Re^31: What is "aggressive" argument?

[BrowserUk]

the traffic constabulary has the legal authority to infract you for "reckless driving".

Yes. They do. But you don't.

And even their power is subject to checks and balances in the form of peer review and counter arguement (defense). In essence, they have to demonstrate that you actually committed the offence for which they charge you. Simply driving faster than they consider safe in a given set of circumstances, is not sufficient to cause you to be adjudged to have committed "reckless driving".

On the subject of this thread, there is no requirement for proof; no peer review. Just "I don't like what you are doing, so stop." In short: "You must apply my standards to your writing.", despite that the "my"s in that don't even apply those same standards to their own writing, much less that of those they seek to defend.

[Anonymous Monk]

Beside the obvious fact that the law in a democracy is a function of your voting peers, you've obviously never heard of a citizens' arrest. That's a common and dangerous blind spot (nowadays, mainly dangerous to potential victims of crime, not to potential victims of mis-arrest; in a similar way as CPR).

By the way, you're misapplying the analogy of safe driving again by aligning "laws" with "etiquette" instead of "relationship between laws and actions" with "relationship with etiquette and actions".

[BrowserUk]

you've obviously never heard of a citizens' arrest.

I've heard of it, as rarely practised as it is. But you are missing the distinction between "citizens' arrest" and "citizens' conviction".

you're misapplying the analogy of safe driving again by aligning "laws" with "etiquette" instead of "relationship between laws and actions" with "relationship with etiquette and actions".

Because, as I pointed out up there, there is no such analogy. Speeding, and other matters relating to driving are subject to laws, and are clearly defined.

"Etiquette" is a nebulous, subjective concept who's definition varies from: culture to culture; country to country; person to person; and even by the mood of the person judging. In some societies, showing the soles of one feet is considered "impolite", or worse. In others, baring ones arms in public is "offensive". Should we be bound by those definitions in our general lives, because someone somewhere decided that was the case?

In the real world, there are generally physical boundaries we cross between changes of these sets of nebulous rules, and if we care to, we can make ourselves aware of them and choose to respect them. Here on the net, there are myriad sets of rules--"Don't top post". "Don't tail post", "Don't scatter post", "Don't ask to ask"--each imposed (and usually exclusive enforced) by some local oligarchy. Here at PM we are for the most part mercifully free of most of these. Individual disputes are resolved, or left unresolved, by the involved parties.

What I find worrying is the trend toward third party intervention by a few--in the name of the many, but without mandate--to impose random restrictions upon some subset of the participants.

If I subscribed to the standards of etiquette being "advised" elsewhere in the this thread, I would not be conducting this conversation with you. As interesting and important as I find it--and apparently you do also--because we are (probably; it's yet to be clearly defined), well beyond the "depth limit". And, because some here--from memory, previously in 3 or 4 mediations--would ban anonymous monks from posting if they had their way.

I maintain, I am perfectly polite to those that are polite to me.

And for other to judge individual incidents of "impoliteness"; that term needs to be clearly defined, and applied universally. Otherwise you simply get a recipe for one individual or group to apply their whim to censor other individuals or groups. I rarely swear. I don't call people stupid. I don't make reference to other peoples religious or political affiliations; or judge them according to my own. In short, I attempt to respect the most prevalent general rules of etiquette.

But I do not consider the use of CAPS for emphasis as "shouting". I consider it a completely illogical to ascribe the written word with "volume". And attempts to do so, nothing more than an ill-conceived attempt by one group to impose their predilections upon another group. Simply a meme that evolved to allow one group to acquire superiority over another; and perpetuated by unthinking adoption.

[Corion]

I maintain, I am perfectly polite to those that are polite to me.

But consider what would happen if you met a slightly varied clone of yourself (or, for the Gedankenexperiment, a BrowserUk from the Mirror Universe). That clone might feel offended by some slight misspelling on your part, and return the favor to you. This will end in endless aggession and of course without any resolve in sight, as both of you will continue to escalate, as both of you feel they have the right to do so.

As a second example, I take slight offense on people writing in ALL CAPS, because to me, this is akin to shouting. But I try to be polite about this and to tell people how their text looks to me. I find that people usually take the courtesy to write in a way that makes it pleasant for me to read their message. If I were to go another route and to berate people for expressing themselves in a way that they might not know I find unsightly, they could feel offended in turn, and might escalate the efforts on their side, with the intention to "get even" or to "one up" me. I consider this quite unproductive and a waste of my (and maybe their) time, so I try to avoid that.

I don't feel that continouus aggression and/or escalation is either a good way to behave on this site nor is it a good way to behave in general. It will only make the person isolated, as all people not forced to interact will turn away, unless they like playing bullfighting. The people not turning away will likely get locked in a spiral of escalation which helps neither of the involved parties.

And for other to judge individual incidents of "impoliteness"; that term needs to be clearly defined, and applied universally.

That's not how society works. politeness (OK, a Wikipedia reference, but let's just stay with it for the moment) has a definition of "politeness", and "manners" that seems quite acceptable to me:

Politeness is best expressed as the practical application of good manners or etiquette. It is a culturally defined phenomenon, and therefore what is considered polite in one culture can sometimes be quite rude or simply eccentric in another cultural context.

If you think that (wanting) politeness is a sign of oppression, then I'm not sure what you want instead. I prefer people making an effort to convey their message, and making sure that no secondary signals can dilute the primary message is beneficial to that. In the example of ALL CAPS, the form really detracts from the content for me, so I prefer to read a well-formatted email/post over one that makes it hard(er) to find the message in it.