> Before you can say, "I disagree," you must be able to say, "I understand." It is axiomatic that before you level criticism you should be able to state an author's position in terms that he or she would find acceptable. After that, you may proceed in any of six directions:
This assumes that the assumption of good faith is well founded. Life is too short to critically refute every single crackpot theory out there. For better or worse, if someone sufficiently damages their ethos, I will choose to not spend my time critically evaluating everything they say.
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One place where my argument does not apply is when large numbers of people hold a particular opinion. If e.g. 80% of Republicans or 80% of Democrats hold a view, we are talking about 1/3 of the population of the US. Understanding why they hold that view, no matter how non-sensical it may seem is vital to understanding the world we live in.
It is insufficient to just say "well then insert large group here are all idiots" because that is clearly not true.I have two family members who each got perfect SAT scores and one is about as hippy-left as you can get and the other is a card-carrying republican and Trump supporter. They are (in my opinion) both wrong about a lot of things, but dismissing them as idiots is not possible.
> Life is too short to critically refute every single crackpot theory out there.
In this case, rather than claiming you disagree (which should imply understanding), you can just say you don't know enough about the issue to comment on it.
The spirit of the above argument is that, if you're going to vehemently disagree or argue with someone, you should understand— not that you need to understand every issue, nor agree or disagree with every issue.
> In this case, rather than claiming you disagree (which should imply understanding), you can just say you don't know enough about the issue to comment on it.
aidenn0 is making a subtlety different point: this form of rational argument depends on good-faith. If you think that has been violated, you would not say "I don't know enough about the issue to comment on it," but rather "I don't think this person is arguing in good-faith."
I agree with the principle of charity, and your claim that you should understand before disagreeing. But it is also true that you will encounter people who are not arguing in good-faith, in which case it is sometimes a mistake to even engage.
Totally agree– I was responding to "crackpot theory" which sounds more like wild conspiracy theories that people truly believe, rather than arguing in bad faith, but after re-reading, I think that is the point aidenn0 was trying to make.
On the internet (which is where the quality of rhetoric could most use the principle of charity these days), it is hard or even impossible to tell the difference between a troll or a crackpot.
This assumes that the assumption of good faith is well founded. Life is too short to critically refute every single crackpot theory out there. For better or worse, if someone sufficiently damages their ethos, I will choose to not spend my time critically evaluating everything they say.
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One place where my argument does not apply is when large numbers of people hold a particular opinion. If e.g. 80% of Republicans or 80% of Democrats hold a view, we are talking about 1/3 of the population of the US. Understanding why they hold that view, no matter how non-sensical it may seem is vital to understanding the world we live in.
It is insufficient to just say "well then insert large group here are all idiots" because that is clearly not true.I have two family members who each got perfect SAT scores and one is about as hippy-left as you can get and the other is a card-carrying republican and Trump supporter. They are (in my opinion) both wrong about a lot of things, but dismissing them as idiots is not possible.