Hey, remember a little over five years ago, when I wrote this piece, taking issue with KTK‘s argumentative style? Or how about this one, about four years ago? Or here, two and a half years ago, when I did the very thing I complained about KTK doing? (There’s another one out there somewhere, where Digglahhh essentially threw his hat in with KTK in the comments, but I can’t find it.)
While I singled out KTK in these pieces, the point I was trying to make was more general: That you’re not likely to convince many people or attract them to your point of view if you’re insulting them the whole way.
It seems that recently, the “Bad Astronomer” Phil Plait made the same argument (not specifically directed at anyone), and did a much better job of it than I did:
Be warned, though: The video is nearly 30 minutes long.
Via Plait’s blog.
Judd
Kevin
Kevin T. Keith
leanleft
tgirsch
I will check this out when I get home, as I’ve already jogged down memory lane with the likes of Fred and Grump.
But, suffice to say, the “purpose” of every argument isn’t always to convince, or to convince a specific subset of (nonbelieving) people. Sometimes, arguments are rhetorical and developed for other purposes – reinvigorating “the choir” for example.
For me, a lot of it comes down to whether I determine my dissenters are debating in good faith and interested desconstructing the issue at hand to the point where the fundamental philosophical, moral, ethical, etc. issue is revealed and explored. If they are, then I’m in civilly. If not, fuck it; tag ‘em and bag ‘em. I try to respect the person as fully as they respect the depth of the issue.
But, and this is a question I believe I asked you the last go-around – who says anybody wants to be convinced by your argument in this forum? Have you any evidence to demonstrate an increased efficacy for your style of rhetoric vs. KTK’s?
As to evidence, I must admit, it’s completely anecdotal. Studies have probably been done by someone, somewhere.
That speech has been getting a lot of commentary in the skeptic community.
PZ Myers, in particular – noted for his confrontational atheism – has been called out by a lot of people as the unnamed target of the speech. There’s some good discussion at his blog regarding this speech and the general issue of “accommodation”:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/the_dick_delusion.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/10/post_6.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/i_may_not_be_perfectly_rationa.php
A few observations:
The “Don’t Be a Dick” line is predicated entirely on the issue of rhetorical efficacy. Plait opens with, and goes on and on repeatedly about, the question whether people are convinced to adopt rational beliefs by being insulted in an argument. He makes the reasonable point that nobody is convinced by that. But he also notes, but seems strangely oblivious to, the fact that nobody is convinced by anything else either. He explicitly quotes Swift’s line that “you cannot reason a man out of something he did not reason his way into”, and notes that in his own case his conversion to skepticism took months or years – without anybody being a dick to him. There’s no reason to think that not being a dick is any more effective at converting people than being a dick.
Though “being a dick” sounds like a bad thing, he’s not making a moral argument against being insulting to people; his major argument against being a “dick” is simply a factual question of what works best at creating a good reputation for skeptics and convincing superstitionists to change their minds. And on factual grounds, it doesn’t seem like he has a very strong case. (I’m surprised to see a skeptic falling into such an obvious instance of false dichotomy: because being a dick doesn’t convince people, not being a dick will.)
Second, I think Plait is lumping a lot of things together into a straw picture of what he’s talking about. It’s true that discussions of skepticism/atheism, or particular irrational beliefs, often turn heated, but I don’t think there is a general tendency by skeptics to “be a dick” whenever they are engaged in factual discussions of irrational issues. However, there are a lot of areas where the issue at hand is not just a factual question on which some people just happen to have irrational beliefs, but on which people are acting on their superstitious or irrational beliefs to intrude on other people’s freedoms in very significant ways.
The least of these are the attempts to outlaw science and dictate religious beliefs by law, as regarding creationism in public schools and false education about sex and birth control. Related issues are the constant attempt to impose religious beliefs and practices through government endorsement of religion and discrimination against minority religions and atheism, imposed prayer in schools and at public events, and made-up complaints of discrimination like “The War on Christmas”. Much more personal are the unrelenting, vicious assault on autonomy, most notably over abortion rights, but also birth control and all forms of reproductive healthcare, sexual orientation, availability of certain treatments for disease or research into potential cures, and so on – all of it arising from purely parochial superstition translated into legal mandates for the entire population. These are not merely factual disputes, but questions of moral autonomy that cut to the heart of people’s lives, health, and freedom.
