[Itse]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

If you hand me what clearly appears to me to be a cat, and tell me, "that's not a cat", there's nowhere for the conversation to go, really.

Not at all true.

When I'm saying "thats not a cat because it has a forked tongue, it doesn't have fur, and it doesn't have legs", you could examine those arguments and either rebute them or accept that yup, probably not a cat.

Put downs or insults aren't "smears". The way you use language makes me wonder if you actually understand what my complaint is. It's not just being mean or snarky. It's dishonesty. A person can be downright nasty to other people without misrepresenting them. They're separate issues.

Calling a person a bigot is not a misrepresentation if a person truly considers them a bigot.

Let me ask you this; if you truly considered that someone is a racist and a bigot and is constantly partaking in dishonest dog-whistle politics, would you then see it as acceptable to call a spade a spade?

I'm not saying that I don't think people are too quick to use those words. But I think you're exaggerating the amount of cases where this is not actually a somewhat valid criticism. It's not like the world is short on actual racism and sexism.

Also, trying to excuse your toxic behavior by saying "it's different" is a terrible argument.

The point is to understand and amend those positions, not to defeat them. Convergence is the point, basically.

To me the point of discussion is to better understand the position of others, to expose your own views to criticism to make sure you can defend them (to yourself and to other), and to do the same to their views.

In short, discussion is about trying to understand why others disagree with you and making yourself less wrong in the process. If they end up agreeing with you, that's great but very rare.

The past year has been the worst of it on this continent, actually, but I'm willing to be optimistic that it's on the decline.

Maybe you're right, although I don't agree. Unfortunately there is no way to measure it.

But that's largely because people did treat it like a big enough deal to get upset about it and say, "no, this is dumb".

I agree. I actually started a thread about it just last year.

IMO there has been a really noticable change for the better since then.

However, one of the things I have been firmly against in this thread is the way people are wrapping all sorts of topics (liberals, the left, SJW crusades, terrorism, Islamism and Islam) into what I consider a complete mess of thinking.

Not everything in the world that people don't like is connected in a significant way.

EDIT: Ah, hell. I've dragged myself right into a discussion that's going exactly as badly as I expected. I'm done. PM me if you actually want to discuss this stuff and think there's a point to it, I kind of don't think anyone really does.

I think it's been a rather good discussion actually. Just because we strongly disagree does not mean there was no point to it.