CaptainBeirutIII: Why is it that people here so often resort to words such as war, hate, harassment and other quite strong terms, most often very far-fetched, when it comes to people not agreeing in threads?
Is it because deep inside, it’s us humans, we enjoy to feed our dark corners from time to time and like to be sat on the side watching a big brawl, to such extent that we hope for them every now and then?
Is it because we don’t enjoy to be in a full scale war, but we do really like to stand on the side, feel a bit better because we’ve not allowed ourselves to become part of it and simply fetish in other people misery sometimes, that even when it’s not there, we hope it will be, for our own egotistical pleasure?
Is it as simple as when an ambulance passes by, we always turn our heads because of some underlying urge?
One person I’m very close to here has the ability to debate, on her very own, and is often very straightforward in doing so.
The straightforwardness is, curiously, by some seen as belittling, which is mighty rich.
I don’t know how many times I’ve now seen her be mentioned as some bully, and much worse in emails, when it’s nowhere near it. She knows how to discuss a topic, and if you keep a very good eye on her debates, you will see that she sticks to the topic at all times, except the few when people simply can’t keep the personal insults out of it, which gives her a bloody right to defend herself.
The truth is that some suck at debating, and when they can’t keep up, the easiest way is to call it harassment. What’s even worse is that sometimes you’ll have people who don’t really suck at debating, but are too lazy to do so, yet they are in there, half-arse debating, pulling the easy winner, they thing, with the harassment card.
In a political scene, when two parties of opposite ends have a debate, the exchanges will be very fierce, there will be a rivalry of who’s to win the view over, and there might even be raised voices. Do you see these people come onto CNN and moan of what a harassing, vile, bully the other person was, if they happened to lose a debate and fall in the polls?
No they don’t! Because that would make them look very stupid and they would fall even more in the polls.
In a boxing game, two blokes go into a ring, they fight with fists, punch the crap out of one another as to win, but even there, do you for a moment think that the one who lost will moan at the press conference later on about the other bullying him. Do you think there’s a least bit of hate between them?
No, they’re good sports, otherwise people watching would laugh at them.
It’s plain silly when you’re in the midst of a debate, arguing a topic, with facts and ideas, and all of a sudden when the other person looses it, resorts to pulling the harassment, bully and hate-card, the one who was actually trying to debate the topic gets pulled up as a bastard simply because they’re good at debating.
And this with “oh, they don’t want to debate they only want to tell people how it is”
Well, welcome to the real world, where all of us have convictions of sort, and where debates wouldn’t exist had it all been nice and dandy where we all agree on everything.
That’s sort of the essence with debating, that you don’t agree, otherwise it would not be called debating, it would be called something like “out together and picking roses, munching on cotton candy and agreeing on absolutely everything, even who’s to get the last piece of chocolate”
Personal attacks on your co posters seem like war to me - and it's dirty.