In many cases – particularly those involving gays or women’s health – the superstitious motivation for these intrusions also carries an unmistakable and virulent bigotry against the targets of the assault. These are things to get angry about. These are political acts of hostility aimed at people’s personal freedom, their children’s education, their bodily health and autonomy, and in not a few cases their lives. It would be wrong not to communicate the urgency and significance of these assaults, or without pointing out the political strategy and prejudicial hostility that motivates them. And it would be wrong to pretend that discussions of the moral personhood of a fertilized egg cell, or the age of the earth, are merely questions of scientific fact, rather than grounds of conflict in a deliberate effort to impose some people’s religious beliefs on other people against their will.
The right rhetoric to use in making those points is the rhetoric that expresses them truthfully, communicates the nature of the conflict they represent, and takes an appropriately strong stance for freedom in that conflict. Making your assailants feel good about you is irrelevant.
See, you clearly understood him a lot differently than I did (and, according to him, differently than he intended to be understood). He doesn’t say that we should never become angry or that we shouldn’t be passionate. He actually says the direct opposite of those things. What he says is that we shouldn’t be dicks. And I agree.
Further, it’s not a question of whether not being a dick works better than being a dick, but rather the other way around. If being a dick doesn’t work better than not being a dick, it accomplishes nothing, other than making you look like, well, a dick (and making your fellow travelers look like dicks by association).
The point about nobody really being convinced by anything is a bit hyperbolic, but relevant. I look at it in two ways. First, if the person I’m arguing with is at all open to changing his position, then it seems to me that being a dick to him makes it less likely that I’ll convince him to change that position. (If he’s not so open, then why am I bothering with him at all?) And second, even if the person I’m arguing with is not so open, or deserves to have me act like a dick toward him, it’s not just him I’m worried about. There may be others watching/reading/whatever, and maybe they are open to changing their minds; I may well turn them off with dickishness. Unless being a dick increases my chances of changing somebody’s mind (even if not that of the person I’m arguing with), then what’s the point of being a dick? Catharsis, I suppose, but beyond that?
Even setting aside all of that, I’m less concerned about what being a dick to people is likely to provoke in them, and more concerned about what doing it says about me.
“I don’t think there is a general tendency by skeptics to “be a dick” whenever they are engaged in factual discussions of irrational issues.”
You haven’t talked to many libertarians, have you? Anecdotally, I find them to be disproportionately atheists/skeptics. And dicks. Sorry, Judd.
For what it’s worth, Plait explicitly denies that he had PZ Myers — or anyone else in particular — in mind when he wrote that speech.
Let me offer another angle on this being a dick thing. Being accused of being a dick isn’t exactly unrelated to the types of arguments you are espousing. People obstinately and forcefully preaching the status quo aren’t exactly being called dicks left and right. I get called a dick (and other similar insults) by conservative leaning commenters for using polysyllabic words.
As somebody who holds many marginalized viewpoints, I don’t particularly care about being called a dick. I embrace it on some levels, in the same way some feminists may embrace being labeled a bitch, or the way Jay-Z will selectively embrace and self-identify as a “nigga.” Yeah – I’m kicking shit you don’t want to hear, and telling you and your bullshit to take a fucking hike.
Is it effective? Well, that depends on what effect you’re assuming somebody is going for, and the efficacy of what you’re comparing the tactic to.
Finally, I’m perfectly willing to admit that some of the stuff I write in response to disagreeing commenters is really for the core group around here. So, I’ll throw in dick-ish comments because no matter what I do, I’m not going to convince most people of anything, but if my post makes Dan chuckle to himself, then it wasn’t for nothing.
This speech is at this point downright notorious. (And I still haven’t gotten around to watching it; maybe later.) A lot of people have read it the way that KTK has, and largely in spite of Plait’s protestations. Basically, it comes down to the same kind of deconstruction that a lot of feminism relies on: what you’re saying is not just what you think you’re saying.
