Thursday, November 22, 2012

Alpha Mail: be careful what you wish

I just might give it to you.  Szopen has been complaining that I haven't responded to her attempt to correct me with regards to this earlier post.  She writes:
"VD: this statement is false: "Szopen quixotically asserts that women are as amenable to criticism as men while being totally incapable of logic:"

Because I have stated "you can't use X to achieve goal Y with females", and you interpreted this as "females can't use/understand X".

Now, I expect that you will refuse to admit that you have made an error, but I wonder, what kind of logic you will try to use to prove that from "you can't use X to goal Y" you can deduce "you can't use X"."
First, I regret to dash her expectations.  I am always pleased to admit an error when I have made one.  Responding to substantive criticism is the best way to hone one's intellectual capacities.  Second, it provides me with some modest amusement to have to point out the concept of "rhetorical exaggeration" to a woman, but yes, I will readily admit that all women are not "totally incapable" of logic at all times and in all contexts.  I find it especially amusing because I wrote that statement in response to this comment of hers:

"I'm reading the comments here and I think some of commenters are really nuts. In short, some of commenters would try to convince females, by a way of logic, that females are inferior (they should submit to males etc) and they are surprised or even angry that females won't listen."

Szopen, is this statement true?  Do you really believe that some of the commenters are literally insane on the basis of their comments?  Are you some sort of wonder psychiatrist who is capable of distinguishing the mentally ill and neurologically impaired from the mentally healthy on the mere basis of their blog commentary?  I suggest that she who lives, rhetorically speaking, in a glass house, is in no position to throw any stones.

As for the logical challenge, allow me to rise to it.  The primary link between "you can't use X to goal Y" and "you can't use X" is the ratio between the set of "you can't use X" and the subset of "you can't use X for Y."  This is a little confusing, so we'll remove the negatives and refer to the set as X and the subset as X-Y.  So, the question concerning the legitimacy of substituting (X-Y) for X obviously depends upon the size of Y.

X is the female capacity for logic.  Y is, as per her longer comment, anything that women might find offensive.  We are mutually agreed that one cannot expect women to follow the logic that concerns anything they may happen to find offensive.  And what do women find offensive?  Well, from both her comments and our mutual experience at HUS, we know that women find criticism, among many other things, to be inherently offensive to them.  So, per Szopen, X = (X-Y) in any critical context.  Which, as it happens, is precisely the context I was describing when I commented upon the quixotic nature of her assertion.  For how can women be considered to be as amenable to criticism as men when one cannot use logic as an acceptable means of criticizing them?

And furthermore, does this not support my earlier contentions that one will do better to utilize rhetoric, rather than logic, when attempting to persuade a woman of anything?

But to correct my earlier statement, which was indeed partially false, I will admit that I should have said: "Szopen quixotically asserts that women are as amenable to criticism as men while being totally incapable of logic in any context that is critical of them."

I trust she will be happy now that I have responded to her complaint.

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