Irene: And why would I want to do this?


T : What you're attempting to tap into, through this relabeling, is the customary acknowledgement, however insincere, of the importance of even handed treatement. Except that it is inapplicable, because I never suggested that Robert should be basing his opinions on mine, any more than I expressed a willingness to accept the reverse.


Irene: You sure seemed to be doing so.


T : I would deny that this is an honest perception. I did nothing more than make my own points, firmly, and judge what I heard for myself. The only one, to date, who has argued that someone shouldn't feel free to do so, without being apologetic about it, is you.

What you did, instead of openly making such an outrageously off base remark, leaving it subject to challenge, is leave it implicit in your comments, arguing subliminally in effect. You would plant a thought into the listener's head, and then escape the argument by denying that you had made it, the moment you were challenged. Thus, you'd leave a perception buried in the listeners memory, while being able to cut off any rebuttal to your implicit argument, all while creating the illusion of being conciliatory, rather than censorious.


Irene: You want to lecture me about good intentions, Tractatus? I hear more anger than kindness in your voice.


T : Who is angrier than one who sees another he cares about, lead into harm's way? Anger may be an expression of kindness. It is only those who have sunk into denial about the unpleasant truths of life, who allow themselves to be deluded into thinking otherwise. Often, our only real choice, is that of which brand of unpleasantness we will endure, and the kind man will be the one who chooses the most bearable. The lazy man will choose that which requires the least struggle, and then try to keep others from noticing the unpleasant consequences of his choices later on. Such is the nature of those adopting the unthinking cheerfulness that you endorse here.

Cheerfulness is not the same thing as benevolence. There are few people more cheerful than the successful grifter, and very few whose intent could be worse. Your desire for peace at any price, even that of justice, is nothing more than an expression of a desire to not have to deal with hostility - and that's as selfish a wish as any other. As is plainly clear, such easy resolutions to conflicts, lead to an unpleasant peace, often worse than the conflict it replaces, so this is not kindness. Rather than facing this reality, we have Bob's and Elaine's 'philosophy of positive thinking', which serves as an excuse for stifling the open acknowledgement of this unpleasant truth. Look at your own reaction. Has true freedom of speech for all, really been a value your actions have expressed?


Irene: Maybe, maybe not. What's your point?


T : An observation about this last argument of yours.

It's manipulation, plain and simple, and I rightly condemn it. How dare you indulge in it, and pretend to care about the truth? You complain about arrogance, and then practice it. In resorting to manipulation, using a debating tactic whose effectiveness is not dependent on the validity of what it is that you seek to prove, you effectively seek to have the process by which the discussion approaches the truth purely dependent on the validity of your perceptions. Such arrogance and overconfidence it is, to, in effect, attempt to do everyone else's thinking for them - to make no allowances for the possibility that you might be wrong. And then, having done so, to complain about another doing openly, what you've actually just done covertly.


Irene: You're still missing the point. You think that Robert is being dishonest with you, and maybe he thinks the reverse. What makes you so sure that you're the one who's right?


T : You're serious?

You really think that I need to get Robert to openly state that he is being dishonest before I can think that he is? So, tell me, just how many times have you purchased the State Street Bridge?

It's an absurdity, Irene. Under your criteria, I can only believe the truth of this statement if it is no longer quite true, because Robert will have to be honest enough to admit that he's been dishonest before I am allowed to believe it, myself. Rubbish. I make that assessment for myself, unilaterally, based on what I see and hear. After I share my observations, and the hearing of these become part of what others have seen and heard, it is up to them to do likewise. But I certainly do not need a crook's permission to distrust him, or need to win him over to openly supporting my point of view, before I have a right to hold or express it. In a very real sense, that is exactly what Robert is. A stealer of clear perception, rather than physical possessions.

As I suspect you have elected to be, at this moment. Please don't pretend that you actually believed what you just said. If you did, those men who sell the fake golden chains down in the loop, and their like, would have reduced you to poverty a long time ago.


Irene: You seem to be quite hostile about this.


T : And rightly so.


Irene: OK, maybe I was a little unreasonable, but does that justify the hostility that we're hearing out of you?


T : If you attack someone's character, don't expect friendliness in return. To offer it, would have been to allow myself to be placed on the defensive, and there's no reason for me to agree to this.


Irene: I wasn't attacking your character, I was just offering an observation.


T : In a manner that clearly implied that I was being arrogantly dogmatic. The difference is that when I go on the attack, I'm honest about it. I don't try to cover it up with a transparent show of cheerfulness. You do, and that's wrong. Submerging anger is a great way of keeping it from being resolved.

As for your demands, regarding my reaction to Robert ...