“Being a dick” is too ill-defined to be a useful criterion. It’s a evocative way of assigning offense to a behavior, without much constraint on what behavior is covered. Because we can all vacuously agree that needlessly being a dick is definitially bad, asking somebody not to be a dick is fundamentally presuppositionalist; of course I’ll stop doing X, if doing X is needlessly being a dick.
One defense is of course to claim that the dickishness is needful, but it’s much more informative to reject the notion that dickishness is a property of rhetorical form.
Oh, and KTK missed one: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/the_dick_delusion.php
…Yeah, are we confining this “being a dick” thing to characterisation of tactfulness of one’s argument? Or, would acts of tangible revolt or aggression fall within the same class? …Because, if so, “not being a dick” would also imply the same subtle morally relative elitism that incontrovertible commitment to nonviolence does. I hope so, because I haven’t referred to Pacifism as Pathology in a while, so I’m overdue. Basically, why voluntarily forefit tactical options in favor of gaining the meaningless in a practical sense “moral high ground.” It’s the same old fallacy of effective protest – that being civil in the face of attack is somehow triumphant. The rhetorical example Ward Churchill is, what exactly is moral, right, or meaningful about marching or holding a sign to protest babies being killed in a war. Such is neither moral, nor inherently effective.
The fact that “being a dick” may not be effective doesn’t imply that being a dick either. Just like the failures of the Weather underground don’t prove the effectiveness of bed-ins.
Finally, let me comment facetiously about Plait’s use of sports metaphors. …The notion that the goal shouldn’t be to score cheap points, but instead to win the game reminds me of the wizard of gallimaufry Joe Morgan, who repeatedly uttered the phrase, “You can’t [the Phillies] them by outscoring them.” …If you don’t win the game by scoring points, then how do you win the game? What he’s really saying is just that it doesn’t do anything for a professional boxer’s reputation or standing to knock guys out cold for spilling a drink on him at the local bar. …You know why, because that isn’t happening within the confines of a boxing match or against other boxers. The question Phil skips is whether arguing on internet message boards is even part of the game in question.
At the risk of going all Potter Stewart on you, it’s difficult to define or describe. Suffice it to say that when you’re casting overly broad aspersions (e.g., characterizing all opponents of abortion rights as having misogynistic intent), you’re probably being a dick, and in a way that isn’t productive, IMNSHO.
Another, gentler way of putting it is, “Don’t make it harder than necessary for someone to agree with you.” If I’m wrong on the merits, and you call me an idiot or an asshole in the process of pointing this out to me, you’ve made the argument personal, and now I can’t really concede anything at all without conceding that I am, in fact, an idiot/asshole. Which, to be fair, I may very well be, but that’s beside the point.
My bottom line is that if someone can be brought around, then an argument that refrains from disparaging the character of the other party probably has the best chance of bringing them around. And if they can’t be brought around, why are you even bothering with them?
Still, I understand the frustration that leads to dickishness, and am frequently guilty of it myself. As I said in one of the linked posts, KTK = tgirsch + time.
Persuasion rarely occurs in a one-off rhetorical event. Especially with the great issues of any generation–rights movements, environmentalism, even war and peace (think WWII) persuasion takes time. But, a lot of the “I’m skeptical and sciency” folks want to get caught up in issues of truth and aren’t interested in undertaking the complicated elements of persuasion. I’m often a dick, my wife confirmed her attitude about that last night, but dickishness has its place. For people who aren’t aware of alternative positions, yet hold stubbornly to their own demonstrably false perceptions, dickyness can be the jolt it takes to get them engaged. The sophists argued that rhetoric was largely about timing (kairos) and appropriateness (to prepon), and argue in the Dissoi Logoi that what is appropriate to one group, may be reprehensible to another. The point is, dickfulness has an appropriate time and place, so we should all on occasion put our dicks forward and damn the torpedoes. That said, I’ll drink to KTK tonight.
Dave
And if they can’t be brought around, why are you even bothering with them?
