The authors are idiots. Of course they would write something like this, they probably make their living off selling these sorts of pie-in-the-sky ideals to people. The whole tone of this article is pretentious and insulting. Personal attacks are perfectly valid forms of argument and communication. If you look at these things in terms of effectiveness, they are usually more practical approaches that yield results, especially in the political realm. One thing they write is:
'If you can't find an actual quote to disagree with, you may be arguing with a straw man.'
That isn't true. Using analog-situation arguments and reductions to absurdity to point out the fallacies of a point is a long-used, valid practice. The central point of their writing seems to be that addressing substance using reason is the most effective way of arguing. They write:
"The force of a refutation depends on what you refute. The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone's central point."
and point out that refutation is the strongest from of argument against some other point, Well, "strongest" is a subjective evaluation and I would like to point out that in the history of argument and in particular political discourse, usually it is the loudest, angriest, and downright scariest people in the argument who win; for example, look at the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s So these people have it just plain all wrong.
There, now, did I miss anything? =)
Great piece, really, I loved it. Thanks for putting it out there!
'If you can't find an actual quote to disagree with, you may be arguing with a straw man.'
That isn't true. Using analog-situation arguments and reductions to absurdity to point out the fallacies of a point is a long-used, valid practice. The central point of their writing seems to be that addressing substance using reason is the most effective way of arguing. They write:
"The force of a refutation depends on what you refute. The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone's central point."
and point out that refutation is the strongest from of argument against some other point, Well, "strongest" is a subjective evaluation and I would like to point out that in the history of argument and in particular political discourse, usually it is the loudest, angriest, and downright scariest people in the argument who win; for example, look at the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s So these people have it just plain all wrong.
There, now, did I miss anything? =)
Great piece, really, I loved it. Thanks for putting it out there!