it's very welcoming." gives you at least the same information as the 1st-person perspective.
I'm saying all that because I hate see people trying to debunk an argument by picking on the guy's perspective. Stuff like "you can't state that as an absolute truth", just because you said something like "this restaurant is the best in town". If you have information that may change that opinion, please give us, otherwise, don't flood the comments with "you don't know that much". That's about the same as DH2.
This category is particularly troublesome, as even when both parties agree, in principle, to disagree, they may still disagree on how to disagree.
One particular nuisance is the disagreer who seeks to impose a disagreement meta-hierarchy on the problem of agreeing on a disagreement hierarchy. That way is turtles, all the way down.
Although really, flamebaiting is just a more subtle way to call someone (or their idea) retarded, so maybe it's just a special (more eloquent) case of DH0.
Here's something to think about. According to Aristotle's Rhetoric, a person making a point to an audience has three things to offer:
-- Ethos -- who they are and why they speak with authority. -- Pathos -- empathy with the audience. -- Logos -- the substance of the argument.
So, an opponent can try to undermine any of these three.
Undermining a person's ethos can be nasty "yo' momma" style language, or it can be more sophisticated. If the person's argument relies on their ethos, however, it may be legitimate. For example, when Nobel laureate William Schockley argues for racial eugenics on the strength of his physics background, it's legitimate to say "Professor, your expertise is in physics, not genetics." This is helpful with anyone who says, effectively, "I'm a bigshot so what I say must be true."
Undermining pathos can also be helpful. For example, "thus-and-such software marketer doesn't want to help you and me, she wants to sell more software licenses for her company. Do not blindly accept her claims that her product is better."
Of course, undermining the logos -- the substance of the argument -- is a very effective way to disagree.
But, my point is, undermining a speaker's pathos and ethos are also legitimate, especially when their argument critically depends on those aspects of their rhetoric.
What you can do is refute evidence. So if the speaker presents one of their own claims as evidence, you can sometimes invalidate that claim by undermining the speaker's pathos and ethos.
NOTE: When I say valid, I mean it in terms of determining what is correct, not what convinces people.
However, I do think that there are cases where an ad hominem is correct however. If someone's argument is based on his own authority, and his authority is widely acknowledged, then the only way to attack the argument is to attack the arguer. One example is the repeated misuse of Einstein as an authority om things like economics or theology.
Not sure if it's significantly different from DH6, but Karl Popper's style of debate might be termed DH7.
It's similar to DH6, but first you patch up the opponent's arguments to make the best possible case. Then you find the central point in that case, even if the author doesn't explicitly state it. It's what he really meant to say and might indeed have said if he was on good form. (If there's a stronger or more general version of that point you might select that instead.)
And _then_ you carefully demolish it.
True it could help him, but only if appreciated. It frequently won't be in public, or between strangers. And it runs a danger of polluting the main discussion. Any personal help is strictly a separate issue than which of the original ideas is true -- the person being helped could still have been right.
Most people don't take well to having their fallacious reasoning questioned, but they do appreciate having incorrect premises pointed out, particularly if it's done politely.
If you need to psychoanalyze the other person to explain the flaw in his ideas, then chances are you're arguing over opinions rather than facts or conclusions. Opinions, by definition, can't be right or wrong, so you're wasting your time.
It seems this piece was written in response to the various criticisms he received because for his "You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss" essay. In addition to objecting to the form these criticisms took, I think he could also have talked about one of the fundamental causes of most disagreements on the internet - lack of charitable interpretation.
Many interpreted his essay as an attack on big-company programmers - using as evidence the analogies he used, the frankness of his writing style, etc. - and reached the conclusion that he had an elitist attitude about his profession. Now, this may or may not be true (having met him, my opinion is a firm "not true"). But the point is that it doesn't matter. If we interpret charitably, we remain agnostic on what his argument implies about him (thus abstaining from DH1 and DH2 attacks) and instead focus on the actual argument. Some critics managed to do that. But many didn't. And the worst part is that the lack of charitable interpretation obscured their actual disagreements, so now we've wasted time talking about "how to disagree" instead of "what are the correlations/effects of company type on programmer happiness/ability/prospects".
Of course, an author should be careful to frame his arguments in a way that minimizes the danger from misinterpretation. In other words, an author should try to write well.
But in forming an actual dialogue, such all-or-nothing viewpoints make people defensive. The behavior of monopolies that have been obsoleted by technology is little different from that of the Luddites - they try to stop the change, even when it's irrational to try. "Irrational self-interest" is a pretty neat term to sum it up.
"You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss" strikes keenly and precisely at the employed, because it primarily lists benefits of startup life, presenting an unbalanced picture. The title certainly doesn't help matters. That PG's arguments are pretty strong, and he has some established weight in online communities, makes him hard to dismiss out of hand, which further increases the tension.