For the amusement of you guys!
I come here to learn about things, to enjoy the (virtual) company of smart, relatively like-minded and like-thinking people. Us folk can disagree with eachother and remain civil and respectful of others’ positions. What I really think it comes down to is whether you are arguing in good faith. I think I’m pretty good about being compused, civil, understanding, and patient when my opponent is arguing in good faith. I also understand the medium, and recognize that some ideas are conveyed in certain ways (phrasings, intonations, etc.) for rhetorical effect. I always like to say that debate is a full contact sport, but it’s also a performance art. I don’t hold it against somebody if they want to look good while playing as well as win.But, I’m digressign a bit.
What I don’t come here to do is change the world. So, again my point returns to this false notion that we’re playing the game incorrectly when “being a dick.” Who says this is part of the game?!. Now, you may want to argue that if my opponent thinks this is part of the game, then it is, and that we should really look toward what celebs should be doing when in public – and know that the game never takes a break, then that’s a different story. But, the moral of Plait’s lecture seems to involve considering your behavior in relation to your goal.
Well, my goal is to have (virtual) fun with you guys. My goal is not to change gattsuru’s mind; that’s not a realistic goal. My goal sometimes is to make rabid libertarians look like idiots so that if somebody happens to be reading this while undecided on the matter at hand, he/she sees my perspective as far more reasonable. I’ve never once read a debate between 2 parties and tought to myself, I disagree with Dude A, primarly because he’s being too hard on Dude B. (Pause, as the kids say – and think they made up, even though Stretch and Bobitto have been using it since Biggie lived in the projects). Maybe there are deeper levels of perception against whose currents I swim when I tell Fred the world would be a better place if he played in traffic. Meh. I play this game as a hobby, not professionally.
Edit to preserve the accuracy of the hip hop record – Biggie didn’t actually live in “the projects.”
David:
Even I’ll admit that dickishness has its place. It’s just not generally my opening salvo.
Digg:
That all reminds me of another useful purpose of dickishness: it makes me look level-headed and reasonable.
“I’ve never once read a debate between 2 parties and tought to myself, I disagree with Dude A, primarly because he’s being too hard on Dude B.”
No, but I bet you’ve read more than one where you’ve thought to yourself “I agree with Dude A, but Jesus Christ, what a douchebag.”
Well, if, for example, Dude B’s position is that women shouldn’t be granted bodily autonomy, then it’s going to be hard for me to focus on the douchebaggery of Dude A. ya know!
That all reminds me of another useful purpose of dickishness: it makes me look level-headed and reasonable
Not to belabor this, but that’s the Pacifism as Pathology point – pacifism in the face of aggression is anything but reasonable.
Bringing it back to KTK’s original point, there’s a difference between arguing some innocuous academic point and arguing over policy, or points with inherent policy implications.Some of these policies are tantamount to violence and aggression. So, as KTK says, it’s not a matter of civil disagreement to oppose of, say civil rights for homosexuals. It’s incumbent upon you to let such bigots know that their position isn’t simply wrong as a matter of debate, but that it is unacceptable.
This isn’t an argument about whether the RBI stat is worth a fuck, but about crucially important policy points with severe implications on the health and livelihood of real people. I give a fuck if duke thinks I’m a dick in that scenario. And, being on some, well, I see your point that gay people should burn in hell isn’t particularly constructive our praiseworthy either.
Another, gentler way of putting it is, “Don’t make it harder than necessary for someone to agree with you.”
But the basic point is that there are almost always three parties, you, the opponent, and the audience. Don’t make it harder than necessary for the audience to see that your opponent’s position is repugnant.
Dan M:
Well put.
By the way . . . “While I singled out KTK in these pieces, the point I was trying to make was more general”.
What do you mean, “more general”? There are only three of us on this blog.
Did you mean “all people named Kevin”? Somehow, that’s not the impression I was getting.
It may shock you to discover that I sometimes have on-line conversations that don’t involve this blog.
That’s poppycock! In fact, Phil Plait’s speech was directed at KTK too.
Digg . . .
Don’t be a poppycocker.