My objection is not so much to your opinions, but the manner in which you express them - flippant and belittling. It is not conducive to a reasoned, productive conversation and makes people disinclined to listen to what you have to say, no matter how intelligent it may be. I happen to find many viewpoints - religious, social, political - to be astoundingly stupid, but it really helps nothing to be openly antagonistic about them in the context of a web forum like this.

Now, if your interlocutor is being a pest and is clearly not interested in a productive conversation (which has not happened here, but has in many other threads, especially pertaining to politics or religion) - then the proper thing to do is disengage, quietly notify the moderators, and let them take care of it.

Who was it who said - "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" ?

Tempodivalse:

Who was it who said - "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" ?

A marketing twit probably?

We all have various ways of responding at times. I'm not persistently 'belittling' as you claim. Some things are so nonsensical, and yet are given such a polite hearing for fear of giving upset.

It's such a shame that people aren't allowed to be wrong any more, without being constantly told how wrong they are by someone who insists they know better.

At the end of the day, people should have a corner of the web where they can discuss amongst themselves something that others think is ridiculous, without being forced to have the thread they started get polluted by people who aren't interested in discussing the subject matter of the thread.

There should be forums categorized as: Superrigardo / en la angla / por akre disputi / temo. And there should be others categorized as: Superrigardo / en la angla / por ĝentile diskuti / temo.

Then those who want to produce arguments know where to post, and those who want civil discussions know where to go.

Nothing brings people together - or brings out super-tolerance - more than combining against "the bully" eh?

I just don't see a point in being belittling. You can perfectly well say "I disagree with the thesis behind this language, I don't think the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds any water and I don't see languages as being inherently anti-feminist". Why be rude? And who would listen to a rude person and say "By George, he's right!"? Of course not. You change people's minds, if that's your aim, by giving rational reasoning, not by going rudely on attack.

Vestitor:

erinja:If you think someone is involved in something that you think is silly, the polite thing to do is to ignore it and go find another thread to post on.

I think you're quite wrong about this. It's not about politeness or impoliteness, it's about disagreeing with something. The position you're adopting is like when unpleasant things are shown on television and any critical remarks are met with an avalanche of: 'well there's an off button..!' or 'you can switch over..!' Implying that any disagreement should remain unspoken. Why? What's so sacred about certain strains of feminist thought that means I can't criticise it?

If you want to criticise, be specific. Disagreement doesn't have to remain unspoken, but there's a difference between criticism, disagreement, dismissal, and ridicule. Just because you find something baffling doesn't mean you get carte blanche to ridicule it.

Vestitor:
We all have various ways of responding at times. I'm not persistently 'belittling' as you claim. Some things are so nonsensical, and yet are given such a polite hearing for fear of giving upset.

Why is a nonsensical idea justification to upset the people who suggest or support it? The only thing that does is harden the resolve of the people you upset. Eventually the dispute changes from "These people don't support that idea" to "Those people are insulting me and the people I care about." It breeds anger and hostility. You accomplish nothing.

Perhaps you should roll back to the post that seems to have brought this on. Which part of it is supposed to be "belittling".

I said that I didn't believe that languages remove from women the ability for emotional expression - rather than it being some form of culture interfering with women's language usage - and that the claim appeared bogus.

I don't see this as either anti-feminist or 'belittling'. I'm also open to being wrong about my view. Perhaps others could undo my view for me rather than deigning to teach me debating manners?

Vestitor:

Moosader:But, I do think that, to some extent, "feminine language" is written off as unimportant, frivilous. (I have a book by Robin Lakoff that talks about this, but it also is a product of the 70s), so in a way, I can see how language to describe emotion could possibly be somewhat surpressed in our culture.

... in my mind, a bonus perk is that, since it's labelled as a Feminist Language, it is more likely to appeal to a certain set of people, and dissuade certain others. ;P

This is quite baffling. It seems to me that almost every language has advanced with the express aim of trying to convey meaning and feeling; including, to a great extent, emotions. The claim that e.g English removes that possibility from women - rather than this being possible cultural restrictions placed upon expression - seems to me a very bogus claim indeed. Suppression of expression of emotion is not a feminist problem in particular.

I assume the last part quoted is partly jest, but it does betray the mindset of exclusion that lurks behind the façade of inclusion put up by amateur feminist discourse.

This post is the one everyone is heaping on, and it doesn`t have anything to do with Láadan. It doesn't even consider the "weasel-words", as my professor would say, in Moosader's point. This really would be a perfect case-study for Láadan or Lojban, would it not? You made a rather confidant, declarative disagreement with a vague half-premise, and everyone interpreted it as vehemant dismissal. It seems to me that a lot of arguments in English go that way.

Vestitor:

erinja:Wow, dismissive much?

Entirely in this case.

You could've expanded on that.

Vestitor:You're entirely misguided. I'm not anti-feminist at all. Just anti-quackery.

I'd say "quackery" pushed you from disagreement to belittlement. But you probably meant "quackery" more in a general sense, not Láadan in particular.

I do agree with you that language doesn't remove the capability of emotional expression from women (something no one but you said), but I don't think that Láadan is a bad way to explore the cultural barriers of emotional expression, or as someone else pointed out, a political debate. There are lots of anecdotes about a person's entire personality changing when they switch from one language to another. If you support the weak Sapir-Whorf, then it would be interesting to see how a Láadan speaker's personality would change. If not (I don't and I'm guessing you don't either), then those anecdotes would support the cultural, not linguistic, expression of emotion. What better way to remove the cultural effect than by a different language? I think it would be interesting to compare samples of Láadan and English, or Esperanto, or German, and see how phrases with a lot of specifying sub-clauses are translated.

Vestitor:A marketing twit probably?

Thank you for confirming my point ...

I'd like to commend to your (and everyone's) attention the Hierarchy of Argumentation. It really is an excellent demonstration of the ways in which arguments or debates succeed (or fail).

Whenever someone resorts to name-calling or needlessly provocative rhetoric, my (and many others' ) first reaction is that the person doesn't know how to articulate a substantive response, or just doesn't care to have a productive conversation. This may be a false impression, but nevertheless it does more to harm the interlocutor's position than advance it.

Thanks for the links to the articles, Moosader, and sorry that I likely contributed to the current tone of the thread