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Whilst I appreciate the recommendation, I do not understand its relevance in the context of this thread. What I am reading in your comment is an implication:
by crdb 10y ago
Whilst I appreciate the recommendation, I do not understand its relevance in the context of this thread.
What I am reading in your comment is an implication:
- that by attacking the use of a quote to ridicule those who have read Ayn Rand and attempt to present her ideas, I am myself promoting Ayn Rand's ideas,
- and that the other ideas of Ayn Rand's (beyond those illustrated by the metaphors used in Atlas Shrugged that lead to this quote, which is very specifically about government use of bad laws for manipulation) are relevant to this discussion.
This would lead for a need for a response to Ayn Rand's body of ideas as relates to "economic and common-sense grounds" (which I assume is not related to the quote by the grandparent), as opposed to specifically the original post or the direction I have put the thread in.
Is this the correct interpretation?
If so, I disagree that Ayn Rand's entire body of ideas is relevant to the discussion of the specific case put forward by her metaphor and narrative in the context of this quote and discussion.
An example of this kind of association fallacy: Heinlein promoted incest in his later novels (e.g. Lazarus Long's relationship with his mother post time travel). Incest has negative connotations in modern society. It would be possible to use an appeal to emotion: "Heinlein promotes incest! You like Heinlein, so I can't listen to your argument, since you promote incest." It would, however, be manipulation to do so. A similar line of argument is used to attack certain religions today (I've even seen some French politicians try to paint Muslims as barbarians by pointing out a few incidents of goats slaughtered ritually in the bath tubs of social housing projects).
Every writer, every body of work has flaws. The beauty of discussing ideas is to hash out a better set of values and ideas to better model and understand the world we live in. There are even valid uses of appeal to emotion, when emotion is used to transmit higher information content than can be done via contextual awareness and shared culture, or to transmit complex ideas quickly. You could even argue that's a large reason for the existence of art (much of which is paid propaganda, other propaganda of the artist's ideas spread using appeal to emotion).
To use a writer's flaws to censor their work out of discussion is a subtler, more powerful version of Orwell's 1984 book censorship. I hold that all books should be discussed, even the "unpalatable" ones.
- ubernostrum 10y agoAh, yes. You are in fallacy fallacy territory.
- crdb 10y ago"Don't listen to this man's arguments, he's in fallacy fallacy territory." Examples?
- ubernostrum 10y agoShorn of their excess verbiage, your arguments boil down in their entirety to "here's the name of an informal fallacy, therefore you are wrong".
- crdb 10y agoThen demonstrate how they are wrong, with examples.
- coldtea 10y agoYour whole post starts from an assumption on what the parent meant (that he assumed you support Ayn Rand and that he suggested Heinlein specifically to address that) and then proceeds with irrelevant references to various fallacies. First, obviously one can suggest a book that they think "demolishes" Ayn Rand's (or any other author's) views, regardless of whether they think that the person they suggest it to supports Rand or not. But let's get into the implication and see, if it was true, whether it could be justified. So, you protest on the implication you think the parent makes that "by attacking the use of a quote to ridicule those who have read Ayn Rand and attempt to present her ideas, I am myself promoting Ayn Rand's ideas". And you name various fallacies to show why this is not necessarily true. Well, it might not be a logical conclusion in the formal logic sense, but it's a very probable conclusion given all we know about human behavior, how conversations go, etc -- not to mention your writing style. In life, as opposed to pure math, we often need, and do, judgement calls based on incomplete data, calls that don't actually follow with 100% logical certainty, but are nevertheless quite clear from the general context. Sure, we might be wrong in some cases. That's still a net positive, if we are correct in most cases. 100% correctness is for the inhabitants of Vulcan. I don't know what the parent consider you -- he might consider you a fellow anti-Rand person for all I know, and suggested the book because you'd appreciate it being such. But to my eyes you totally look like a pro-Rand person -- not just because you jumped to criticize the quote (yes, it appealed to emotion -- but people tend to ignore that when it concerns emotions and quotes they are in favor of), but also because of the overall tone of the responses and the fallacitis ("oh, I discovered this blunt tool on the internet, let's hammer every conversation into a inquiry for objective truth").