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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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Whereas this, I'm not sure if @Amadan would say it violates the rules this week or not. It might be interpreted as implying that your opponents are simply blind, irrational, partisan haters.

You are not doing yourself any favors by claiming we make up the rules weekly and then tagging me to make sure the dig is seen.

So the first thing I notice is that you cut off the end of the quote you are claiming "might be" interpreted in a certain way.

The full quote is:

It's perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of claims of legitimacy, but if the skepticism is primarily/only deployed in one direction, or if it is immune or implacably resistant to evidence, then it's also reasonable to conclude the skepticism is either the source of delusion or some other form of motivated reasoning.

That seems like a reasonable statement to me. It would require a disingenuous, bad faith reading to interpret it as "You're saying your opponents are simply blind, irrational, partisan haters." No, he's saying people who only deploy skepticism in one direction and are resistant to evidence are either deluded or using motivated reasoning.

There are a lot of caveats and qualifiers in that statement. You can disagree with how he framed it or his wording, you can assert that that does not describe people who are taking the specific position he is arguing against, you can take issue with his argument, but in my judgment (which does not change "weekly"), it is not like just calling someone a victim of "TDS" because he criticizes Trump.

If you want to engage the mods in a reasonable discussion about whether the rules are being applied fairly, snide jabs like this aren't your best strategy. I just took the time to explain to you why "No, really, TDS is real and Trump's critics really are deranged, Psychology Today says so!" is not an appropriate excuse for calling someone deranged. Once again I conclude that taking the time to write long paragraphs explaining my reasoning and trying to be fair to people who are only here to take cheap shots is a waste of my time and charity. I will not make this mistake with you again.

Thank you for explaining your reasoning. I just wish I could understand it better.

So the first thing I notice is that you cut off the end of the quote you are claiming "might be" interpreted in a certain way.

Combined with

No, he's saying people who only deploy skepticism in one direction and are resistant to evidence are either deluded or using motivated reasoning.

I think my first hypothesis for this explanation would be termed "Disjunctive Relief", and I don't think it would fly elsewhere. I don't think if someone said, "...and the conclusion of my argument (which assumes that my opponents are using motivated reasoning) is that my opponents are Nazis or using motivated reasoning," one would be so generous as to say, "But they did say 'or using motivated reasoning', so maybe they're just saying that they're using motivated reasoning." Nah. It would be interpreted as a way to simply call your opponents Nazis. Of course, if you would like to correct this hypothesis, I will update my understanding of the rules accordingly.

I think my second hypothesis would be that you simply view "TDS" as a slur, which is then subject to the unwritten slurs policy, which "has always" taken into account tone or "vibes". Paired with that, you think that "delusional" is not a slur. Instead, it's just the proper word to describe the conclusion that some people have literal delusions, things that their minds just made up. This is perhaps reasonable, and it would also jive with this comment not being modded, as it uses the slur, but gives enough negative vibes to both sides so as to have the appropriate ethereal balance.

My third hypothesis is that you take specific umbrage with appearing to say that a particular person has TDS. As you put it:

it is not like just calling someone a victim of "TDS" because he criticizes Trump.

In this case, my sub-hypothesis is that this is a version of, "Why use few word when many word do?" My comment was vastly too short on explicitly stating that Ashlael deploys his skepticism in only one direction, is immune or implacably resistant to evidence, and evinces a disgust reaction to Trump that does not correlate to any pre-Trump political commitments. Rather than bulk accusing anyone in the thread who doesn't meet his specific demands for how to respond, I assumed some knowledge of the vast history of a particular poster, without recounting it, to make my conclusion. Therefore, if I had simply explicitly stated the implicit qualifications that went into the conclusion, it would have been considered acceptable.

Finally, as for

I just took the time to explain to you why "No, really, TDS is real and Trump's critics really are deranged, Psychology Today says so!" is not an appropriate excuse for calling someone deranged.

and its precursor

I am not impressed by citations from Psychology Today. You may recall that back in the late 90s and oughts there was something of a cottage industry of articles from psychologists and linguists and others arguing very soberly that, essentially, conservatives are all mentally ill and/or fascists whose mommies didn't love them enough. I'm sure you would not be receptive to someone "shorthanding" this concept in such a way as to simply label conservatives crazy.

I think you misunderstand the point of citing PT. PT is almost certainly not pro-Trump. They are almost certainly maximally skeptical of the concept of TDS and maximally likely to portray it in the least charitable light possible. Citing them is the opposite of support for my interpretation. It is saying that even if you start from the most skeptical position possible, my interpretation still captures a phenomenon that is coherent. This is a completely different attempt than, say, citing some random psychologist in a left-wing publication who criticizes a right-wing politician or vice-versa.

Finally, if I can fully combine them here now, I would like to respond to:

"Anti-Trump partisan" will do.

I think this completely fails to engage with the entire paragraph I wrote on the topic:

I think one could be an anti-Trump partisan without having TDS. Primarily, if they don't experience a higher-than-typical (for his or her self) level of political disgust about Trump. I don't get that sense from AshLael. I don't see him posting about, say, anything in Aussie politics in a way that oozes disgust for the spectacle.

In your follow-on, you say:

If you want to make the much longer argument you made above - that "TDS" is actually a thing and represents more than simply hating Trump - then you will have to do so, by making that argument (and explaining why it applies to the OP).

I think I best interpret this as hypothesis two, that you currently think that TDS is just a slur and that every usage of it either must therefore balance the ethereal vibes or come with a full explanation of the complete meaning, every time. That's fair enough, but it doesn't address what I had actually asked for - a shorthand way of saying that concept without having to copy/paste an entire explanation every time. Perhaps none exists, and I will simply end up having to copy/paste every time, but that none exists does not actually mean that "anti-Trump partisan" will do.

EDIT: Also, I'd like to make a note on your comment:

I just took the time to explain to you why "No, really, TDS is real and Trump's critics really are deranged, Psychology Today says so!" is not an appropriate excuse for calling someone deranged. Once again I conclude that taking the time to write long paragraphs explaining my reasoning and trying to be fair to people who are only here to take cheap shots is a waste of my time and charity. I will not make this mistake with you again.

I would like to submit the timestamp of my comment here at 9:30AM EST, while your nice explanation is timestamped at 9:08AM EST. I was on a rush out of the house yesterday morning. I don't have the clearest memory, because I mostly remember trying to get out of the house, but I don't believe I had seen your 9:08AM comment at the time that I started writing or posted my 9:30AM comment. I believe I did click refresh and saw it before I left the house, but definitely didn't have time to respond to it yesterday. I think you worrying about "making this mistake with [me] again" would, itself, be a mistake of fact.

one would be so generous as to say, "But they did say 'or using motivated reasoning', so maybe they're just saying that they're using motivated reasoning." Nah. It would be interpreted as a way to simply call your opponents Nazis. Of course, if you would like to correct this hypothesis, I will update my understanding of the rules accordingly.

It's possible for facts to be congruent with more than one hypothesis.