When I go on about how the phrase "reading comprehension" has damaged the way we argue on here I seriously mean it. Like I've run into situations where I could have used the phrase and everytime it is weaker and less rhetorically impactful to what I would do instead. The alternative is so much better but no one really wants to do it because it's basically the rhetorical equivalent of showing your work on a math problem.
Because when you write a misreading off as "bad reading comprehension" you miss up the golden opportunity to really pick apart that thought process. "Reading Comprehension" makes fun of someone for "not understanding the words I've written" which can be a legitimate criticism but when you default to it what your saying is "I shouldn't have to put the effort into defending/explaining my words because your too dumb to understand"
The greatest example I've personally run into was in an argument a couple months back I had on here. It was with some TransUnity boy starting shit in the transmisogyny tag by insulting the maturity people who get into arguments about intra-community issues ie: "infighting". (Which as we all know telling a large portion of your community that they're a bunch of whiny separatist babies for having problems in the first place definitely isn't infighting at all.) With a healthy sprinkle of "pays token mention to the idea of a transmisogynistic transmasc purely for the optics of being perceived as on both sides but when discussing examples of "infighting" only provides strawman versions of transfeminist talking points. And needless to say
Well in this argument he decides to pull the old classic of pulling up my bio to see if there's anything he can use to make a quick jab at me personally without engaging with anything I'm saying. Now in my bio there's the line "Crazy hysterical bitch making mountains out of mole hills in your discourse".
This line is to anyone following me in clear reference to the countless times where someone losing in an argument to me will invoke the image of the "hysterical feminist" as they proceed to disengage from anything I'm saying and dismiss me as being over obsessive for attempting to challenge them on their transmisogyny in the first place. I have quite literally unironically called hysterical on more than one occasion on this site. It's a sorta beating them to the punch style line to highlight their unoriginality.
And this slimy little weasel references the line and goes on to say he agrees with it. Notice the way I said he did that? He WANTED to just say all those insults at me outright but knew that they were highly ableist/misogynistic and this would be bad optics. So he dances around the words themselves but still states that he agreed with the sentiment that I am a hysterical bitch making a mountain out of a molehill in his discourse.
And when I press him on this he reveals he thought that I had put it up there as a brag. That this was an aspect of my personality that I was personally proud to display on my blog. He essentially thought of me as one of those people who love conflict and view "being an insufferable person to be around" as a positive personality trait.
Now this is the point where it would be SO easy to just pull out the old "READIN COMPREHENSHUN" but that would be like using the loaded gun this chud has handed me and firing a warning shot before sending him on his way. No I fully went into this thought process and how it highlighted his misogynistic biases of viewing transfeminists as a clique of Highschool MeanGirls who sow discord because they're naturally unlikable bitchy people.
His response? Blocked. Post DELETED. 0 note vaugeposting about how he HAD to delete his "no discourse" post because "assholes brought discourse to it". Like people go on about how "arguing is pointless because there's no way you can "win" an argument" severely underestimate how bad someone can be at arguing.
