Why do we bash each other?

[Thalassamania]

Interesting.

 

[boulderjohn]

Why do we bash each other? Here is a theory:

We are not like other animals, living in peace with nature. Our creations and inventions keep us alive. Our forebears argued heatedly and often violently about the best way to raise a child, tan a hide, or shape a stone tool. We still do. If our diets are not nutritious, or our medicines don't work, or our arrows don't fly straight, or our roofs don't shed water, we weaken and die, and another, stronger tribe takes over our territory.

Thus, we humans have learned to ruthlessly critique and continuously improve every aspect of our culture, our science, and our technology, because our survival depends on it. Throughout history, these "discussions" about the merits of one thing versus another have made us the most successful - and most contentious - animal on earth.

It is worth considering that scuba diving would not exist at all, if humans didn't passionately argue about better ways to do things.

Compared to that, what are a few hurt feelings?

That is a good reason for arguing, but not for bashing.

A good, productive argument leads to consensus and improvement, if not the outright truth. Bashing leads to entrenchment; it is the opposite of productivity. Look at what happened when men in the new field of astronomy argued about what they saw through their telescopes with a church who was more in a bashing mood than a passionate argument mood.

A number of years ago I was in a argument with someone about something, and I prepared a Socratic type argument that I thought would lead him to see my point clearly. I could not make that argument, though, because he kept interrupting me, cutting off my sentences. The argument went nowhere that way.

Some time after that I told him how frustrated I was that when we argued, he kept cutting me off. He said that was his strategy. When he saw that his opponent was about to make a winning point, he cut him off to prevent that point being made. In other words, he knew he was about to be defeated by facts and logic, so he knew he needed to resort to bullying to win the argument. To him, the point of an argument was to have his initial position prevail; to me the point of the argument was to arrive at the truth, regardless of initial positions.

His strategy is the essence of bashing. In doing so we demonize the oppositon and cut off meaningful and productive debate.

 

[Ed Jewell]

 

[adurso]

 

[adurso]

Pardon me if I missed it, but no one seems to have looked at this matter from the perspective of those who take offense.
Viz: Who gives a rat's patoot what some faceless, nameless, stranger has to say or how they say it.
Why do otherwise rational people allow themselves to become insulted or upset by the aforementioned nameless faceless etc?
If one were in the real world, and someone stated that one was a doodyhead because they failed to utilize a BP/W; would this be cause for alarm?
I would submit that no matter what the other party intends to accomplish; one may only be insulted or "bashed" if one allows oneself to be...

 

[The Chairman]

argued about what they saw through their telescopes with a church who was more in a bashing mood than a passionate argument mood.

They took flaming to a whole new level!

 

[idocsteve]

Why do we bash each other? Here is a theory:
It is worth considering that scuba diving would not exist at all, if humans didn't passionately argue about better ways to do things.

Compared to that, what are a few hurt feelings?

What sort of a screwed up hypothesis is that????

You don't know what you're talking about!








Just kidding

Get it?

:cool2:

 

[lamont]

One thing seems to be the "big fish in a small pond" problem. Sometimes the most heated discussions, over a nearly inconsequential issue, are between people that nearly 99% agree. That is probably related to fights for dominance in an immediate peer group...

 

[OceanEd]

GerogeC:

I am new to ScubaBoard and I have noticed what you are talking about. I am as puzzled as you are about why there are some people who seem to be very negative in the way they post. I know there is a great wealth of combined knowledge in the members of ScubaBoard and I hope to be able to share ideas and thoughts with many of them, but I also want to do it in an interesting and neutral way without it turning into some "bash fest" about a diving organization or me or anyone else.

 

[TSandM]

Viz: Who gives a rat's patoot what some faceless, nameless, stranger has to say or how they say it.

This is actually a superb point.

I have had a number of threads over my tenure on SB, where someone decided to take me to task about something in a very tactless way. I read those posts and decide whether there is anything in the SUBSTANCE of the posts that's worth taking up. If not, I ignore them. That way I never get baited into a personal argument. Some of the people who have written those sorts of things have subsequently written to me to apologize. I don't think they would have done that had I waded into the discussion with both feet.