Talking about tone is not necessarily a bad thing. As the OP says, the tone in which arguments are presented can be an important thing. Discussions can often proceed more fruitfully if participants maintain a moderate tone, and strong arguments are often more persuasive when they are framed less antagonistically.
The problem is when a focus on tone takes the place of a focus on content. There is a large class of bad arguing which involve pretending to engage with someone’s argument, while in fact ignoring it. One way to do that is to focus on their tone. When agreements break down into two sides, criticizing the other side’s tone can be an easy and relatively content-free way to say “Yay us, boo them!” and suggest that the other side is not worth listening too. Or, if you want to portray yourself as a reasonable person who is not attached to either side, then criticizing the content of the views of one side and the tone of the other side can be a convenient way of portraying yourself as above the fray while barely engaging with the views of some of the main participants in the fray.
Focus on tone can also be a problem more broadly if, whenever you think about a topic, you habitually think about one side’s tone rather than the actual content at stake. In many places, whenever the topic of atheism/vegetarianism/feminism/homsexuality comes up, people will complain about how proponents are too in-your-face about it. If that is someone’s most accessible response to the topic then that is a warning sign.
I’d argue that it’s more a warning sign about an author that they’re incapable of being tone-neutral about a subject.
Having difficulty reading past an extremely hostile tone, particularly about a matter sensitive to you, is -human-. Having difficulty being civil to a group you have an -honest- intellectual disagreement with, less so.
Talking about tone is not necessarily a bad thing. As the OP says, the tone in which arguments are presented can be an important thing. Discussions can often proceed more fruitfully if participants maintain a moderate tone, and strong arguments are often more persuasive when they are framed less antagonistically.
The problem is when a focus on tone takes the place of a focus on content. There is a large class of bad arguing which involve pretending to engage with someone’s argument, while in fact ignoring it. One way to do that is to focus on their tone. When agreements break down into two sides, criticizing the other side’s tone can be an easy and relatively content-free way to say “Yay us, boo them!” and suggest that the other side is not worth listening too. Or, if you want to portray yourself as a reasonable person who is not attached to either side, then criticizing the content of the views of one side and the tone of the other side can be a convenient way of portraying yourself as above the fray while barely engaging with the views of some of the main participants in the fray.
Focus on tone can also be a problem more broadly if, whenever you think about a topic, you habitually think about one side’s tone rather than the actual content at stake. In many places, whenever the topic of atheism/vegetarianism/feminism/homsexuality comes up, people will complain about how proponents are too in-your-face about it. If that is someone’s most accessible response to the topic then that is a warning sign.
It occurred to me that US TV news reporting is full of tone arguments.
I’d argue that it’s more a warning sign about an author that they’re incapable of being tone-neutral about a subject.
Having difficulty reading past an extremely hostile tone, particularly about a matter sensitive to you, is -human-. Having difficulty being civil to a group you have an -honest- intellectual disagreement with, less so.