Posted: Sep 23, 2014 4:38 pm
Sendraks wrote:
And I still don't see the problem with inhabiting an implausible to distortion of your position to show that such a distortion is ridiculous, as a shortcut to dealing with ridiculous arguments.
Because there's nothing wrong with it.
Sometimes the lies people tell about you are so fucking ridiculous that they don't deserve a sincere refutation. Mockery is far more reasonable a response. For example, a member of this forum has said I probably like to murder neonates (a distortion of my pro-choice feminism). This does not deserve a sincere refutation. Far more effective is laughing at the ridiculousness of the accusation than actually treating the person making the accusation as if they're deserving of my time.
Mockery is a highly valuable tool and a far more appropriate one to utilise when others are being utterly stupid and reactionary than just ignoring this kind of dishonesty and abuse OR treating it and the people engaging in it as if they deserve your time or energy. You can't work with people who are being reactionary and dishonest because they've already left decency and rationality behind. You can show other people how fucking ridiculous their behaviour is though and irony is a great way of doing that.
And there's nothing idiotic about that.