Re^6: What is "aggressive" argument?

[BrowserUk]

Because ...

There's probably some truth in many of those explanations.

I don't think the first one holds up, because we have the same types of exchanges on other subjects. The thread you reference at the bottom of your post is a very good example of a non-perl, non-technical subject, with many of the usual suspects showing up.

There is no doubt that I enjoy debate--I make no pretence otherwise. And I happen to think that without open, vigorous, invested debate, this site would be nothing more than a static reference work. And a far less interesting and stimulating place than it is. And I don't think heat--passion, investment--is bad in a debate.

I don't even mind there being a little name-calling, ribbing, verbal-sparring. Even a little direct sarcasm is fine by me. But I have a strong distaste for that insidious, under-the-breath, oh-so-polite by snarky, implied sarcasm that some here lace their posts with. It always smacks of plausible deniability to me.

Strong personalities have always clashed over technical subjects. If you know your history of the build-up to the Copenhagen interpretation. If not, and you have an hour to spare this is interesting. Especially the personality clashes.

(Not that the debate here has anything like that level of significance, but the clashes are as constant as Planck's at all levels.)

But this is a code site. And at the end of the debate, there is only one way to resolve things. Code! And people who are unwilling to back up their theories, assertions (and FUD) with code, are pointless to debate with.

On the cultural differences thing. I worked for many years at various IBM sites around the UK, and worked with people from all over the world--but especially the USA, Middle-East & Japan, and got to see some it first hand.

I remember one Japanese woman came to liaise with me for a few weeks. She arrived at my office, started to do the whole deferential, bowing thing; and stand-and-inspect-each-others-business-card-for-5-minutes-for-no-apparent-reason. I interrupted her and told her that I was painfully aware that I didn't know their customs and so was quite likely to offend her through my lack of understanding. Her response was: "Thank goodness! we can drop all that and just get on with the job". We got on famously after that. She could hold her ground in any argument, and was one of the best analysts I ever met. (And boy could she ever hold her liquor!).

As for Americans, I rarely knew where people were from in detail. I do remember that you always knew where you stood with most of the guys from PooKipsy; but had to be real careful around some of those from Boca Raton. Or maybe that's just the way I remember it. For me the "Mid_West" is just a label--much like the phrase "Middle-America". (Perhaps the latter would have been more appropriate?) I really don't know what actually constitutes either term. As for New Yorker, I'm probably thinking more about My Cousin Vinnie, or that "fugedabowtit" movie with Hugh Grant, than anything real.

I also worked in several countries in North West Europe--Benelux, Netherlands, Germany,Scandinavia. And there I found they thrive on directness. And mostly, there is no animosity attached to it. You go into a meeting, stand either side of the conference table arguing strongly for an hour; break for coffee and have a laugh about the sport, the weather TV or whatever, before going back in and laying into each other(s points of view). Then a manager calls time; makes a decision; and everyone abides by it. Then lunch together.

Bottom line is, I'm more than happy to accept half the "blame"--though I'm not sure that anyone should be blaming anyone; no one is forced to read long or heated threads, much less take part in them--but I do object to having all of the blame thrown in my direction.

As I said. It takes two to tango.

[LanX]

> I also worked in several countries in North West Europe--Benelux, Netherlands, Germany,Scandinavia. And there I found they thrive on directness. And mostly, there is no animosity attached to it. You go into a meeting, stand either side of the conference table arguing strongly for an hour; break for coffee and have a laugh about the sport, the weather TV or whatever, before going back in and laying into each other(s points of view). Then a manager calls time; makes a decision; and everyone abides by it. Then lunch together.

This phenomenon is sometimes called Streitkultur and sorry couldn't find an English WP page explaining it. Maybe the term Dutch uncle is a reference to this phenomenon. See also leo for possible translations.

But it's not uniform, there are many regional differences, misunderstandings in discussion culture are a regular source of animosities.

E.g. between (Alemanic) Swiss and (northern) Germans, even while speaking the same language. (Not even talking about British/German-misunderstandings.)

Can't say much about US discussion culture, still hard to understand for meš... (maybe somewhere in between televangelist and John Wayne ...SCNR ;-)

And there are still differences in the educational background. In my observation MBAs rather prefer to win a debate no matter which tricks they use and where the truth lies..

But BUK, to answer your OP, an important part of "Streitkultur" is fairness, e.g. exaggerating rhetorical tricks or strawmans are considered "aggressive".

UPDATE:

1) interesting read "Those Americans, mein Gott, I'm never completely sure when they really mean what they say."

[BrowserUk]

This phenomenon is sometimes called Streitkultur and sorry couldn't find an English WP page explaining it.

Google came up with "A culture of debate", which seems pretty good to me.

The wikipedia page contrasts it with "autocratic systems", which I thinks is also relevant here.

If also sums up better than I did, (despite being an auto-translation), what I was trying to say with the OP:

In a democratic society there is a fundamental principle: different people have different opinions. Parliamentary democracy thrives on political debate, of conflicting interests and finding a balance between these interests. 3 During the dispute in autocratic systems usually seen as a weakening of the Community or a deviation from accepted norms and stabilization is considered in the.

I don't believe that debate weakens this place at all. Not even heated debated. Indeed, I believe it to be the life-blood of this place. Without it, this place would die.

But BUK, to answer your OP, an important part of "Streitkultur" is fairness, e.g. exaggerating rhetorical tricks or strawmans are considered "aggressive".

You and I have touched on similar discussion before. You seem to view 'rhetoric' and 'rhetorical trickery' as the same thing. They aren't.

Rhetoric is not a scheme for winning arguments. It is codification of techniques for:

• presenting argument clearly and concisely;
• and for analysing others arguments to separate the valid from the invalid; the relevant from the irrelevant.

Whilst it can be used by adept practitioners (which I am not), to attempt to overwhelm the opponents arguments rather than address them; discerning and distinguishing attempted trickery, from the more commonplace mistake or misunderstanding, is another skill set entirely.

For example, distinguishing a genuine, but erroneous attempt at justification, from a 'deliberate strawman', is a very fine line. I seem to be attributed with far greater skills in rhetoric than I actually have.

[Argel]

Too much heated debate will hurt The Monastery, because heated debates tend to eventually devolve into borderline flamewars or even outright flamewars. It might be more accurate to say that having a few "lively" individuals helps make the place more interesting.

Update: And I'm not sure I buy into your "heated debate" theory. The common bond of trying to solve problems with Perl, how open we are to accepting and helping those new to Perl, and the diverse background of various Monks are arguably much more important. I mean, if you, tye, and ikegami never got into a pissing match ever again, I seriously doubt The Monastery would crumble.

[Argel]

Dang, you need a geography lesson!! Poughkeepsie is in New York and Boca Raton is in Florida. Neither are even close to being part of the Mid West. Maybe you're thinking of Peoria, Illinois? And comparing all Mid Westerners to IBM employees..... No comment!! :-)

As for the blame game.... As the saying goes, perception is reality, and you are perceived as being [significantly] more inflammatory than your sparring partners. It doesn't matter if that's true or not. And you can start as many discussion threads like this one as you want, but it's not going to have any meaningful impact. Your only practical recourse is to ratchet back on those personal attacks (whether intentional or unintentional) you are so fond of dishing out.

Of course, the other option is to suck it up and just live with all of the blame. Or I suppose you could just continue to complain about the situation.

P.S. These heated debates are part of the PM culture. To avoid reading them is missing out on part of the sub-culture here. And often missing out on some popcorn moments and of course the chance to flex those downvote muscles. ;-)

[tye]

What a lie.