3 ms·

I see you played the man and not the ball. I like that approach. You can quickly prevent a team from fielding if you break their legs.

tekmate 4y ago
it's interesting, when you start getting into debating politics in your teens it's easy to fall into the trap of attacking authors instead of arguments, then as you get older you try to be better about this and then it turns around again as you age because giving the people the benefit of the doubt again and again and spending time dismantling their arguments only for them to turn around and publish the next article repeating the same things is a waste of time
giraffe_lady 4y ago
People's associations are part of their actions and a relevant part of the context of their writing. The commenter didn't necessarily entirely dismiss the article or the argument because of it, but it is potentially valuable information to have. It's not necessary to evaluate every work completely stripped of context to engage with it honestly. Articles are written by people, with motivations for writing them, and nothing is gained by pretending otherwise.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  > It's not necessary to evaluate every work completely stripped of context to engage with it honestly It is a blatant ad hominem comment that adds nothing to the discussion of whether or not the arguments in the article are valid, but rather is an attempt to prejudice your opinion.
  - howinteresting 4y ago
    Nothing wrong with having your priors straight.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Merely mentioning the publication a writer voluntarily contributes to is not ad hominem are you serious lol. That is a simple fact about their body of work. It is also not prejudiced to evaluate a single work of a writer in its context within their oeuvre, and to consider your own knowledge of their previous works when evaluating a new one. That is merely judgement, friend. You might would have us so carefully prune away context that judgement becomes impossible, but it's not a moral failure of others that they approach this differently.
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      The first two lines are statements of fact. The third line: > Alrighty then. is a blatant dog whistle. Even without the last line, it's not enough to simply say "just providing context!" It's a bit like jumping into a conversation about the affordable care act by saying "President Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. He was mentored by Bill Ayers, a man the FBI described as the leader of a terrorist group." It is all factual context, utterly irrelevant to the merits of the ACA and adds nothing to the conversation other than the prejudicial implication.
      - MilStdJunkie 4y ago
        Do people choose their middle names, generally? Cassius Clay did, and it most certainly informed on the things he said later, after making that decision. If he was born Muhammad Ali, then it would be a shitty thing to do to judge his words on his birth name. Did associating with Ayers preclude Obama from getting a TSC? Nope. Ayers wasn't active when he was Obama's BFF. He wasn't even a felon. Maybe Ayers was Wundergrounding it up in 2008, but he wasn't, unless I guess he was? There was a political price paid there[1] - in Obama's choice of mentors - and if that's not perceptible I don't know what to say. Among people who cared, Ayers. was a millstone. Among other people, it was a selling point. Which hits to the point of why everyone's getting so incensed right here and now: Bill Ayers was a hero to a part of America, and to another part of America he was the devil himself. We're in the same land, but we've come to have completely opposite values, fundamentally different, so that everything becomes an existential threat. The idea that this crisis has been artificially generated is of course scurrilous and would never occur to someone with a generous view of human behavior. [1] Conveniently steering eyeballs away from Goldman's PAC effectively putting Obama on the DNC board.
- naasking 4y ago
  > People's associations are part of their actions and a relevant part of the context of their writing Yes, but it's not relevant to the correctness of their argument. Are we here to talk about the argument or the author?
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Either or both if we feel like it. This isn't debate club we're not obligated to pretend that arguments drop from the sky separate from the people who make them.
MilStdJunkie 4y ago
It's the "grounded in Biblical truth" bit that got me, to be honest. What the hell kind of paper puts that on their masthead? I get just as jiggly when Sagan preaches about nukes, given the . . ahem . . standing of the World Peace Council (WPC) I walked away from a paycheck with a similar deal[1], because I didn't want that money to be attached to my name. Context, context, context, context. You think that the money's not going to get inside your judgement? All that Robert Novak? You're a better man than me. I'd be tootin whatever horn the security services brings me in a bloodstained briefcase, just like my hero Bob. [1] Although it was an aerospace systems integrator that, for whatever reason, boasted about its CEO-led prayer lunches. On its public website. Whew. Sorry folks, Jesus is for after hours.

