A Paradoxal Dilemma: Intolerance

False jnhofzinser, and again correcting your comprehension of the language is not something I wish to get too deep into.

"Seems" does not mean "possibly construed as".

It's reference to appearance implies what is, and not merely what is possible and only mitigates absolutionism through uncertainty.

Really jnhofzinser, this is a conversation that would be more profitable between yourself and a dictionary as inanimate objects have more patience for abusage.



I've heard both variations, I will not be attempting to help you substantiate your baseless claims. If you can't do so, my recommendation is simply not to make such claims.

Again, this is a modicum of intellectual rigour. Don't ask me to prove the converse of your baseless claim just because I call you on intellectual laziness.

Fascinating. You have precisely the same amount of evidence backing up your claim as I had for mine. But somehow you feel justified in accusing me of intellectual laziness and granting yourself intellectual rigour. Quite remarkable.

False, I made no claim as to the frequency of the linguistic use. You did.

I claimed that "some" use it a certain way. I really have no idea how many and am not prone to pull a jnhofzinser and claim it anyway.

You made a claim to the tune of calling it "the rule rather than the exception".

I can backup my claim that "some" use it the way I described.

You can't back up your claim that it is "the rule rather than the exception".

Allow me to clarify the difference in intellectual rigour:

I can backup my claim, you can't. You subsequently resort to asking me to bakup the converse of your claim, a position I had not adopted at all.



Wholly unremarkable jnhofzinser. It takes but the ability to demonstrate reading comprehension as well as to make claims that you have the ability to substantiate.

Now I understand that having the intellectual bankrupcy in this claim pointed out can be unsettling, but that doesn't majically make a retaliatory claim true. I did not make a claim of the nature that you did and if it smarts to have the baselessness of your claim pointed out the best way to react is not to issue subsequent baseless claims in retaliation.

That just adds to the claims you can't substantiate.

Again, this is just the basics of intellectual rigour.

I hope this statement was made with a full appreciation of its irony.

Absolutely ! ! ! [/b]

How about this:

If we could draw a Venn Diagram, Tolerance includes the concept of Intolerance, but so much more. Tolerance includes and accepts intolerant ideas along with other ideas, while; Intolerance only includes and accepts intolerant ideas.

I submit that they aren't really opposites in this case. Its more like tolerance includes intolerance as a subset. Intolerance is a subset of tolerance.

Intolerance is one color. Tolerance is the entire color wheel, of which intolerance is but one hue.

Tcis, your notion of intolerance as a subset of tolerance is an improvement on the simple notion of their being polar opposites. What do you think of Fresco's subtle conception of the two as (non-opposing) poles on a continuum of conflict (I think I got that right?)?

Google "they are so intolerant" = 107 matches; Google "they are so intolerant of" = 42 matches.* OK, not exactly scientific, but it might suggest that you are over-reacting to my admittedly thumb-in-the-air assessment of my experience. Can I prove that it is the rule rather than the exception? Of course not. But it has been my observation that opinions, hunches and gut-feelings are often acceptably expressed on a2k. I guess that's when Craven agrees with them , huh? When he doesn't, intellectual rigour is apparently required.

NB: my point was that in the context of the intolerance of intolerance the target is more often unspecified, and I'll grant that this is particularly difficult to measure. Of course, if someone were to claim that it seemed like I was saying otherwise, I'd grant them their point.

If pointing out that you made a claim that you can't substantiate is over-reacting then I'm guilty as charged. If pointing out that your claims upon being called upon for this also lacked factual basis and were demonstratably false is over-reacting then I am again guilty as charged.

Thing is, quite frankly this ellicits very little in way of extraordinary reaction from me and I suspect you are projecting your feelings about being exposed for making both baseless and demonstratably false claims.

Now as to the Google attempt to substantiate that is not just unscientific it's particularly foolish and goes into the growing list of people who use google totals to try to make a point and end up embarassing themselves.

The most famous example was when John Gibson from Fox news tried to make the case that BBC was "anti-american" based on there being 47,200 results for his query.

When I last checked here were some totals:

51,300 for bbc anti-american
54,000 for fox anti-american
143,000 for white house anti-american
351,000 for bush anti-american

Attempting to find validation for your positions through Google totals usually only demonstrates a bias translating into a query.

This case does not disappoint and is another good example of such a situation.

When you use an exact phrase query (in quotation marks) adding a word will never increase the total and will usually decrease it.

In other words, the instances of qualified intolerance will be counted within your query that was designed not to count them because if it were followed with a qualifier it would still show up for that query.

To illustrate it here is the first simple search of this nature I could imagine, I decided to even be nice and choose a query that nearly always is used in its longer form to illustrate that even if the additional segment of the query is the rule rather than the exception the shorter exact phrase query always wins.

Searching for "do re" yeilds 181,000 results

Searching for "do re mi" yeilds 87,300 results

You are right that it's not scientific, it's downright daft to try to make the case this way.

Again, even if you acknowledge that something is not scientific and even if you acknowledge that you can't "proove" something a modicum of intellectual rigour would have spared you from that mental flatulence.

