I argue a lot. I am strongly opinionated and I don't think that arguing is innately wrong. But I believe there are some rules, just like any other, the most critical being respect for the opponent. I may be passionate about what I believe in, but, for me, that's no reason to forget that my opponent is as passionate about her opinion. Another rule, there is no right and wrong; it's all opinions.
Now, I know some really gentle people and these are folks who don't usually argue. They just sit back and hear you yapping away rather than butt in and heat things up (not too much fun, as you can imagine). But there may be one or two issues that can get even the gentlest bunch to come alive; and when they do, argumentum ad hominem seems to be the order of the day. Like the Boss says, "It may be a fallacy, but it is shore-God useful. If you use the right kind of argumentum, you can always scare the hominem into a laundry bill he didn't expect". When even the nice ones follow Governor Stark (All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren) in the spirit of the statement, one can only imagine how the rest of the herd will scream and scratch everytime they disagree. It gets downright nasty.
Take the ongoing tussle about splitting Andhra Pradesh for example. One gets to hear some of the representatives and their arguments. As expected, not a lot of them sound intelligent and their shenanigans are rowdy at best and infantile at worst. A few came up with decent arguments, but those are just exceptions not the rule. In most contentions I have heard so far, the focus has been to malign the intentions of the opponent and vilify their methods, rather than to analyze the issues and argue the pretexts while acknowledging that not all of the motivations are sinister. The more personally involved they are, the worse the calumniation. The stronger the bias, the harsher the invective. Why?
Is it that hard for people to recognize and acknowledge their bias and try to compensate for it? In doing so, would we run the risk of over-compensating? And, is it wrong or unfair to over-compensate?
In the face of such confusion, news media has an opportunity to level things out and they have been found wanting. I am not against news media taking sides. What I am looking for (AP state splitting being just one example) is an in-depth investigation of the events - within the bias - that brought the state to this crossroads and a thorough analysis of the root causes and possible solutions to be discussed. This analysis may or may not lean toward one side, but with so many channels available from so many regions, I am confident that we will find balance as a whole. They could put people of all backgrounds and biases to sit together and talk facts.
The analysis provided by the different news channels here is mediocre, the coverage perpetually rusty and the delivery, amateurish. We just seem to be able to copy the framework from the news channels of the world and not the finer details. The right questions aren't asked, the right information is not handy, allegations are not rebutted. Why?
I'm just sayin', is all...
Now, I know some really gentle people and these are folks who don't usually argue. They just sit back and hear you yapping away rather than butt in and heat things up (not too much fun, as you can imagine). But there may be one or two issues that can get even the gentlest bunch to come alive; and when they do, argumentum ad hominem seems to be the order of the day. Like the Boss says, "It may be a fallacy, but it is shore-God useful. If you use the right kind of argumentum, you can always scare the hominem into a laundry bill he didn't expect". When even the nice ones follow Governor Stark (All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren) in the spirit of the statement, one can only imagine how the rest of the herd will scream and scratch everytime they disagree. It gets downright nasty.
Take the ongoing tussle about splitting Andhra Pradesh for example. One gets to hear some of the representatives and their arguments. As expected, not a lot of them sound intelligent and their shenanigans are rowdy at best and infantile at worst. A few came up with decent arguments, but those are just exceptions not the rule. In most contentions I have heard so far, the focus has been to malign the intentions of the opponent and vilify their methods, rather than to analyze the issues and argue the pretexts while acknowledging that not all of the motivations are sinister. The more personally involved they are, the worse the calumniation. The stronger the bias, the harsher the invective. Why?
Is it that hard for people to recognize and acknowledge their bias and try to compensate for it? In doing so, would we run the risk of over-compensating? And, is it wrong or unfair to over-compensate?
In the face of such confusion, news media has an opportunity to level things out and they have been found wanting. I am not against news media taking sides. What I am looking for (AP state splitting being just one example) is an in-depth investigation of the events - within the bias - that brought the state to this crossroads and a thorough analysis of the root causes and possible solutions to be discussed. This analysis may or may not lean toward one side, but with so many channels available from so many regions, I am confident that we will find balance as a whole. They could put people of all backgrounds and biases to sit together and talk facts.
The analysis provided by the different news channels here is mediocre, the coverage perpetually rusty and the delivery, amateurish. We just seem to be able to copy the framework from the news channels of the world and not the finer details. The right questions aren't asked, the right information is not handy, allegations are not rebutted. Why?
I'm just sayin', is all...
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