Internet discussion tends to stay low on the hierarchy because the people replying are mostly stuck in defensive mode. Pragmatic, nuanced thinking doesn't seem to come naturally to humans.
I find this takes more effort than any other part of writing. There is a point where this doesn't necessarily make the text better because it becomes less succinct since the author must clarify against every possible non-charitable interpretation.
You don't see that in many forums.
Actually I do not. There are many good long replies here but Reddit, at least for some of the submissions, also has some good long discussions.
<quotation>
Meta-satire, well done sir/mam.
Is this a lower form of disagreement than DH6? Most definitely, however, the English language has a rich tradition of satire and mockery going back at least as far as Jonathan Swift.
But if you care about making someone understand your argument for the first time, why would you put extra layers on it, which will have to be unwrapped to get to the inner logic?
I think I know why most people do it. The point made in the form of mockery is laborious to refute, so nobody bothers. And if somebody bothers, the refutation is laborious to follow, so nobody bothers to read it. Thus mockery, however idiotic, often stays unrefuted, and to the author and his camp that's close enough to "correct".
Have you been to Reddit lately? Half of all disagreements are in the form of (idiotic) mockery. It wasn't like this early on.
There are two possible reasons:
1) you know your audience is not that logical to begin with, and need to be lured by illogical appeals to emotions etc.
2) you know they could be persuaded by logical argument, but need help summoning up the will to persist in following it. In that case, you mix logic with entertainment and exhortation. But you must mix carefully, to keep from falling into the trap of merely luring by illogical appeals (or even seeming to do this). Unfortunately, few have the patience for this, so many take the easy way, (merely luring).
Plato took course 2) often in his dialogs. Augustine did the same in both sermons and treatises. Aristotle never did, at least not in his surviving works (his dialogs are lost).
Edit: and on a more recent (and cynical :-) ) note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
http://www.vandruff.com/art_converse.html
Perhaps it's worth adding a link in the article, clarifying that DH1 actually includes a whole set of techniques described at that URL (and other places).
Daniel
In his Eristic Dialectic, he described a system of stratagems, see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eristische_Dialektik (unfortunately, this hasn't been translated to english yet).
The 38 Methods are said to have been added merely to provide examples. It is also interesting that he wrote the manuscript around 1830, but never published it. It was first published in 1864, four years after his death. See http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/ for the full manuscript and an excellent translation to english.
PG advocates for controversies that help find the truth. Thus he makes a difference between fallacies and real arguments. To Schopenhauer, real arguments are actually fallacies, because mere humans have other goals than the truth. Ironically, in http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html, PG followed Wittgenstein in that “most philosophical controversies are due to confusions over language”. In a philosophical context, at least, this should lead to a similar conclusion as Schopenhauer's.
Now, whether the case of philosophy should be extended to the rest of controversies is an interesting question. My answer would be yes. I wonder what PG would say. The fun part is that, whatever he says, Schopenhauer will still be right (look: he doesn't care of the truth, he just wants to win the argument!). That's the whole fun of controversies about controversy...
That alone is reason enough to reject it. But here is another reason: his point about other goals is irrelevant. Why? Because though yes, we "mere humans" have other goals, at least _some_ of the time, those other goals require that we get to the truth of some matter. And those are precisely the fields of endeavor where rational argumentation still has some influence in our confused and irrational society.
That said, we _do_ have to take great care: the dishonest dissemblers who strive so hard to deceive us are _legion_, the honest reasoners who wish to persuade us of the truth by legitimate means are rare gems. But they have not disappeared completely yet.
'If you can't find an actual quote to disagree with, you may be arguing with a straw man.'
That isn't true. Using analog-situation arguments and reductions to absurdity to point out the fallacies of a point is a long-used, valid practice. The central point of their writing seems to be that addressing substance using reason is the most effective way of arguing. They write:
"The force of a refutation depends on what you refute. The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone's central point."
and point out that refutation is the strongest from of argument against some other point, Well, "strongest" is a subjective evaluation and I would like to point out that in the history of argument and in particular political discourse, usually it is the loudest, angriest, and downright scariest people in the argument who win; for example, look at the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s So these people have it just plain all wrong.
There, now, did I miss anything? =)
Great piece, really, I loved it. Thanks for putting it out there!
Your reference to Nazis is apposite. I once heard veteran Labour politician Tony Benn destroy an opponent's point of view in a televised debate by saying "That's a fascist idea - it's exactly what the Nazis did in Germany in the 1930s". Thereby he simultaneously implied that his opponent in the debate was a fool for not knowing this and made the suggested course of action untenable by association.
In politics, but also in many other spheres of human activity, we have to ask ourselves whether an argument is being advanced in pursuit of the truth or simply to silence an opponent who could get in the way of reaching an ulterior objective.
Stalin, Hitler, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe and countless others had a very straightforward way of dealing with opposition. I'm sure that any D6 or D7 disagreement would have been water off a duck's back for them.
