pretty defensive, and a mistake for that reason (as was Zack Davis’ original reply upthread).
What do you think would have been the superior play for me in that situation? When someone is deploying a “distasteful” epithet without specifics, I think asking for specifics (forcing them to take a stand on which side of the fact/value boundary the distaste is supposedly on) is the natural follow-up. (And then after he answered that fact-beliefs themselves aren’t culpable, there was nothing to do except thank him for answering the question.)
Both your questions and mine felt very pointed. I think questions can be asked from a stance of genuine curiosity, versus a stance of “justify yourself!”, and the difference is very noticeable and also changes the dynamics of the resulting conversation significantly.
If I’d had that curious stance, for example, I would have scrolled the DoD feed and then agreed that it was distasteful, saving myself from what has turned out to be a fairly unproductive and time-consuming thread.
What do you think would have been the superior play for me in that situation? When someone is deploying a “distasteful” epithet without specifics, I think asking for specifics (forcing them to take a stand on which side of the fact/value boundary the distaste is supposedly on) is the natural follow-up. (And then after he answered that fact-beliefs themselves aren’t culpable, there was nothing to do except thank him for answering the question.)
Both your questions and mine felt very pointed. I think questions can be asked from a stance of genuine curiosity, versus a stance of “justify yourself!”, and the difference is very noticeable and also changes the dynamics of the resulting conversation significantly.
If I’d had that curious stance, for example, I would have scrolled the DoD feed and then agreed that it was distasteful, saving myself from what has turned out to be a fairly unproductive and time-consuming thread.