You have seen the Glass Bead Game played within your own confines.

You have been introduced to the Eristic and the Elentic without
knowing.

You are the unhappy recipient of 2500 years of codified adversarial
conversation.

And now you are on UseNet.

And you must suffer.

God save us all.

In a more informed, educated, and intelligent environment; these
discussions would not go on.

But, you are on UseNet, and you must suffer.

The Elenctic applies to indirect modes of proof and has been
discountenanced since the time of Classical Greece.

The Eristic describes those given to disputatious and specious
arguments, and these have been fore sworn by intelligent adversaries
since BCE.

Das Glasperlenspiel is a more modern invention and seeks to unify
those glimmers and glammers of rhetorical diatribacal diabolism into a
kind of undescribed gamesmanship, where the winner is merely apparent
and the loser is brother to the winner.

And now you are on UseNet and must suffer.

What term might unify them all and give a point of reference to heap
our disregard upon.

I would submit that the term is, "Sophist".

It is an ancient term, originally intended to mean the transference of
wisdom, but coming to mean the use of rhetoric to overcome a lack of
actual value.

cf: Casuistry, Jesuitical, Miller, Bozarth, Fredfighter, et al...

Beware of Sophistry. It is at best, dishonest, and at worst,
diabolically antithetical to the search for truth.

The concept of the dialogical investigation of the possible and the
true, which is the gift of Fifth Century BCE Socratic enquiry, is
perverted, displaced, retarded and overwhelmed by those Sophistical
bastiges who would pervert honest dialogue in an effort to support
their own misunderstood, poorly intelligenced, unreasoned, and
ultimately wrongminded views.

It is not that they don't have something to say. It is that they say
too much, and that without the underpinning of intellect or a decent
comprehension of moral clarity.

Sophistry is the enemy.

I have seen a thread go on for almost four hundred replies, most of
those from repeat offenders, but some from those who should know
better, including a single, disapproving response from me.

A good argument can be a wonderful thing.

Whether or not that argument belongs on this NG is another issue.

But, if the argument will not be denied, could it not at least be
conducted with a modicum of intelligence, without a use of Eristic,
Elenctic, or Sophistry.

For an argument to have value, there must be a respect for the
confines of the argument. There must be interlocutors of equal merit.
There must be a respect for the truth.

Unfortunately, "What we have here is a failure to communicate".

It makes the progenitors and the interlocutors look like idiots.

And, although I may feel that to be an adequate description of those
involved, I would like to see them attempt to better themselves, if
only in the interest of quietude.




Tom Watson - WoodDorker
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/ (website)