It's just about thinking for crying out loud.



I did not ask for proof. You can't even approach a decent standard for evidence, much less proof.



1) You started with a false claim that I'd missed this unremarkable angle when I had addressed it.

2) You continued by making a claim you can't sunstantiate about linguistic frequency.

3) Upon being called on for the baseless claim you had no qualm with seeking substantiation yourself, so long as it was telling me to substantiate the reverse of your claim.

4) You proceeded to try to redefine "seems" to cover mere possibility and dectract from a "seems" you issued but could not illustrate.

5) Upon being called on this too, you make a new demonstratably false claim by saying I had made the converse claim which was equally baseless.

6) You were called on that too so you segue into your attempt to substantiate it. Hell if I won't do it for you someone has to try. So is born the Google gaffe.

7) Perhaps realizing the weak nature of the Google stunt you segue into how this is by its nature difficult to prove and such. Of course when you asked me to proove its converse this qualm remained hidden but it resurfaces here.

Now jnhofzinser, you have called intellectual rigour "mythical" in this exchange and it not surprising to me that you view it as such a strange bedfellow.

But it does exist, and demonstrating reading incomprehension, issuing a series of claims you can't substantiate and voicing demonstratably false claims all constitute lapses in intellectual rigour.

I personally am of the opinon that your Google gaffe is an epitomal example of the need for such a creature.

Reading through this thread absolutely fascinated I am. I'll be back.

the 'value' of debate is illusory!

So is the value of riding a roller coaster BGW.

It produces about the same number of 'highs', and 'lows'!

One man's fun is another man's odd barnyard obsession. Far be it from me to question your activities Bo, just treat the livestock well. ;-)

Well! - we all sleep together!

[oops, in the 'debate' tradition, please add something, so that i do not have the last word, thanks.]

Okay: How do you define "sleep" here?

Ok

My, my, Craven, that sure is a lot of smoke you're blowing...
I wonder why?
Could it be to deflect attention from the original baseless claim? viz.
Was it incorrect to infer from this statement that you believe those you mention are the exception rather than the rule? It sure seemed that that is what you were saying. Well, I believe the opposite. Your claim is indeed as baseless as mine. The difference is that you were the first to indulge in claims for which you have "not a shred of evidence". I merely followed suit, only to be accosted with a demand for intellectual rigour, a standard that, for all your bombast, you have failed to approach.

Btw, tarring my (admittedly informal) Google search with the same brush as demonstrably weak Googles is logically fallacious. Anyone with a "modicum of intellectual rigour" would have noticed, of course.
No duh! The observation was that the difference between the total and the qualified was greater than the qualified. NB: I am not, nor ever was claiming a lot from this observation, but it is worth noting that Craven likes to misinterpret what I am saying so that he can shoot down his strawmen.

But let me try again (NOT to prove anything, but to provide albeit unscientific and unrigorous support for my position... see, i'm serving up plenty for you to shoot down -- aren't I generous? Perhaps you could return the favor to a small degree? Oh, I guess not )

On another thread we find the following exchange:


Back to the thread: there is plenty of difference between the true target of intolerance and the ostensible target of intolerance. Folks claim to be intolerant of X because "X are so intolerant", when, in fact, folks are intolerant of X because (in the best case) "X are so intolerant of Y" [the Craven loophole] or (in the worst case) "X are X" [crass hypocrisy]. As Craven has correctly pointed out ad nauseum with an analogous dichotomy, it is impossible to measure the relative frequencies of these two cases (or the continuum in between). However, the fact is that I have encountered the second case many times (I would claim many more than the first, but as Craven will tell you, I cannot demonstrate that).

Note, further, that the claim of intolerance to X because "X is so intolerant of Y" is often equivalent to "X is so intolerant", esp. when Y is vague (e.g., "other people", "other religions", "people who think differently"). Indeed, intolerance of people who are intolerant of those who think differently is evident hypocrisy.

Setanta

I agree but I always read it more as a warning in making the kind of judgement that proceeds from self righteousness hailing its own goodness and superiority by damning others. It's the easiest form of intolerance because whole groups and societies have perennially practiced it so there's very little conflict within individuals who comprise the group. But even a cloistered monk cannot go through life without making judgments which imo is really a kind of colored awareness not possible to forgo. Anyways, I would think of all the judgements made - however modified by tolerance or the lack of it, that is, tolerance as a residual of itself - as a Trial Balance followed by a Profit and Loss statement.

Nope, I was joking with Fox, Fox claims this is a dillema and I said that people who see it this way aren't right in the head.



You seem to seem to see all sorts of things.



If you wish to take my joke "But just between you and me they aren't right in the head" as a claim somehow equitable to yours then feel free to do so.

Frankly, I think you are grasping at straws and looking for a retaliatory accusation and I think it's very transparent.

So pardon me if I skip your "I know you are but what am I" arguments. Should you wish to continue this you'll have to do it in my absence.

It's too obviously an attempt to find anything just anything to be able to turn around and make retaliatory claims, and I'm fine with leaving your attempts to do so to stand on their own. In my opinion they speak more about you than I would want to.