Nicely done, and thank you as always for the thought provoking read. Absolutely love your essays.
Enjoy your weekend!
Another thing, along the same web conversation line is the dodge. I have found this very curious and am always fascinated by it.
Essentially, there is a conversation going on. Somebody has posted up something they characterize as factual, the truth, majority view, correct, etc... Somebody else then has their say and after some banter back and forth, it's clear one or the other just isn't correct.
This does not mean the other parties are correct either, just that we have one that is known not to be correct in the conversation.
At this point, we should then expect to see some acceptance, but we don't. That's the dodge right there. A successful dodge means being able to bring that battered point up, in a given venue, over and over and over again.
Frustrating, and also highly entertaining, if you like seeing new forms manifest!
Some that I've seen play out: (some are likely subsets or minor variations of others -->this is just a list compiled over a coupla years talking politics with a close circle of people)
1. Subject change
2. Claim of too many opponents
3. Claim to either be a member of, or opponents of discussion being members of club, with said membership somehow required to complete what is otherwise a non-rational conclusion.
4. Silence
5. Claim of overall subject and or implications of subject complexity being greater than scope of discussion
6. Invoke false comparison
7. Transform rational argument into emotional one
8. The Bible says...
9. Invoke redefinition of common words
10. Invoke slippery label to redefine winners primary point at hand
11. Claim of invalid higher authority / Claim of no high authority
12. Obsfucation, where some degree of acceptance is seen, but wrapped in difficult to reference terms
13. "I forgot, could you remind me again?", used to force other parties to tire of the subject and move on.
14. Necessary party unavailable for comment.
Some of these could be valid, depending on the context. I've got those listed here, with the assumption that it's really a dodge and that context is not at issue.