While only DH4-DH6 can strictly prove an argument wrong, there are many, many situations in which it is infeasible to unilaterally determine "truth." In these cases, DH1-DH3 can be used to determine the probability of a statement being true.
Take ad hominem. Sure it's a weak form of argumentation, but it is reasonable to exercise a certain amount of skepticism based on the nature of the speaker. For example, the New York Post tends to be a more conservative newspaper, while the New York Times tends to be more liberal. Obviously, neither of these facts can definitively prove or disprove a statement, but they can inform an analysis of these papers' claims.
If I'm making a counter-argument I care about, I try to take a "defense-in-depth" approach and attack the original statement at all levels that are useful and try to establish credibility in all the ways I can. I don't think arguing well maps directly to using a higher form of rhetoric. At the end of the day, it depends on your audience. Just ask Karl Rove and James Carville. ;)
I believe their area of expertise is propaganda, not argument.
(But I suppose both could be a form of rhetoric.)
"Conversational terrorism" outlines more techniques used by conversational bullies: http://www.vandruff.com/art_converse.html
If comments could be tagged with hierarchy levels, it might raise the general level of argument.
"Such labels may help writers too. Most intellectual dishonesty is unintentional."
I totally agree with this, particularly on YC News where there are a lot of smart people. When the words fly, there's a tendency to overreact and say things that wouldn't occur if we were face-to-face. I admit having done this. It would be great if some optional tagging feature were built into a comment system, so writers could get some feedback when others thought they strayed.
I don't really think that's too useful, because it's usually pretty obvious what category the comment falls in after reading it anyway...
People would probably view the comment differently, but readers (and the author) could then see 60% of people thought part of his comment wasn't useful. Ad hominem and straw dog attacks, for example, might be unintentionally inserted in the heat of argument. Right now, comment rating is very blocky.
Make it so you can tag arbitrary pages from within your browser, and other people visiting the page can see the tags if they wish. Imagine the fun of doing this with the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, in addition to blogs and discussion forums, etc. etc.
So I think that PG's essay is quite good (as most others), in that it looks for this "absolute truths", he tries to analyze stuff and make a contribution, say something that will last. I find this very scientific, which is good in my opinion. The problem is that many people don't see it that way. It is very difficult to stick to the principle of "egoless disagreement".
(DH3 ftw!)
Edit: Irony.
It was just that when I checked back in on this about half an hour later it had already been downmodded, and that just seemed really ironic to me. Glad someone is out there stomping DH3... I would be.
"And when you agree there's less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications. When you disagree you're entering territory he may not have explored"
To me, cooperative, exploratory statements are the most valuable.
"That is a interesting opinion, I've never heard that perspective. But what about case xyz, have you considered that."
In that context, it is much easier to build up interesting information trees, rather than simply staying stuck on one (often minor or irrelevant) node.
My point was merely that there has been plenty already written on the subjects of rhetoric and logic as ways of expressing ideas, and that the topic isn't as neglected as you seemed to believe in the post I responded to. If you're looking for more resources on the topic, they're out there.
The poisoning of various phrases and words leads to you focus on the emotions that are evoked rather than the definition.
This is why I dislike arguing about politics or anything else. No one wants to really argue (where the argument is a logical and reasoned debate), they want agreement or acknowledgment that their beliefs are okay.
Definition of win from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/win
transitive verb
1 a: to get possession of by effort or fortune b: to obtain by work : earn <striving to win a living from the sterile soil>
2 a: to gain in or as if in battle or contest <won the championship> b: to be the victor in <won the war>
3 a: to make friendly or favorable to oneself or to one's cause —often used with over<won him over with persuasive arguments> b: to induce to accept oneself in marriage <was unable to win the woman he loved>
4 a: to obtain (as ore, coal, or clay) by mining b: to prepare (as a vein or bed) for regular mining c: to recover (as metal) from ore
5: to reach by expenditure of effort
For me the only matching definition is 2a - the argument is the contest and what you gain is the recognition that you were right.
I remember being part of an Academic Games league in high school. One of my favorite games was simply called "Propaganda." Everyone sat in a big room, listened to arguments, and identified the type of rhetorical technique being used. It may sound lame, but it was actually pretty fun and cultivated some useful skills.
Anyway, here's the technique list they used: http://mlagonline.org/Prop_ABCE.pdf [pdf]
and a more detailed but somewhat different list of logical fallacies: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
Actually, one of my long time favorite such sites is:
It would become more comprehensive, but also harder to present in a simple, compelling, immediately understandable way. Not sure if it'd be worth it.
I usually think it in vain to post a comment on something that I fundamentally disagree with, because I rarely find an author with a strong point of view who has not already found a choir to preach to, so that speaking up would be futile—I would be drowned out, or villanized.
The only kinds of comments which seem to me to be worth making are those in which: You agree, and offer some novel corroboration; You agree with the conclusion, but disagree with the means; Or you raise a question, without treating of the conclusion at all.
