Here's something pretty nasty and in my view hard for most people to see.
Person A and B get into a debate. As they continue the debate, A begins debating more aggressively, throwing down inflammatory rhetoric (e.g., such-and-such is nonsense, crap, stupid, dumb, "man you're full of it," etc.) while the content of his argument is still worth debating. Person B has two choices: he can continue to debate and thereby give up a bit of his dignity by responding to person A's superfluous jabs, or he can stop debating as a matter of dignity and/or appeals to argumentative ethics.
Problems happen in both cases: in the first case (where B continues debating with the ever-growing inflammatory A) B sacrifices a bit of his dignity and even reputation by continuing; he even can throw stuff back at A, in which case the debate becomes more and more pointless given that people are less likely to consider viewpoints seriously when they perceive themselves as attacked.
In the second case, where B says he won't continue debating as a matter of dignity and/or ethics, it's extremely easy for A, who usually doesn't have even an awaerness of the unethical argumentative nature of his rhetorical jabs, to think he's won -- or at least that others viewing the debate to think A won -- simply because B quit.
So we're left with the options of reinforcing negative behavior by people like A when we debate with them, or giving the impression that we have no response.
Thoughts?
Person A and B get into a debate. As they continue the debate, A begins debating more aggressively, throwing down inflammatory rhetoric (e.g., such-and-such is nonsense, crap, stupid, dumb, "man you're full of it," etc.) while the content of his argument is still worth debating. Person B has two choices: he can continue to debate and thereby give up a bit of his dignity by responding to person A's superfluous jabs, or he can stop debating as a matter of dignity and/or appeals to argumentative ethics.
Problems happen in both cases: in the first case (where B continues debating with the ever-growing inflammatory A) B sacrifices a bit of his dignity and even reputation by continuing; he even can throw stuff back at A, in which case the debate becomes more and more pointless given that people are less likely to consider viewpoints seriously when they perceive themselves as attacked.
In the second case, where B says he won't continue debating as a matter of dignity and/or ethics, it's extremely easy for A, who usually doesn't have even an awaerness of the unethical argumentative nature of his rhetorical jabs, to think he's won -- or at least that others viewing the debate to think A won -- simply because B quit.
So we're left with the options of reinforcing negative behavior by people like A when we debate with them, or giving the impression that we have no response.
Thoughts?