Within the first form of discourse, if you take offence, you can close down the discourse in your favour; in the second form of discourse, if all you can do is to take offence, you have conceded the argument to your opponent, as offence is not meaningful currency within such discourse.
So when discourse_1 argues with discourse_2, discourse_1 takes offense and closes down the discussion, leaving both sides interpreting themselves as the victor in the discussion.
One obvious problem I see for discourse_1 discussions—when you can score points by taking offense, there is a natural death spiral of taking more and more and more offense.
when you can score points by taking offense, there is a natural death spiral of taking more and more and more offense.
Yes. Either that, or it empowers martinets to come up with petty etiquette norms and declare that someone’s approach is “rude” or “trollish”, regardless of their actual merits. This is especially ironic when the debate itself involves important issues in ethics, empathy or similar: the person with the most ethical or empathetic position in the debate can nonetheless end up being silenced.
“Autism Speaks” is the best known Autism charity in the US.
It routinely silences actual autistic voices, and shows basically no empathy for it. Any autistic person who can empathize with someone mislead by Autism Speaks is showing more empathy than it does.
Autism Speaks also tends to advocate a eugenics approach to “curing” autism, which many autistic people find unethical.
Hopefully useful as an example despite being a bit controversial / political on the ethical axis (I can’t imagine any clear cut example that wouldn’t be, aside from historical examples)
One point which stuck out to me:
So when discourse_1 argues with discourse_2, discourse_1 takes offense and closes down the discussion, leaving both sides interpreting themselves as the victor in the discussion.
One obvious problem I see for discourse_1 discussions—when you can score points by taking offense, there is a natural death spiral of taking more and more and more offense.
Managed to find an old Bloom County cartoon: Offensitivity http://www.explorerforum.com/photopost/data/503/medium/4156bloom.jpg
Yes. Either that, or it empowers martinets to come up with petty etiquette norms and declare that someone’s approach is “rude” or “trollish”, regardless of their actual merits. This is especially ironic when the debate itself involves important issues in ethics, empathy or similar: the person with the most ethical or empathetic position in the debate can nonetheless end up being silenced.
Can you provide an example?
“Autism Speaks” is the best known Autism charity in the US.
It routinely silences actual autistic voices, and shows basically no empathy for it. Any autistic person who can empathize with someone mislead by Autism Speaks is showing more empathy than it does.
Autism Speaks also tends to advocate a eugenics approach to “curing” autism, which many autistic people find unethical.
Hopefully useful as an example despite being a bit controversial / political on the ethical axis (I can’t imagine any clear cut example that wouldn’t be, aside from historical examples)