The obvious possibility would be to reproduce the entire hierarchy, but to a different purpose.
DH0: "Stop agreeing with me, you're making me look bad." DH1: "You should let someone else make that argument." DH2: "That (arrogant,presumptuous,juvenile) tone won't go over well." DH3: "You're going to offend people who believe X." DH4: "I heard an argument Y against this," or "How do you solve problem Y"? DH5: "Have you considered solution Z' to problem Z?" DH6: "You're formulating your own belief incorrectly."
But I don't think that your bounds hold here. DH0 is still maximally unhelpful, but DH6 may be just as bad. DH1 may be the wisest advice that you can receive. DH3 is less helpful than DH2 (better to be asked to express your beliefs more politely, than to be asked to conceal them). And DH4 is more polite than DH5 (better to solicit the author's opinion on a difficulty, than to obtrude your own).
Sometimes when you shout "shut up, you water buffalo", people misunderstand.
It might have been more effective to simply shout "shut up" and leave out the part that can be misconstrued or misunderstood.
In other words, calling programmers "lions", referring to "zoos", and anointing a certain set of activities as "natural".. do these things help or harm the underlying message in the essay?
I see several skills necessary to successfully and accurately lay out a position. They are:
1. Ability to write or speak 2. Depth of knowledge about the subject 3. Ability to listen to or read material and understand it to a depth beyond the superficial. 4. Ability to analyse--this implies an IQ at least as high as the speaker or writer. 5, Access to additional material pertinent to the subject 6. A world view relatively free from preconceived notions of reality.
I am reminded that when I have arguments about politics, conservative versis liberal; ie which is a better philosophy--the question has to be asked, compared to what, for what purpose, etc. The argument to me can have no resolution.
The reason they don't is that ideas are not trees. There is no root node. We are not deductive thinkers. We do not trace out the implications of ideas to their ends because they have no ends.
More often, we learn ideas that ripple a little in the neighborhood while the rest of our knowledge remains unchanged. Further, in some cases, the evidence may be mixed, and our idea graph won't change at all.
Kuhn would probably say that there is no way for a scientific revolutionary to argue with a conventional scientist because the purpose of a revolution is to change the context to a different set of concerns, a different language, a different problem.
Einstein couldn't argue with Newtonian physics in Newtonian terms. The point of general relativity isn't to refute the central point of Newtonian physics (whether you think that's the inverse square law or gravitation or the laws of motion, etc.). You might say Einstein was "refuting" some naive conceptions of space and energy, but no one had proven they were naive before he exposed them.
Einstein provided a fertile perspective that allowed others to see the old science and data in a new way. But this has nothing to do with winning arguments. It's DH{NaN}.
Acting like Einstein's work is a rung up the ladder to Final Physical Knowledge is a positivist view akin to the belief that evolution is creating the ubermensch (in some objective sense). There are lots of local minima out there. There is always another perspective to take on the same data.
Refutation should be reserved for stuff that's obvious to clear-thinking people.
Of course, that begs the question...
For example, if a senator gave a speech detailing why senators needed more money and someone dismissed the arguments based on the senator's sentatorness rather the quality of the argument's themselves.
Also, an ad hominem is not merely a 'personal attack.' For example, an insult is not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is an attempt to discredit an argument based on qualities of the arguer instead of the argument itself. Pointing out a conflict of interest is an ad hominem attack if you are using it to discredit an argument.
For instance: "Why should we give creedence to his position on the origin of the universe? He has been divorced twice and is cheating on his current wife... Surely we can't trust what he has to say."
Here the argument is attack by attacking the person. The attack on the person has no direct translation to the dispute at hand.
But there's at least one more dimension to this that seems completely orthogonal, and that's identity. If you want your opinion to be appreciated, then I think that you should be willing to identify yourself. With so much information competing for my attention, I'm much more willing to pay attention to people that give me a way to track back to some background on them, whether they are famous or not. So unless you're worried about your opinion triggering a nighttime visit from the secret police, don't hide your identity. Mine's here: http://blog.neontology.com/about.
It can be the simple "Hey! I put my braces on the next line, and I take offense at that!", to the "Arguing that all left-handed programmers write unmaintainable code is irresponsible because ...".
It's like responding to tone, but you are responding to what is being argued, rather than how it's written. It might not really be a disagreement since you aren't saying that the author is incorrect, but neither is "u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!".
The software didn't really make it, but there's some interesting discussion here : http://www.nooranch.com/synaesmedia/wiki/wiki.cgi?TypedThrea...
How do you measure the spirit? An author may detect bad spirit everywhere and take all DH5-but-not-DH6 disagreements as effectively DH1.
