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What are words for, when no one listens?
May. 8th, 2013 10:29 amThe other day I tweeted the following:
Using semantics as an arguing point isn't valid. It only makes you sound like a dick. You can do better than that.
This came about after watching a friend's Twitter argument with someone about the news from Cleveland, in regards to whether neighbor Charles Ramsey was truly a hero or not. He was the one who heard the woman's cries in that locked house, helped break down the door, and get her to a phone so she could call 911. To some he was a hero, because he acted on the cries for help. To others, he wasn't a hero--I'm not entirely sure why, since I wasn't privy to their explanation, but it made me wonder about why they would think that. Was it because their definition of "hero" was in strict terms of a Michael Bay hero who saved the girl while the house blew up in spectacular 3D pyrotechnics? Was it because their "hero" needed to be wearing a uniform? Was it that Mr. Ramsey wasn't a dashing young man, but an older black man of probably middling education and had a deliberately amusing way of talking? Or was it because there's a specific threshold that needs to be reached before Hero Status--that is, they'd have needed to enter the house themselves and get the other women out?
My point is...when I hear arguments like this, I think they're missing the point. Focusing on the meaning of the term "hero" and not the act itself. This is something I've seen quite a bit in social media over the last few years, and have always seen in one form or another in the past. It's definitely a favorite derailer of arguments and debate for certain Republicans, and especially with certain less-than-impartial news outlets. It's a deliberate deflection of the conversation and a deflation of the subject's importance, pretty much aimed to get the other side all flustered and wonder if it's worth arguing about in the first place.
The main thing that irritates me when people use semantics as an arguing point is that, at least to me, they're not taking the subject seriously at all, even though they might think otherwise. In a way it kind of feels like the debates we used to hear in high school and college--for an easy example, let's say the debate on whether a band is indie or simply pandering to the masses. [In the 80s and early 90s, this would have been the classic "punk or poseur" argument. ;) ] My personal take on that had always been musical--bands could be played on a commercial alternative station like WFNX and still be considered punk; it was just a (then-rare) commercial outlet that was being offered. Others, however, dismissed any form of "alternativeness" once it hit that commercial outlet, because, semantically, alternative and commercial had been polar opposites.
Sure, that's a slight and silly example, but it proves my point--I was arguing the finer points with someone who was arguing terminology, and that's not what debate is about. When you're personally and/or emotionally invested in a subject, it's irritating to have someone question it when their own investment is that shallow.
Using semantics as an arguing point isn't valid. It only makes you sound like a dick. You can do better than that.
This came about after watching a friend's Twitter argument with someone about the news from Cleveland, in regards to whether neighbor Charles Ramsey was truly a hero or not. He was the one who heard the woman's cries in that locked house, helped break down the door, and get her to a phone so she could call 911. To some he was a hero, because he acted on the cries for help. To others, he wasn't a hero--I'm not entirely sure why, since I wasn't privy to their explanation, but it made me wonder about why they would think that. Was it because their definition of "hero" was in strict terms of a Michael Bay hero who saved the girl while the house blew up in spectacular 3D pyrotechnics? Was it because their "hero" needed to be wearing a uniform? Was it that Mr. Ramsey wasn't a dashing young man, but an older black man of probably middling education and had a deliberately amusing way of talking? Or was it because there's a specific threshold that needs to be reached before Hero Status--that is, they'd have needed to enter the house themselves and get the other women out?
My point is...when I hear arguments like this, I think they're missing the point. Focusing on the meaning of the term "hero" and not the act itself. This is something I've seen quite a bit in social media over the last few years, and have always seen in one form or another in the past. It's definitely a favorite derailer of arguments and debate for certain Republicans, and especially with certain less-than-impartial news outlets. It's a deliberate deflection of the conversation and a deflation of the subject's importance, pretty much aimed to get the other side all flustered and wonder if it's worth arguing about in the first place.
The main thing that irritates me when people use semantics as an arguing point is that, at least to me, they're not taking the subject seriously at all, even though they might think otherwise. In a way it kind of feels like the debates we used to hear in high school and college--for an easy example, let's say the debate on whether a band is indie or simply pandering to the masses. [In the 80s and early 90s, this would have been the classic "punk or poseur" argument. ;) ] My personal take on that had always been musical--bands could be played on a commercial alternative station like WFNX and still be considered punk; it was just a (then-rare) commercial outlet that was being offered. Others, however, dismissed any form of "alternativeness" once it hit that commercial outlet, because, semantically, alternative and commercial had been polar opposites.
Sure, that's a slight and silly example, but it proves my point--I was arguing the finer points with someone who was arguing terminology, and that's not what debate is about. When you're personally and/or emotionally invested in a subject, it's irritating to have someone question it when their own investment is that shallow.
