Posted by Robert_Burton_1621 on March 27, 2015, at 9:47:27
In reply to Re: respect, posted by Dr. Bob on March 25, 2015, at 1:25:49
> > That last thing I want to see when severly depressed, so anxious I've been stuck in my shower for 4 and a half hours. Or just plan irratibile due to the problems my brain is causing me, is a seemingly non sensical unrelated speech about topics that I cannot string together no matter how hard I try. For this reason, if you plan on making a statement and getting a message across, please do it to people who actually have the mental stamina to abstractly think about whatever you are saying, and not to some of the most tprtured souls in the world. I beleive you will receive much more interactive and supportive talk if you post this message elsewhere.
> >
> > Bill82
>
> 1. Please be civil. How would you feel if someone referred to your speech as non sensical unrelated?
>
> 2. His objective may not (or may) be interaction and support.
>
> 3. If you can't make sense of someone's posts, it might not be worth your while to keep reading them.
>
> BobDr. Hsiung,
1. Bill82 did not refer to the content of any post as "non-sensical" or "unrelated" tout court. He stated that the relevant content was "seemingly" non-sensical or unrelated. In ordinary English, such a qualification implies that the writer openly accepts the possibility that the content *may not in fact be* nonsensical or unrelated.
2. There is signifiant ambiguity in any case as to whether the (qualified) attribution of nonsensicality was made with the intent directly to characterise the content of the relevant post or posts or whether it was made with the intent to express the *indirect* difficulties Bill82 has attested as having experienced in seeking to make sense of the relevant post or posts *given his lack of "mental stamina"* caused by his condition (for which he turns to this site for support). The first alternative characterises the comment as intending to apply primarily to the relevant post or posts; the second alternative applies primarily to Bill's *capacities* to construe the sense which is contained in the post or post.
Your chastisment conflates, or omits to identify the existence of, these alternatives, without any apparent justification.
3. You ask how Bill82 should "feel" if x. You pose the question seemingly as if it were a definitive retort. But nothing about the question necessitates a single answer, certainly not one inevitably favourable to the assumption on which it is based. This be so even to the extent that the question clearly appeals to "feeling" as if "feeling" were both universal and invariable across persons, in effect some form of universal criterion of moral approbation or reprobation (are you an emotivist?), *and* heuristically more relevant than (for instance) "reason" in determining whether there are any *grounds* personally to object to, or be dissatisfied by, or be justly critical of, the statement that one's stated views are x or y or z. I can only speak for myself when I say that, if someone asserts that my opinion is nonsensical, and if objectively in point of reason it *is* nonsensical, I will thank him or her for pointing that fact out to me. I will not "feel" unvalued, or (to use an Oprahesque term) unvalidated, or ignored, or unjustly treated, if someone tells me in charity that I am wrong.
2. There is sufficient evidence of civility and consideration in the post that it astonishes me that it could possibly be the cause of any need to urge on the poster an exhortation to be "civil". I was so taken aback by your exhortation that I thought, and think, that an apology is warranted.
3. Given that *one* objective you consider open is the seeking of interaction and support, there is nothing illict in Bill's comment to the extent that it assumes the existence of this one (if among other) objectives. Nothing in Bill's comment purports to cover exhaustively every purpose, or all purposes, by which his interlocutor may have been actuated.
4. It may not be "worth [Bob's] while" to read posts which he finds seemingly nonsensical or in which his condition militates against inferring a satisfactory sense. This is, I think, without disrespect, a rather unfeeling way of putting the dilemma, particularly after Bill's affecting post. What do you have to say in light of the possibilities that members may *wish* to participate by reading the posts that are made here? May *wish* to keep up to date with threads to which they have contributed? May *wish* to visit the site daily so as to keep up-to-date? May *wish* to read putatively nonsensical posts which fall (arbitrarily) within a particular thread on a different topic because they might contain something related to the thread or which subsequent posts then make reference to? And what, finally, of the fact that some posts are, because of their prevalence, very hard to ignore given the way the threads are presented?
5. Is your advice in all such cases as particularised above that members either not read or devise some absurd means of averting their attention? If so, do you concede that this advice is vulnerable to a reductio ad absurdum? Namely, that members should *leave" the site altogether?
I am certainly considering doing so myself.
6. Please do feel assured that my attempt at a rational response to your reply to Bill82 is not intended to amount to "bullying". Please consider how you would feel if someone asserted that you were a "bully". Please also consider how you would feel if you were deliberately misprepresented as asserting that you stated that *someone*, i.e, a particular human being, does not merit consideration, when you in fact you had taken pains to state that certain *opinions* do not merit *reasonable* consideration if they be not based themselves in reason, even though they may merit *other* forms of consideration (e.g., compassionate attention). I have an instinct for fairness, and an aptitude for "questioning authority", even when I do not believe such authority is corrupted by an all-pervasive and programmatic anti-semitism. Please do not feel threatened by this. I can refer you to educational material on this point if you are interested and if you have the time to learn from it. It may assist you in expressing yourself more considerately and lucidly in the future. Please be civil and non-accusatory in any reply you may be minded to provide in public on the very site that you administer. Please remain mindful of the fact that *all* members of this site are vulnerable in various respects. Please try to respect opinions that are not congruent with your own. I know this is difficult - I can readily refer you to resources which might assist you in overcoming this difficulty.
7. We all of us can resort to the evasive tu quoque manouevre.
poster:Robert_Burton_1621
thread:1077800
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20140902/msgs/1077863.html