Anyway, the quoted paragraph seems very harsh on many small-point DH5 disagreers. Some people just feel the "duty" (xkcd.com/386) to correct mistakes, without being deliberately dishonest. And there is a lot of uncharted importance space between grammar mistakes and the central point. As an example, what if the central point were correct and worthy but illustrated by two examples, one of them bad? The argument doesn't depend on it, but is it still clear that the only purpose of correcting the author is to discredit him?
Why not generalize DH6 from "stating the central point and refuting it" to "refuting a point and commenting on its importance"? Then you could even correct grammar mistakes, just add explicitly that you're aware that as a grammar mistake it's minor. DH6 would no longer imply power or effort, but, as pointed out in the essay, it already doesn't imply truth.
In our wonderful country, even in our wonderful wider world, this is sorely lacking. While your contributions are consistently wise and useful, we need to work together as a society to fundamentally change the climate for education, we need to ensure that an excellent education is enjoyed by all, that will make your hierarchy moot.
And I've decided not to respond to her letter, customer or not. Not only because it was demeaning, but also, because I don't have the time or energy to launch round two.
This all got me thinking about how tired I am of the way that people on the net feel they absolutely must write and argue about something-- anything--they disagree with. So many out there are quick to express their contempt for other people's ideas and opinions. Most such arguments seem pointless and are usually fruitless.
If I read something I disagree with on the net, I take from it what I think is of value and ignore the rest. Time is just to too short.
For rational objection we have a great system (logic) in place to work it out and come to a conclusion. This can be very hard and take a lot of time, but it works--as long as you stick to the path of rational arguments and objective truth.
So let's take a look at the feelings side of things. Feelings are always true and subjective. They are inherently irrational and often steer us towards dumb actions we regret later. They interfere with rationality and usually distort arguments.
My impression is that people get into emotional discussions and become mean in order to feel better about themselves by a) expressing bad feelings caused by a statement b) abreacting bad feelings rooted in something else (merely triggered by a statement) c) getting positive attention from others (gain value)
In order to add weight to their statement, people usually pretend to object on rational grounds. Flamewars can be fun, but from a rational perspective, they are a waste of time.
Looking at the underlying motivation can help to clarify a messy discussion. The Harvard Negotiation Project provides an excellent framework for analyzing and working what's behind the surface.
In the long run, I think we need forms to express bad feelings without attacking the other or pretending to provide a rational argument. Forms to say something like: "That hurt (and I don't even know why) and I'm afraid you're right". This is really hard. The natural reaction would be to feel attacked and fight back. It also requires trust. Being open about wounds increases vulnerability and can only work with people you consider to have good intentions in the first place.
is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag."'
This really illustrates to me how fuzzy the border between some of the hierarchy levels (particularly those that involve orthogonal aspects of the disagreed piece). If that statement was simply changed to "The author comes across as a self-important dilettante," I'd classify it as DH2. Even without the change, "is" can still be interpreted as "seems to probably be based on what I've just read," and thus that statement can still be placed in both DH2.
As dfranke said elsewhere, rather than being a true linear hierarchy, this is just hierarchies of various general classes of disagreement forced into a linear hierarchy, and thus it's possible for a statement to have aspects of one of DH0-DH1, DH2, and one of DH3-DH6 all at once. E.g.: "How can this idiot so adamantly argue for intelligent design in the quoted paragraph, when the presence of vestigial organs proves to the dullest that species descended from ancestors where the full functions of the organ were beneficial?"
Perhaps the answer is separate hierarchies for the various aspects, or fuzzy set theory.
Well, such a comment is only " a pretension version " if it is not true... and in fact becomes trenchant if, in fact, the respondent IS a self-important dilettante. Which would have bearing on whether or not to engage the person at all... I would not disagree with a person because I thought them a faq, mainly because I don't think a faq is either a bad thing or a thing relevant to many issues I would normally discuss. I would most likely not engage with someone if I thought they were a self-important dilettante, because I DO think that both self-importance and dilettantism is bad. Or, at least, I would say to them, "I think you are a self-important dilettante and I don't have hopes that the conversation will be either enlightening or productive. If we are to engage, you have to rise above your self importance."
Of course, the accusation of dilettantism might be as baseless and rude as that of 'u r a faq' and likewise deserving of scorn. But not always and dismissing it with equal scorn in every instance may be a way of avoiding scrutinizing your own sense of importance and the meaning of dilettantism.
Graham also elides a whole cateqory of 'disagreement' with the implicit assumption that everybody has something worthwhile to say and is therefor deserving of being engaged. "u r a fag" is neither agreement nor disagreement, but simple bad manners. "You are a self-important dilettante" might be a necessary thing to say, especially if the dilettante in question may be in possession of a good brain and otherwise discerning intellect (say on matters not bearing on his/her self-importance...) Intellectual endeavor is approached at with different skill sets, attitudes and skin thickness...
It's probably because it's interesting for me to do so, to see others' views. When I disagree, I tend to enjoy it if people come back and argue. I don't really do it because I care whether the other person comes to see my point of view - although it is more fun when they do, of course. Maybe some people enjoy yelling things such as, "u r a fag!!!!", although personally I can't say I understand those people...
