>Carrol C: "I too dislike anarchism. But this whole argument does not touch on
>anarchism; it merely throws spitballs at anarchists."
>
>[WS:] Nothing stops your from debating these guys on their own terms,
>Carrol. However, I find it as productive as holding a debate club in
>a nuttery.
>
>PS. A refusal to debate an opinion on the grounds that the person who
>expresses it cannot be swayed by arguments is not ad hominem. It is a
>decision based on a factual claim, which may or may not be true.
This argument puzzles me. It puzzles me in that I don't understand what point you are trying to make.
On the face of it yes, if you have decided that a person cannot be swayed by argument, then it follows that your arguments will not influence the person you argue with. But of course that is not the only reason to get into a debate. It puzzles me that you are talking as if you are unaware that engaging in debate influences, firstly, your own mind. In that it helps you to think through an issue. Then it may or may not influence the thinking of the person you are debating. And finally, if there are others observing the debate (as you must be aware there are, on a mailing list such as this) it probably influences those observers.
So clearly, your argument that you will refuse to debate, for the reason that the person expressing the opposing view cannot be swayed, cannot be taken literally to mean that is the reason for your refusal. In fact It can't even be taken literally as you are refusing to debate, which I think is what Carrol is arguing. That is, he is suggesting that rather than refusing to debate for that (or any other) reason, the fact is that this *is* your argument. This is how you hope to win the debate, by suggesting that the other side of the argument lacks reason and therefor his/her conclusions should be dismissed.
But that's only one possible explanation for the puzzling and logically incomprehensible claim.
Anyhow, this is all in the realm of human motivation, which fascinates me mainly because it is so mysterious to me. I am you see one of those folks you describe as "suffering from affective disorders that impede their social functioning". Very clever of you do notice that. Or perhaps it only seems very clever to me, because I would never be able to pick that sort of thing. I have a touch of the autism thing, Aspergers syndrome. Which leads me to take things literally rather than make the leaps of social comprehension that others take for granted. As you can see, the only way I can even deduce motives in others is by crude tortuous logic and analysis of material interests.
But I'm not an anarchist. Your character analysis has taken a wrong turn there. Maybe you were meaning Graber was? (You were imprecise on that.) He probably is. The important logical point being that I agree with Graber and I'm not an anarchist, so it logically follows that his or my being an anarchist is irrelevant to the issue.
In fact I can recall when I was in the IWW having this same argument with many of the anarchists is the IWW with even less success that I'm enjoying here, so come to think of it, support for consensus is even lower among anarchists that elsewhere? If anything. I'm leaning towards no significance at all.
But I'm rambling. Enough for now.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas