You misunderstand my position. Maybe that’s on me for being too vague.
My position can be summed up as “talk softly, carry a big stick.” At no point does that necessitate compromising. When dealing with online discussions, it’s not just you and the person you are directly speaking to. There’s other people reading. Some of those people are the frothing at the mouth right wingers, who you are never going to reach anyway, and so they are irrelevant. On the other hand, some of those people will be the young, some will be the adults who are just become politically aware. These are all people who can be persuaded with logic, and you want on your side. None of that necessitates you compromising your ideals (and not should you).
The same thing applies to when you go out protesting. The point is to get more people on your side, without simply becoming what you are fighting against. So you should be peaceful, you should be respectful, but in the interest of not compromising, you should also be armed.
I see, I understand that a bit better. Imo you need a carrot-and-stick approach, meeting belligerence with reason can come across as weakness, and if bad faith tactics are allowed to be deployed, they can win against someone committed to staying in good faith. The goal should be to have a reasonable discussion, but to do that, you gotta make sure the costs of straying from that are too high to be worth the benefit, and that can mean being rude and confrontational and throwing their tactics back in their face - but it’s situational. That’s what “speaking softly but carrying a big stick” means to me.
Exactly, and in my opinion, online discussions are not the place for the “unreasonable” tactics. It’s not really possible for an individual to be “louder” via text, and it’s not just the unreasonable person you are reaching. It’s all the people who may happen across the conversation later, and you have no way of knowing just how many of those are people that may still be swayed by reason.
I don’t really agree. You can be “shouted down” in text format, even if not literally. And yeah it’s not about reaching the unreasonable person, but it’s about not letting them win at the game they’re playing. Like I said, responding to aggression with reason can come across as weakness, and for some people, they’d rather feel strong than feel reasonable. It’s not really as simple as the more reasonable person wins, there’s a range of different things that are going to influence who people agree with, it might be aesthetics and which side sounds more cringe, or it might be empathy, or so on. “Logos” is only one factor.
You misunderstand my position. Maybe that’s on me for being too vague.
My position can be summed up as “talk softly, carry a big stick.” At no point does that necessitate compromising. When dealing with online discussions, it’s not just you and the person you are directly speaking to. There’s other people reading. Some of those people are the frothing at the mouth right wingers, who you are never going to reach anyway, and so they are irrelevant. On the other hand, some of those people will be the young, some will be the adults who are just become politically aware. These are all people who can be persuaded with logic, and you want on your side. None of that necessitates you compromising your ideals (and not should you).
The same thing applies to when you go out protesting. The point is to get more people on your side, without simply becoming what you are fighting against. So you should be peaceful, you should be respectful, but in the interest of not compromising, you should also be armed.
I see, I understand that a bit better. Imo you need a carrot-and-stick approach, meeting belligerence with reason can come across as weakness, and if bad faith tactics are allowed to be deployed, they can win against someone committed to staying in good faith. The goal should be to have a reasonable discussion, but to do that, you gotta make sure the costs of straying from that are too high to be worth the benefit, and that can mean being rude and confrontational and throwing their tactics back in their face - but it’s situational. That’s what “speaking softly but carrying a big stick” means to me.
Exactly, and in my opinion, online discussions are not the place for the “unreasonable” tactics. It’s not really possible for an individual to be “louder” via text, and it’s not just the unreasonable person you are reaching. It’s all the people who may happen across the conversation later, and you have no way of knowing just how many of those are people that may still be swayed by reason.
I don’t really agree. You can be “shouted down” in text format, even if not literally. And yeah it’s not about reaching the unreasonable person, but it’s about not letting them win at the game they’re playing. Like I said, responding to aggression with reason can come across as weakness, and for some people, they’d rather feel strong than feel reasonable. It’s not really as simple as the more reasonable person wins, there’s a range of different things that are going to influence who people agree with, it might be aesthetics and which side sounds more cringe, or it might be empathy, or so on. “Logos” is only one factor.