It's useless to try and convince them otherwise for the most part - I don't think they'd listen to you in the first place.
As for the essay itself, I just wish more people would consciously THINK about how they talk to others. It would make the internet and the world a nicer place. (Oh, and that first part, DH0, seemed to me as if it was addressed directly towards Jeff's of Coding Horror response to PG's last essay. But I can't say I disagree - I was actually rather shocked to see such a, umm, 'vehement', response. Another instance of what people probably wouldn't say in person.)
Thanks for the read.
How did you intend for that to be parsed, (fewer (mean people)) or ((less mean) people)?
Another internet or more general debate strategy is to refer to the voluminous works of others as if you've read them and behave as if your opponent cannot respond until they've read every last page, often with little attempt to explain or apply the supposed arguments and facts that come from those sources.
Most internet posters are unable to state things clearly, partly because people are taught to obfuscate and because they're embarassed to put their points in view so nakedly.
This is even more true of politicians. From Orwell's <i>Politics and the English Language</i>:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers.
Enjoy your weekend!
Another thing, along the same web conversation line is the dodge. I have found this very curious and am always fascinated by it.
Essentially, there is a conversation going on. Somebody has posted up something they characterize as factual, the truth, majority view, correct, etc... Somebody else then has their say and after some banter back and forth, it's clear one or the other just isn't correct.
This does not mean the other parties are correct either, just that we have one that is known not to be correct in the conversation.
At this point, we should then expect to see some acceptance, but we don't. That's the dodge right there. A successful dodge means being able to bring that battered point up, in a given venue, over and over and over again.
Frustrating, and also highly entertaining, if you like seeing new forms manifest!
Some that I've seen play out: (some are likely subsets or minor variations of others -->this is just a list compiled over a coupla years talking politics with a close circle of people)
1. Subject change
2. Claim of too many opponents
3. Claim to either be a member of, or opponents of discussion being members of club, with said membership somehow required to complete what is otherwise a non-rational conclusion.
4. Silence
5. Claim of overall subject and or implications of subject complexity being greater than scope of discussion
6. Invoke false comparison
7. Transform rational argument into emotional one
8. The Bible says...
9. Invoke redefinition of common words
10. Invoke slippery label to redefine winners primary point at hand
11. Claim of invalid higher authority / Claim of no high authority
12. Obsfucation, where some degree of acceptance is seen, but wrapped in difficult to reference terms
13. "I forgot, could you remind me again?", used to force other parties to tire of the subject and move on.
14. Necessary party unavailable for comment.
Some of these could be valid, depending on the context. I've got those listed here, with the assumption that it's really a dodge and that context is not at issue.
However, only levels DH3 and upwards follow the model of including the previous levels and adding enhancements, the first 2 levels are another mini-hierarchy, and DH2 is almost a category on it's own. Perhaps this might be modelled better with a dimension-level mapping. This also follows the ethos, pathos and logos.
This will allow analysis and levelling of each form of argument: DH0 -> DE:0 DH1 -> DE:1 DH2 -> DP:0 DH3 -> DL:0 DH4 -> DL:1 DH5 -> DL:2 DH6 -> DL:3
I also like the concept of DH7 which explicitly argues against the strongest form of the statement. DH7 -> DL:4
I don't think you're right here; "Ad hominem" in Latin means "to the man", implying attacking the original author.
I'm going to reference your article every time I respond to criticism. Thank you.
Love your other stuff, too, Paul.
What about the dialectic? What about appealing to common values or goals, and drawing connections between these common values or goals and your own argument? Maybe these approaches are too large in scope to be contained -- or, for that matter, likely to succeed -- within a single comment or comment thread, but I believe it's "higher" on the scale and, when practiced well, more likely to pursuade others than simply demolishing their arguments or employing the other tactics on down the list.
Or perhaps I've missed the goal of the essay?
* [1] statements of how the world is. These are statements that can in principle be tested by experiment. e.g. "broken glass is good to eat"
* [2] statements of how one would like the world to be. These obviously can't be tested. e.g. "Everyone should like cats."
* [3] definitions of terms. Where people describe how they are defining a term they'll b e using for the rest of the essay.
It seems to me that with poorly-written arguments, it's often hard to decipher which category a particular statement belongs to; and i suspect in many cases the writer doesn't know either.
Or even better a statement like "all decent people like cats". This has the form of a type [1] statement but the meaning of a type [2] statement.
I think what's really going on here is that the hierarchy isn't actually a hierarchy. In a proper hierarchy, each level should necessarily entail the previous. Here DH1 entails DH0 (I call DH0 "ordinary ad hominem" and DH1 "circumstantial ad hominem") and DH6 entails DH5 entails DH4 entails DH3. But DH2 has nothing to do with any of the others, and DH3 has nothing to do with any of the previous.
If anything, this illustrates the point from the current essay that it's easy to fall into the trap of responding to the tenor of an argument instead of the substance unless you pay careful attention. I expect we've all been guilty of this at one time or another.
You may or may not have meant it way, but thanks for the observation.
Edited to add: I hadn't seen pg's response when I posted this. Perhaps the observation is indeed superseded by the fact that pg's post wasn't intended as a refutation.
DH1: Hmm... Same author of the article and of the comment... :)
Honestly though, I don't think you should be too insulted. Everyone has moments when perhaps they aren't particularly prime to good comments, although I suppose it would be a bit better had pg said something along the lines of, "Support that instead of just saying it" or asked for an actual discussion instead of what seemed like a loud (from the caps) one-line outburst.
Also, do you not believe in refutation by reductio ad absurdum? I'm thinking your system is liable to classify a reductio as a mere contradiction, if not "mean."
And how about "meta" comments regarding the framing of the issue or whether an assumed issue really is an issue or can be addressed properly prior to some other issue?
1) I have been surprised at what a _variety_ of definitions I have found the for terms PG uses to describe fallacies. People do _not_ agree on the definition for, say, "ad hominem". See, for example, the differing definitions on the following sites, which purport to give definitions for the major fallacies:
a) http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/permanent/fallacies.php#adhom
Ad hominem fallacy - (against the man). Ad hominem is the attempt to impugn an argument by attacking the arguer's character, motives, personality, intentions, or qualifications. b) http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html#hom..., which gives not only a very different definition, but a much wordier one. c) http://www.galilean-library.org/manuscript.php?postid=43794
No two give the same definition!
2) That " u r a fag" is NOT equivalent to " The author is a self-important dilettante." has already been mentioned by others, and it hardly requires more substantiation.
3) I am by no means convinced that the proposed hierarchy of disagreement even sets an "upper bound". There is too much overlap, the boundaries are vague (as has already been pointed out by others), and it is much, _much_ too easy to make your argument _look_ like DH6, when it is really nothing like it.
Surely this is a common experience. I have often seen some public speaker make a rousing speech to encourage people to do something, yet the _entire_ speech had only either exhortation or fallacious arguments, yet his intended audience swallowed it whole, taking it for a DH6 level refutation.
4) Finally, it is too easy to sink to a low level of non-argument, lower than even DH1, without fitting into any of these categories. If you don't know how to do this, go into advertising; you will learn quickly;)
The "Name-calling" section is terribly true, as there are sadly mistaken folk who think gussying up words will make for more "refined" insults, but in the end, it just shows contempt and is not an actual barometer of intelligence or purpose.
Cheerz!
Can someone else continue through levels 4-7 ?
People who can't understand an argument are reduced to "who ya gonna believe?" Then we begin to hear about sources of funding, motivation, nationality, religion etc.
I'm glad to see that you place all these arguments down near the name-calling level.
I enjoy your essays, Bill Drissel Grand Prairie, TX
Then again, this particular form of DH4 cannot happen unless generously supported by some _other_ fallacy or fallacies. Otherwise it would be too obvious that they were "passing each other in the night", and no one would be convinced by the arguments.
Somebody really should make this. I remember messing with some Flash site somewhere that did something similar, but the interface was pretty lowzy.
Something that can automatically categorize the blogosphere discussion - e.g. who's agreeing/who's disagreeing (what's the median level of agreement/disagreement). I'd like it for the sole feature of finding/filtering out the (sometimes useless) echo-chamber opinions - to surface the divergent disagreements/opinions
User-originated voting is good but combining it with intelligent algorithmic appraisal (what they are voting by what they are saying) might be interesting
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html
Then again, the essay was written with a specific audience in mind. As it happens, I'm pretty sure I'm more a part of that audience than not.
http://www.princetonreview.com/podcasts/lsat.asp
Great post by the way!
DH2.5. Denial
The form of this response is the basic "no, it isn't", without any other supporting details. As such, it falls below "DH3. Contradiction", which at least tries to advance the argument, even if not very well. Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" provides a well-known and amusing example of this.
English is an awful language; Paul, I would prefer to read you in Latin or Greek.
I feel quite strongly that what you've described about "the web" is in fact symptomatic (probably not causal, however) of what ails communication as a whole, in this country - with regard to coherent dialog & debate, or lack thereof.
I mean, where do you go from there?
I think there's some amusement to be found in an agreement hierarchy:
AH-0: Raw compliments.
AH-1: Ad hominem compliments.
AH-2: Compliments on style.
AH-3: Agreement with the main point.
AH-4: Extension of a minor point.
AH-5: Major corollary; extension of the main point
AH-6: Citation to make another, more overarching point.
Reading this YC thread, I was reminded of observing this party talk/jousting and had the deep thought that if we hold an agenda (e.g. He's wrong or I'm better than that guy) we lose out when it comes down to it - we don't really listen or learn anything from the other person because we're too focused on proving the muzak in our head that we're right
http://www.carsonified.com/biz-tips/how-to-win-an-argument
On a personal level, a relative of mine has alienated enough people that I have trouble bringing him out because he continually needs to be "right."
What good have you accomplished if you're "right", alone, and you've convinced no one.
The dynamic is different in a public debate, however, where you might be trying to persuade people other than the person you're debating, but Mr. Carnegie's ideas are still useful to remember.
author <- DH0;
Thanks Paul!
u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!
There. Somebody had to do it.
And no I didn't.
I like the quote because it reminds me that even the most logical people may default to reacting non-logically/emotionally in a stressful situation (where they may feel their ego is threatened e.g. have to "fight" to protect themselves)
It's all about trying to control other people when you put up one of these classic manipulative blog how-tos deliberately in a format to guarantee constant Google-fetching and repasting. These various Internet memes like "OMG don't have a flamewar!" OR "OMG don't feed the trolls" -- these are just tribalist imperatives that lead to horridly dull conformity and spread an awful pall over most social media. Argument is very, very important, and if it gets heated, and sparks fly, good! It's real!
Times vs. Sullivan, the landmark Supreme Court case that is a keystone of a lot of media freedom in the US, says basically it is ok to call someone a name. It's ok. It is allowed speech. And that's the sort of robust speech that occurs in a democracy.
It's very important to respond instantly to tone. Tone is what people think they can smuggle in, often, in the emotional medium of forums and blogs, and imagine they can get away with leaving these emotional trapdoors around for people to respond to instinctively, and it's good to bring it to light. They need to be called on it. Instantly. And fiercely sometimes. The tone you are taking here is preachy and hortatory. But one can only say, oh, stop it. Are you smug about all the fanboyz below, about all the people who will cut and paste your link like some latter-day Dear Abby?
Neuralgic types often imagine there is an ad hominem attack, when in fact there's a quite unbiased report. And they often call "ad hominem" something that is a much needed judgement about a person that really needs to be made.
Gregfjohnson is good to remember Aquinas here. But Aquinas also conceived of a number of ways for virtuous men to reach Heaven even if they were not believers or baptised or following the scriptures; had the different categories of those "saved" met each other and converse, the one might be astounded at the heresy and dissent of the other!
Re-stating people's arguments often infuriates them precisely because they don't want to be summarized and fed back in stark form, or take consequence for the tone and the hidden agendas they try to smuggle into forums and blogs. So it's not a magic bullet.
The surest way for a forums discussion to go downhill is for some smug nit to go and pull up some "rules of rhetoric" and beginning banging on somebody's head that they are breaking some arcane "law of logic". Oh, do stop it. People need to express themselves. They know exactly what they are hearing in tone and implication, and they are right to respond to it.
Here is where I believe you're wrong. There is no need to judge and condemn individuals in a web discussion, in fact it's counterproductive. When an argument becomes heated and sparks fly, that heat and fire should be directed at the content of the argument. Otherwise you're just insulting someone, who will then insult you back, and bingo, a typical message-board or blog-comment back-and-forth name-calling session has begun.
I agree that it can be necessary to point it out when someone is using tone to leave "emotional trapdoors for people to respond to," but if the way you do it is to attack the person's character rather than by showing that the appeal to emotion is a poor argument, then you're just heading towards a flame war.
You say that attitudes such as "don't feed the trolls" lead to dull conformity. Don't you think that the dismal sameness of all troll-provoked flame wars is far more dull than an atmosphere of simple courtesy in which people actually listen to each other? I would go further than "don't feed the trolls"--in any web discussion that has descended into acrimonious personal attacks, one should unilaterally withdraw. You cannot have the last word on the Internet and the smart way to avoid flame wars is to leave them.
It's trolls and flamers that are the surest way for a forum discussion to go downhill. The best way to help a forum be interesting and lively is not to remind everyone of "rules of rhetoric" or of conduct but to follow them oneself. But many people haven't thought about it in a systematic way, so it can be helpful to read a set of recommendations and apply whichever of them you wish. Publishing such things is not an attempt to control, but to persuade. You may have a beef with the attitude of "smug nits" who tell you what to do, but that doesn't mean that their recommendations aren't good ones.
Recently we've seen comments and motions here that, on hindsight, explain the new article: Paul is working on keeping this forum healthy, creative, useful, attractive, alive. Thanks man, I am learning.
Question is - what are you (and now, we) really trying to accomplish here - the issue/concern disagreeing?
As Well: What's the context (purpose) for all this disagreeing you talk about? For bringing this subject up for view, in the first place?
Is it to be right (a bit of arrogance) and try to make the other guy wrong?
Is it to get to what works - to learn to say or do something better together (personally or professionally)
John McLaughlin, Day Traders - Consultant / Coach www.DayTradersWin.com