ANTHRO@TRIUMFER.BITNET (02/06/90)
>>Can you give an example of a challenge versus an attack? >> >>Dave > Sure, Dave. How 'bout this: > > Geeze Dave, you really are an idiot. How someone could come >up with such a hare-brained notion is beyond me. Clearly you >are the victim of some sort of self-delusion. > > Well, Dave, the problem with that argument is that your source >is hardly disinterested, and may well be distorting the facts. >But even if you accept that source, it is not self-evident how >you make the leap from such-and-such fact to such-and-such conclusion. >Etc... Right, in the first it is based on emotional opinion, and the second uses rational argument. Generally, in my discussions, I use the latter approach, except when I loose my temper with people who refuse to be rational. In those cases, a pointed (as opposed to general) 'attack' can *sometimes* cause irrational people to: 1) see the foolishness of non-rational discussion and then choose to be rational, or 2) get befuddled by the attack, and then demand that the discussion proceed on rational grounds. Either case is fine by me, as long as they choose for themselves to become rational. If they still want to be foolish, then it still doesn't really bother me, because I can ignore them. Dave