I’m asking this half seriously, half tongue-in-cheek.
But I notice in a lot of debating on these boards there’s also a lot of insulting. What’s up with that? Granted, some of it comes from Nietzscheans, and if he’s your paradigm philosopher, I guess I understand it. But I think a lot of it doesn’t, and I don’t see why people need to stoop to that level?
Lots of calling people unintelligent or uneducated. Why can’t people just disagree about stuff here? It strikes me as amateurish philosophizing, reaching for insults when you lack an argument or something insightful to say.
I guess my question is, can’t we just all be respectful of each other in our disagreements?
not everyone is respectful…there are certain persons that like to play with your emotions…they wont stop…they have a lot of anger and like to blame others for their own defects…
No, it probably won’t stop. I think it’s unfortunate though. It’s very amateurish. Not that this is a forum for professionals, but still… if people want their ideas taken seriously, they can present them in a mature, respectful manner. Otherwise, what’s the point?
There doesn’t seem to be the purpose or plan to see knowledge as just for the sake of knowledge. It’s more for dominance and control, for power. You may not be conscious that by knowing more you have power over the other. In that sense, knowledge is power.
Plus the fact that there is the activity of being choosey in everything due to thinking in the field of what they call the 'pair of opposites.’
What causes the uneasiness there? It’s not your inability to do… “I just can’t do a thing,” you might think. Thinking is the problem. Uneasiness is not the problem, but thinking about it is the problem. You perpetuate your annoyance through your thinking.
… Nothing is wrong with you at all. You don’t have the courage. Accepting whatever there is is courage. That is intelligence. “I don’t want to be other than what I am --” that is the courage. It is there! It is not a thing to be acquired.
Insults can be helpful, depending on how you approach them. Also, not all “insults” are even meant to be insults. Some people feel insulted by just about anything.
I’ve actually become accustomed to it myself. On one hand, it keeps me honest. On the other, it exposes people’s motives. Debate gets competitive…
This isn’t to say I agree with any labeling or name calling, but I prefer to be frank. And I will give you a tip:-- The best reply to a flagrant insult is none at all. Unless, of course, you can maintain your calm and show some wit. That can help keep things interesting.
Also, I’m not sure it’s accurate to expect insults from Nietzscheans. From what I understand, he was actually quite sociable and high spirited when his health allowed. He was frank, to be sure. But I don’t ever remember reading “Wagner is a dick head”.
I think almost everyone in this forum is guilty of that. Some more some less.
I genuinely think that I was never rude to anyone without being extremely provoked prior to whatever I said.
I think the main problems here are an abundance of arrogance and a disregard for science.
On one hand you have the really arrogant people who think they are superior to anyone else and always speak with a condescending tone. I guess this is possible side effect of being knowledgeable.
On the other hand you have people that don’t value logic and disregard scientific evidence. Doesn’t take much for a discussion with someone like that to take a wrong turn.
It is pretty rare to see someone here saying “oh, that’s a good point, I had never thought of that”.
Having said that, it’s not all bad apples.
Only Human who often disagrees with me has always been extremely cordial for instance.
That’s ok, disagreement is good and fun and in the spirit of philosophy. But people can disagree respectfully, or they can be disrespectful and say “Well you obviously are ignorant / uneducated / an idiot / whatever” which to me just makes you look immature and like an amateur.
I insult people to elecit responses. I hate typing up posts that no one responds to. Since most of the stuff I talk about no one here has heard of it happens a lot. If you pretend to target someone’s inrelligence they’re usually reply cause they feel the need to defend it.
Just speak your mind and present your argument as best you can – it should speak for itself. That someone doesn’t understand you doesn’t necessarily detract from the validity of your position. But that is how discussion works. First we try to get on the same page, then iron out details.
However, nearly all of us agree to disagree at some point simply because we vary in beliefs, convictions, eduction, etc. I can’t prove there is, or isn’t a God, for instance, but I can justifiably disagree with one stance or the other.
I think we get too concerned with the approbation of others, often times. Some take offense to disagreement simply because they have convinced themselves so thoroughly in the opposite direction. People come here trying to convince one another rather than engaging in philosophical discourse for the sake of refinement.
The majority of people on internet discussion forums are not really interested in seeking truth. They have already ‘made up their minds’ on the topic they wish to debate and found ‘their’ team to support. It most likely comes from emotional trauma they have suffered…
I see the internet as a place for getting good practice in making arguments…but you have to be able to brush off the idiotic personal attacks and such by people who feel threatened when you start questioning their not completely logical or rational beliefs.
Also many people read a few books on a certain subject, then have this sunk cost thing where they have an incentive to not want to really question what they have been learning…
This is the internet, though. It’s about utilizing the inherent qualities to it, like lack of responsibility, face-to-face energy transfer, and/or other live social dynamics.
You can’t expect anyone to take anything seriously, or to be overly nice. The fact of the matter is they simply don’t have to be. Being globally connected like this is kind of like going into a new adolescence. There is so much comical insanity going on because as a species we’re really quite immature.
Adults respond to emotional threats just like children, they just phrase it in a mature way.
Yea, people in general are pretty amateurish. We are all prone to getting emotional. And it’s easy and shallowly satisfying to tell someone they’re wrong and make them look like a fool on the internet. To be able to do it in person on a whim is actually somewhat skillful. At any rate, there doesn’t seem to be any other utility to it. But we’re all growing (hopefully), so more important than anything else is that we strive to learn and be better.
Reason is and ought only be a slave of the passions. We can goad the slave as much as we want but as long as the master is kept in check we’ll never really see what the slave can do. We need to see the slave unleashed. That means that, as philosophers, we not only have to occasionally appeal to the passions but rather than appeals to passions are what philosophy is all about.
I dunno. I’m all for emotion, but there’s mature emotion (feeling sadness because another suffers or joy at another’s happiness) and there’s immature emotion (calling someone an idiot / ignoramus because you don’t agree with their philosophical position on abstract metaphysics).