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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (51316)	3/2/2008 7:54:15 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 543139

that doesn't apply when the author acknowledges a collateral error but then suggests that the central point might nonetheless have been well taken. You acknowledge as error that which is error. Making a collateral error does not destroy other threads of the argument or get you ejected from the game. If it did, no one would ever acknowledge one. It seems to me that, in a civil and constructive society, it is in our best interest to foster the good-natured admission of error. Conversely, we can award points on some aspect of the argument without conceding other aspects of our own arguments. If you look at behavior on SI, how entrenched and hostile people can get, and how binary, it behooves us all to encourage a higher quality of discourse. Surely you have noticed how some people go for a peripheral gotcha and then dance in the end zone. Is that the kind of behavior we want? Surely not. It is both unpleasant and non-constructive. I suggest that we reward the prompt admission of error even in marginal circumstances in order to foster both apt and good faith discussions. Perhaps at some point we can have an apt and good faith discussion on the subject of victimhood... <g>