Don't expect that this whim of yours will be indulged, or expect that I will be friendly about it. To seek to undermine a person's freedom of thought, the font of all other freedoms, is emotional violence, and the fact that you attempted to do so in such a manipulative fashion, only makes matters worse. Anger on this point, couldn't possibly be more appropriate.

So, I repeat, what happened to all of this pious concern of yours, for this absolute right to one's opinion? This value of yours seems to appear, and disappear, as your rhetorical need of the moment dictates. To be exact, this value, as seen in practice, is not what a casual glance at the wording of its expression would make it seems to be. It conceals an extremely questionable agenda, in practice.


Irene: What do you mean by that?


T : Observe its application. For example, one observes a group of nearly total strangers badgering someone into giving in to a demand - say, to someone who is being pressured by a panhandler to give a handout. The person so pressured expresses anger, and what happens next, do you think?


Irene: Very cute. What happened next, was that I told the person who was reacting so hostily, to honest input, was that he should respect that these people were entitled to their opinions.


T : And when he started to cave, and I told him not to, what did you say in response, then?


Irene: Well, Tractatus, it really wasn't any of your business.


T : And yet oddly enough, it was your business, and the business of the people badgering the man. This is the questionable agenda, concealed behind that innocent sounding statement, made to sound innocent through habitual, unchallenged repetition. If you look at the actual, concrete course of action demanded by the one offering it - that which the one hearing it would have to do, for his conduct to meet with the other's approval - what it really means is this. "Don't you agree, that I'm entitled to unilateral control of the floor of discussion, or at least that some faction I support is. Don't you agree, that those I support have more of a right to speak freely, and fully, than you do?"

No, of course I don't agree with that. I said that I don't believe in giving rhetorical blank checks, and here is an excellent example of one reason why. Look at what they get cashed in for. How sad it is, that this incident is akin to so many others. The attitudes seen were not an abberation, they remain the norm.


Irene: The situation is not so symmetrical as you seem to be suggesting. It is better to give, than to be selfish, and we were encouraging the former, while you were encouraging the latter.


T : Here, in effect, you leave the course of discussion guided by a sort of circular logic. You attempt to stifle arguments against your point of view, on the basis that it is right. Then, if you should prevail under these unequal terms, justified by the premise that you were right, this rhetorical victory is taken as a vindication of your rightness, justifying more of the same in the future, and intensifying the conviction with which this act is committed.

But how meaningful is victory, when you cheat to achieve it? How informative is it? You leave others remembering the fact that you won support, but help them forget that you did so by silencing much of your opposition. How strong do your points really have to be, to overcome arguments that are never heard, or listened to?

Is honesty something you set aside, whenever it is convenient? If you are in the right, then why do you need to engage in manipulative behavior in order to advance your point of view? Here, you engaged in a rhetorical bait and switch, as you tried to make a highly unevenhanded practice appear to be an expression of evenhandedness, and attempted to bias the outcome of the discussion, before points had been exchanged and considered. Is this an ethical act?

Since you meant well, the rules of fair play could be set aside by you? Such confidence in your own rightness! Was it also better for that money, guilted out of one who had so little, should go for the booze the bum bought that night, instead of for the nourishment that the food he cut back on that night would have brought?


Irene : But we didn't know about that. It wasn't our neighborhood, we didn't know the people involved.


T : Your ignorance was pardonable. Your refusal to consider the possibility that it was present before setting aside those rules that you thought yourself above, was not. When you offer your good intentions as an excuse for putting ethics to one side, the ethics of discourse in this case, in effect you are counting on your own infallibility, and life should have taught you better than that.

You set an uneven playing field, for the ideas that vie for our support in the course of discussion, by asserting that conveniently ambiguous customary position. You do so before discussion commences, ignoring the reality that truth has to be found, and verified - it is not present in one's mind as a free gift from an unknown and undefinable benefactor.


Irene: What do you mean, undefinable?


T : Undefinable, in that one is left with the question of what the nature of this gift would be, that would allow one to instantly know that the instinct so given, wasn't merely an inborn delusion, and what the nature of the giver capable of offering such a gift would have to be. Omnipotence itself is inadequate, when what is wished for is logically impossible. The giver himself, is an entity who we can't imagine, even in principle.

If you should happen to be wrong, your actions will reduce the likelihood of the consensus finding its way to the truth. In effect, you are taking your own rightness to be a given, that should not be examined. As you did in the case I mentioned, you proclaimed a belief in your own infallibility through your actions, or an indifference to whether or not the truth would be what ended up finding support. A choice between sleaziness or arrogance is a poor one to have to make. Which option would you care to be defined by?


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