[An off-topic and specific response to the similarly off-topic and specific posts of others]
I'm glad I can see Jade's posts when I reply because it's completely changed my mind about my response.
Jade, your choice of language is disgracefully aggressive in tone, implying a violent nature. You should first learn to moderate yourself before putting yourself in the position of moderating others. "Kickings"? Is that really how you see discussion here? I might point out, then, that the kickings here are so pathetically weak that I didn't even recognize them as such. Furthermore, personal attacks only serve to make you seem small-minded and judgemental.
You might also learn at some future time that a little humor can be injected without discrediting an argument. You probably even do this yourself, perhaps without always realizing it. Of course, it seems different when another person's argument touches a nerve.
In fact, from my point of view, people have completely failed to address the main points of my argument. Attacking style rather than content does not build a strong case.
And then there was the insanely absurd suggestion that I could only have learned my vocabularly through reading books, as if there is no other process. Most children establish a very useful, practical vocabulary even before they learn how to recognize letters. My absurd response regarding "genetic memory" was appropriate for an absurd question.
As for Lada's claim "I got qualitatively more responses from him when I was dissing him as a troll", how do you judge quality? Whatever the case, perhaps the reason my responses are not "qualitively more" is that I have attempted to keep myself above the "dissing" and respond rationally to other people's posts. In that thread, I have rarely differentiated between "dissing" and attempts at rational argument.
I am taking my time about answering some of the questions in the thread partly due to other matters that are more pressing, partly because it is difficult to take them seriously and not point out that most of the objections to my arguments are absurd. Many of them either misrepresent my stated view, or are simply of the style "I read books therefore book-reading must be good," which is not compelling.
By the way, Tom, thanks for your post in the "no books matter" thread quoting Walter J Ong. It might be of some help for me in further development of my case. Ironically, there are probably books out there that directly provide a great deal of material for the case against books! On the other hand, I don't agree with your post in this thread insofar as you claim that a provocative and compelling argument will cause people to change their views. I believe adults rarely change their views on issues such as this one, regardless of evidence, logic or presentation. |
