{"id":15500,"date":"2016-01-23T13:12:02","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T18:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=15500"},"modified":"2016-01-23T17:13:11","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T22:13:11","slug":"seven-levels-of-disagreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/seven-levels-of-disagreement.html","title":{"rendered":"Seven levels of disagreement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nMany people these days think name-calling is argument (thank you, Newt Gingrich*<\/a>), so here’s a handy picture of seven levels of disagreement.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\nImage by\r\n\r\nabagond<\/a> 26 July 2010, from How to Disagree<\/a>, by Paul Graham, March 2008.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThere’s nothing like a good discussion, with actual arguments on facts, theories, or context.\r\nBut we really don’t have time for name-calling or ad hominem here on the LAKE blog.\r\nAs noted in our submissions policy<\/a>, you can submit anything you like, but\r\n“LAKE reserves complete discretion to select, edit, and annotate submissions, and to delete blog or facebook comments that are spam or personal attacks, or for any other reason whatever.”\r\nName-calling and ad hominem are personal attacks.\r\n

\r\nThe source of the above image<\/a> includes some useful examples,\r\nand \r\n\r\nthe original source of the levels<\/a> further elaborates, for example\r\nfor level 5 Refutation, “If you can’t find an actual quote to disagree with, you may be arguing with a straw man.”\r\n

\r\nNo simple schematic like this can be complete, and I would argue that\r\nabove the top level of refuting the central point is refuting a mistaken context.\r\nFor example, lots of people argue that genetic modification of crops is not bad, because there are lots of kinds of genetic modification.\r\nBut that misses the main context that 90+ percent of corn, soybeans, and cotton\r\nin Georgia and much of the U.S. is grown with Monsanto GMO seeds, deliberately\r\ndesigned to resist Glyphosate, which along with other pesticides is sprayed\r\nin massive quantities, drifts, runs downhill into watersheds, and is found in the urine of school children from Kansas to Manhattan, plus those are monocrops that risk the same kind of failure as with the boll weevil and the dust bowl of the 1930s. Feel free to disagree with any of those points, by supplying actual arguments. Continuing to repeat there are more kinds of genetic modification\r\nis just tossing a straw man into the pesticide drift.\r\n

\r\n* Newt Gingrich<\/a>: see Language: A Key Mechanism of Control<\/a>, FAIR, 1 Feb 1995, which quotes a 1990 GOPAC memo<\/a>\r\nthat recommends applying words like these to Gingrich’s opposition:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“decay… failure (fail)… collapse(ing)… deeper… crisis…\r\nurgent(cy)… destructive… destroy… sick… pathetic… lie…”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nand words like these to Gingrich’s own party:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“share… change… opportunity… legacy… challenge… control…\r\ntruth… moral… courage… reform… prosperity…”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThat sort of framing via surreptitious ad hominem and name-calling\r\nhas become very widespread. It doesn’t help communities build on\r\ntheir strengths. And it doesn’t help communities fight off their real\r\nenemies, such as a corporation from Houston that wants to build a fracked methane pipeline through here for their profit at our expense.\r\n

\r\nSo, feel free to post comments.\r\nAnd we’ll feel free to ignore, not approve, or delete those that resort to\r\nname-calling or ad hominem, or for other reasons.\r\n

\r\nFeel even freer to post real arguments.\r\nThose often lead to real discussion, with more evidence dug up and new conclusions reached.\r\nSometimes they even lead to action that helps the local community,\r\nwhich is the point of this blog.\r\n

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