#cemantics

[antilagardelle]

Absolute empathy is barbarism, absolute tolerance is intolerant, absolute inclusivity is exclusive. Nonconformity is a convention, and post-modernism is a doctrine; Absolute liberalism is misoneism, and absolute conservatism is liberal. Freedom is found in captivity, order in chaos, and fixity in fluidity. 

[antilagardelle]

A Work In Progress:

The base devices of sophistry don the veneer of eristic excellence with spectacular cunning. And so it is, that far too many intelligences would elect to aim their defining faculty at seeking any which of them as may conveniently allow logic rather to be filibustered than followed in pursuit of truth. Beware these crafty sleights-of-hand, as they assume elliptical forms often undetectable to those less veteran among debaters. 

  Such persons, for example, feature all too frequently in the realm of debate who purport to require an apologetic rigidity from their opponent, only to deem it “too black and white,” or “overanalyzing,” upon receiving it. It rather tends to embarrass that such impertinence should manifest among actors having completed childhood’s hour. Indeed he could not serve himself in better stead who would thus pass up the charge to parent, where others have so clearly failed.

Infantile tactics of this ilk are prolific among the human sort. The occasions are indeed replete in which one who is confronted with a line of questioning that tends toward his disliking, should circumvent this cognitive dissonance by avering that “such questions could be asked for eternity,” or that “We could not possibly answer those questions.” A bold indictment indeed is the first of these judging by the requirement of its asserter that he logically must have assayed to completion the very enquiry that he claims to be eternal. 

As for the second, it should scarcely approach indignance that the individual might rank an inquiry among the bounds of unanswerability. What is indignant, however, is the propensity for many a soul to so contend as if the contention is some authoritative a priori not touched by the status of assertion. Though in reality it is only this--an assertion--and as such cannot do without corroboration. To contest a thing unanswerable obliges one to thus expound on those precise things as ought to be ascertained in order the question be answered, and why they abscond one’s epistemic reach. 

So too may it be in some cases an acceptably rational opinion that a conclusion is too black and white, or a scrutiny too rigid. It must be comprehended, however, that if it is meant by “too black and white,” that a more extensive host of possible conclusions exists than that to which one has arrived, then this variety of conclusions naturally begs to be shown, else the allegation becomes something of a conceited dismissal.

  Further exemplary among these recalcitrant efforts is the naive tendency of many souls to counter an argument, sufficiently abstract in nature, by announcing that they would “rather not just theorize like that, without substantive proof.” Indeed they take a more flagrant liberty with epistemology that it would permit. For, upon bearing forth such a refutation, they fail to realize that their argument implicitly ordains a threshold beyond which a syllogism so far removed from reference cannot pass, yet all the while, fail to give reference to the source from which this very threshold itself is drawn. It is a threshold which negates its own standards. A funny thing it is indeed that one should treat any argument as an a priori which requires all arguments to provide reference external to themselves. This, again, is not to suggest that that scenario is inconceivable in which one posits what he thinks is a proof, but which realistically is mere conjecture. What rather is to be here interpreted, is that such an indictment requires corroboration. It cannot be said that an argument is too theoretical without showing why.

Having hitherto exposed these mechanisms of sophistry in an apolitical light, it would appear rather prudent to here abandon impartiality and affix to these perfidious tactics the acrimony of contemporary controversy. That is, to illuminate them as they have reference to the tangible properties and platitudes of coeval discourse.  

It has occurred many times before, and shall doubtless many times henceforth, that the question should be broached as to why such volume is raised over the matter of gay pride, and not an ounce of literature exists even to establish the matter of straight pride. The point can be expected in return of this inquiry that “obviously there’s no straight pride! It is not the straight who have so long been prohibited to marry, but the gay! It was not heterosexual behavior which was sanctioned, but homosexual! Film standards have historically not censored any opposite-sex relations, but only the same-sex!” It appears, however, that withal the fiery passion of this response, the latter point yet fails to refute the former. In fact, it only reinforces it on account of how its sentiments plainly show that it isn’t about pride then is it? It’s about restitution. And while restitution is in itself a noble cause, it can likewise be remarked that any pride which is alone governed by a claim to identification with a historically persecuted faction, is shallow beyond measure. I do not believe one’s claim to Armenien descent somehow increases his value over that of his Turkish counterparts, any more than a claim to Jewish ancestry elevates one’s status above that of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Deutschman. (I prefer the word Deutsch over German for purposes of accuracy).