Roger, Yes I know that very often, you are explaining or at least from your
vantagepoint you are. And sometimes, the person with whom you're having the
discussion, accepts your explanation. But often, the other person reads what
you say and because he or she doesn't accept the same basic premises as you, he
or she doesn't accept your explanation. The individual doesn't perceive you to
be more knowledgeable on the subject, but only to have a differing opinion or a
differing take on reality. You see the subject through a Marxist prospective.
The other person doesn't accept that prospective. It doesn't matter how well
you explain the prospective because the other individual doesn't accept the
basic premise.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2018 8:42 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: waging war with words
Miriam, you may call it debating, but, honestly, I rarely consider myself to be
debating. What I am trying to do is to explain things to people who show that
they do not quite understand it. That leads to a lot of frustration for me when
the other person thinks it is some kind of debate. And it is completely
exasperating when I can tell from the statements made that it is a subject that
I know more about than the other person and then the other person starts
lecturing me on it as if I was the one who does not know what he is talking
about. I am engaging much more in a debate when I am discussing something like
religion with someone like Mostafa.
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved
negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement,
and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no
matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and
more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence
will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov
On 11/10/2018 5:18 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I think that probably Sylvie is one of the smartest people I've known.
She handled participation on this list by posting articles and almost
never getting involved in discussions. I suspect that, that's because
discussions on the list don't feel like discussions. They feel like
battles. Perhaps that's just the nature of communicating by email or
of any online communicating. I listen to what the young people on
podcasts say about their twitter communication and it sounds as if
they're all in constant daily battle with opponents, even people who,
supposedly, have views similar to their's. At any rate, it does seem
to me that attempting to win arguments by trying to find statements that are
absolutely unquestionable, is futile.
That's partially because there are varying levels of depth and meaning
and often additional facts that we don't know about or have forgotten
about, that can change the entire meaning of a discussion. All of this
rambling from me was caused by Evan's statement about how that one
case of cancer, caused by the Fukushima meltdown, is uncontrovertible.
That's undeniable. Of course, it's the only one that, the individual
who wrote about it on Wikipedia, knew about. So that's what was
documented in Wikipedia and that's what Evan quoted and then what?
Does that mean that we had a debate and he won? Does it mean that no
other deaths were caused or that future deaths related to that nuclear
disaster won't take place? And when Roger and Evan debate something
and one of them bests the other with a logical argument, what does
that prove, except that in that instance, that particular individual
did better in the argument? We do all this debating and arguing, as if
what we say has some kind of impact or relationship to the truth. But
we don't have impact. Each of us continues to have our own take on things,
and we certainly don't know what relation to reality, our statements have.
I have one interesting little footnote. When I looked for articles on
Fukushima, the only article I found from the corporate media, was from
The Guardian, which is a British publication. And there was one from a
Japanese paper, I think the Tokyo Times, that I didn't read.
Interestingly, there were no articles from US corporate outlets. To me
that says, "news blackout".
Miriam
