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I'm right. You're wrong.

  
 
Tezcatlipoca
07:44 / 11.10.02
"Ok, ok, you're right and I'm wrong."

This particularly unsatisfying comment was made to me recently when out with a friend. I can't honestly recall what we were discussing, and it probably wasn't that important to begin with. What did strike me as interesting however, was their giving up the discussion, not because they thought they were wrong, but because they hadn't the ability to articulate their point effectively enough.

Which in turn got me thinking about verbal conflict in general, and, more specifically, whether a person's point is more valid because they can articulate it well enough to convince others. For example, if you defend a standpoint or opinion which you know to be incorrect but have sufficient verbal and mental skill to convince your opponent, does your point suddenly become more valid?
 
 
Smoothly
08:02 / 11.10.02
No more so than if your opponent was sufficiently dull and credulous to be convinced by a weak and fatuous argument I should imagine.
It depends on your model of truth, but you'd need very good verbal and mental skills to convince me that believing a thing to be true has that much to do with the thing being true. But I'd be interested to hear it.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
08:28 / 11.10.02
I remember an argument with my mother when I was very small, over what I'm not sure, but at some point she used the "Are you calling me a liar?" tactic. Which even at that age I could see was horribly unfair. Technically, I wasn't doing any such thing, I was just saying she was mistaken, but I wasn't about to even suggest that I may have been calling my mother a liar, so I had to back down and say a straight "no".

I'm still mildly cross many years later.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
09:25 / 11.10.02
I'd say that it's not the subject of the argument that's important - it's the argument itself which is the point, and, therefore, if you can argue more effectively than the other participant/s you are simply better at arguing than they are - not more correct. Correctness has very little to do with it...
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
11:17 / 11.10.02
I agree Kit-Cat, but what happens if the opinion you've dogmatically defended - knowing it to be wrong - changes the other person's viewpoint? To expand on that slightly, let's say dictator X makes a series of public speechs, espousing 'facts' which he knows to be false. Does dictator X's ability to convince his public make what he is saying correct (and, by extension, acceptable)?
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
11:24 / 11.10.02
What it really means is that the dictator is convincing rather than correct, but I suppose it could be said to make it temporarily correct - correct for the dictator's purposes, as it were. I'm not sure how much dictators allow their minions to argue with them, and would suggest that the underlying threat of persecution is a pretty underhand tactic in an argument... Perhaps a religious speaker would be a better example?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
11:31 / 11.10.02
Papal infallibility could easily come into play there...

I think a lot of it's not just the idea, OR the forcefulness/charisma/whatever of the speaker- it's the intention. Here I'm with you, KCK. Once the argument becomes the point, rather than the medium through which the point is arrived at, then all bets are off.

But one should, as Tez says, be careful that you don't play devil's advovcate well enough to convince the opponent...

Or make sure you both know what the (unwritten and unspoken- hence therefore somewhat tricky) rules are.
 
 
Smoothly
12:42 / 11.10.02
Winning the argument has little to do with being right though does it? Pre-Copernicus (and I believe for quite a while post-Copernicus)the arguments that the sun revolved around the earth was widely accepted. But that had no impact on what was actually doing the revolving, does it?
I might be missing the point but when you say that force of argument can render a falsehood temporarily correct, KKC, what do you have in mind? I suppose a statement like 'Most of my audience believe what I say to be true' might be self-fulfilling in that sense, but what else?
 
 
Lurid Archive
12:51 / 11.10.02
I think the point may be that definitions of the term "correct" are in fact problematic, Smoothly Weaving. So, from certain points of view, being convincing is difficult to separate from being correct.
 
 
Smoothly
13:16 / 11.10.02
I agree Lurid that are different definitions of 'true', but in the kind of cases Taz is suggesting, where you already know that what you're arguing for is false, then aren't we already talking about the kind of truths which being correct about isn't difficult to separate from being convincing? If that makes sense.
 
 
Puzimandias
20:50 / 11.10.02
This is close to a subject of interest to me - rational debate vs emotional debate. With an interest and history in philosophy and a job as a professional fundraiser I side with the former: if you can get it to work it seems to me a lot more potent and long-lasting. The emotional debate I leave to the tabloids, politicians and anyone who feels the overwhemling desire to tug on heartstrings for their own personal gain.
Unfortunately, the latter seems to work a lot better with the hoi polloi. People seem to respond to emotional debate a lot easier, even if they don't understand or soon lose interest in the point you're trying to make...
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
09:35 / 12.10.02
Oh for God's sake... Puzimandias, next time you decide to be sweepingly patronising about 'people' (I suppose you mean tabloid readers and stupid/poor people?), bear in mind that you don't need to put 'the' before 'hoi polloi'. I personally think that if politicians and the media didn't make the same assumptions about the public we might end up with a higher standard of public debate.

Smoothly - I meant that the dictator, as a demagogue (or alternatively as a purveyor of repression and persecution) carries enough power to render his statements, even if he knows them to be false (and probably even if a proportion of his audience knows them to be false), 'correct' for as long as it suits him - correct for his purposes, I think I said. Not true, but acted upon as if they were.
 
 
Cubby
17:25 / 12.10.02
One thing I love about Autherian Romance is that when there is a disagreement or acusation, there is no debate or trial, just a joust. The characters beleive in Truth so much that they know it will not allow a victory in the name of falseness. If this system were implemented, of course truth would be decided not by any god, but by the strength and skill of the combatants.

I don't really see how this reality would be different if you just exchange horses for tounges. Your ability to trounce an arguement has the same effect on objective reality as your ability to kick my head in. BUT... In these circumstances you are imbued by the observer to have this ability, and thus you can change their perspective.

Which often times is more than enough
 
 
Smoothly
23:12 / 12.10.02
KKC - Sorry, I think I misunderstood the question. I agree that with potent language and sophistic reasoning demagogues can convince people to behave as in a certain way. Nazi propaganda likening Jews to animals leading people to treat them like animals perhaps being an (unimaginative) example. But I thought Tez was asking whether belief in, or agreement with, a particular propostion can alter actual states of affairs. When ze asked Does dictator X's ability to convince his public make what he is saying correct (and, by extension, acceptable)?, I argued that it remained at best a popular misconception because I assumed he was using 'correct' in the sense of true, not in the sense of consistant with prevailing mores. So are we talking about moral rather than veridical relativism? If so I'd ask this: What status do we allow the assertions of a demagogue who argues convincingly for moral absolutism?
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
11:46 / 13.10.02
The occasions that I use the "you're right, I'm wrong" response in a debate is when the opposition either will not accept a logical counter to a point or is so unwilling to accept a difference in opinion that they will not leave an argument without "winning".

In reflection that might sound like I'm trying to shift the blame for use of the phrase back to the other person but this isn't a matter of blame. It's a difference in personalities which is not a blameful state of affairs.

On a personalised noted, if someone does say this to you then consider how you yourself have approached the debate/argument with respect to the person your having it with and never take it badly as the person probably already feels bad at having to resort to that phrase.
 
  
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