tekmate 4y ago

it's interesting, when you start getting into debating politics in your teens it's easy to fall into the trap of attacking authors instead of arguments, then as you get older you try to be better about this and then it turns around again as you age because giving the people the benefit of the doubt again and again and spending time dismantling their arguments only for them to turn around and publish the next article repeating the same things is a waste of time

giraffe_lady 4y ago

People's associations are part of their actions and a relevant part of the context of their writing. The commenter didn't necessarily entirely dismiss the article or the argument because of it, but it is potentially valuable information to have. It's not necessary to evaluate every work completely stripped of context to engage with it honestly. Articles are written by people, with motivations for writing them, and nothing is gained by pretending otherwise.

zdragnar 4y ago
> It's not necessary to evaluate every work completely stripped of context to engage with it honestly It is a blatant ad hominem comment that adds nothing to the discussion of whether or not the arguments in the article are valid, but rather is an attempt to prejudice your opinion.
- howinteresting 4y ago
  Nothing wrong with having your priors straight.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Merely mentioning the publication a writer voluntarily contributes to is not ad hominem are you serious lol. That is a simple fact about their body of work. It is also not prejudiced to evaluate a single work of a writer in its context within their oeuvre, and to consider your own knowledge of their previous works when evaluating a new one. That is merely judgement, friend. You might would have us so carefully prune away context that judgement becomes impossible, but it's not a moral failure of others that they approach this differently.
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    The first two lines are statements of fact. The third line: > Alrighty then. is a blatant dog whistle. Even without the last line, it's not enough to simply say "just providing context!" It's a bit like jumping into a conversation about the affordable care act by saying "President Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. He was mentored by Bill Ayers, a man the FBI described as the leader of a terrorist group." It is all factual context, utterly irrelevant to the merits of the ACA and adds nothing to the conversation other than the prejudicial implication.
    - MilStdJunkie 4y ago
      Do people choose their middle names, generally? Cassius Clay did, and it most certainly informed on the things he said later, after making that decision. If he was born Muhammad Ali, then it would be a shitty thing to do to judge his words on his birth name. Did associating with Ayers preclude Obama from getting a TSC? Nope. Ayers wasn't active when he was Obama's BFF. He wasn't even a felon. Maybe Ayers was Wundergrounding it up in 2008, but he wasn't, unless I guess he was? There was a political price paid there[1] - in Obama's choice of mentors - and if that's not perceptible I don't know what to say. Among people who cared, Ayers. was a millstone. Among other people, it was a selling point. Which hits to the point of why everyone's getting so incensed right here and now: Bill Ayers was a hero to a part of America, and to another part of America he was the devil himself. We're in the same land, but we've come to have completely opposite values, fundamentally different, so that everything becomes an existential threat. The idea that this crisis has been artificially generated is of course scurrilous and would never occur to someone with a generous view of human behavior. [1] Conveniently steering eyeballs away from Goldman's PAC effectively putting Obama on the DNC board.
naasking 4y ago
> People's associations are part of their actions and a relevant part of the context of their writing Yes, but it's not relevant to the correctness of their argument. Are we here to talk about the argument or the author?
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Either or both if we feel like it. This isn't debate club we're not obligated to pretend that arguments drop from the sky separate from the people who make them.

MilStdJunkie 4y ago

It's the "grounded in Biblical truth" bit that got me, to be honest. What the hell kind of paper puts that on their masthead? I get just as jiggly when Sagan preaches about nukes, given the . . ahem . . standing of the World Peace Council (WPC) I walked away from a paycheck with a similar deal[1], because I didn't want that money to be attached to my name. Context, context, context, context. You think that the money's not going to get inside your judgement? All that Robert Novak? You're a better man than me. I'd be tootin whatever horn the security services brings me in a bloodstained briefcase, just like my hero Bob. [1] Although it was an aerospace systems integrator that, for whatever reason, boasted about its CEO-led prayer lunches. On its public website. Whew. Sorry folks, Jesus is for after hours.