~~ i disagree to agree to disagree :/
Sep. 25th, 2003 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaThe concept of agreeing to disagree is strange to me, as is the idea that agreement is therefore the goal of debate or dialogue-type discourse to start with.
Thinking about this, it seems like a major fallacy. The continuous process of thinking would seem to rely on the formulation of questions, rather than that of ready rhetoric, thereafter merely used for comparison with others'. If your goal is to consider a topic, the idea of agreeing to disagree implies that your opinion is somehow intrinsically right and moreover unshakeable, and that talking about it is basically a pleasant exercise in wagging your mouth or fingers.
I'm not saying that having an opinion is somehow bad or unhealthy, but I've come across people saying "let's just agree to disagree" often enough so that now it just annoys me, whether it's said to me personally or not. It's like one of those no-no's in conversation from a list of "Nazi Conversation Tactics" I've come across on the internet once (or whatever it was called). It really kills discourse and it's just awful because there's nothing you can say to it by definition.
I suppose I'm an unusual case because I almost never disagree with anyone 100%. Everything is a question of degree, and it's within the degrees of truth that the question of refinement and improvement lies. It becomes apparent that most people who engage in so-called "intelligent conversation" don't really care about thinking (which should really be termed re-thinking, because it's not like one only thinks -once- and that's it, job done). Neither do they care about the search for the "truth", assuming that truth is worth searching for or even exists outside of the minds of some fanatics who think they've touched the mind of god. That, or they're mathematicians. Hee. Kidding.
I've noticed that a significant number of semi-random people friend me, so supposedly they read what I say, and yet the amount of replies I get is significantly lower than that of some people who're "plebes" or don't say much beyond "I had pizza today" or whose fics are questionable quality at best. (Bitter? Meeeee?) The greatest amount of discussion, whether from my own posts or those of others' seems to involve instances when people disagree strenuously, most often for personal reasons, like when I've hit upon a pet-peeve or project of theirs, so somehow I've become immensely relevant all of a sudden. If I'm just talking in general non-offensive terms, I'm not all that relevant, I guess, so discussion's at a standstill. Lasair tells me it's because what I say is either entirely convincing or I'm just confusing, neither of which inspires much commentary. And of course, it's not as if I -want- a bunch of me-too's. If anything, because hive-minds are scary, man.
I find it interesting that agreement means silence. The silence of the majority, I suppose. I also find it interesting that this complete agreement is even possible on a large scale. On the other hand, the very duality of agreement/disagreement (while apparently natural) is what concerns me, of course. I don't want to be the prophet of the righteous and the morally/philosophically correct. I also don't want to be that gibbering madman in the corner. Hopefully, there's a happy medium where I can inspire questions and discover new answers by others' questions to me. It is most often in the re-thinking of my position that I really feel that wonderful buzz of sudden insight. Taken alone, my thought is necessarily constrained by a multitude of assumptions and short-cuts and biases I take for granted. It is only when someone asks why and wonders that I can wonder with them.
I don't know what the point of this is. It's not trying to make anyone agree or disagree, by god. I don't think imploring my readers to question me would do any good, since I believe you would if you wanted to. But I feel better having verbalized it, anyway.
Thinking about this, it seems like a major fallacy. The continuous process of thinking would seem to rely on the formulation of questions, rather than that of ready rhetoric, thereafter merely used for comparison with others'. If your goal is to consider a topic, the idea of agreeing to disagree implies that your opinion is somehow intrinsically right and moreover unshakeable, and that talking about it is basically a pleasant exercise in wagging your mouth or fingers.
I'm not saying that having an opinion is somehow bad or unhealthy, but I've come across people saying "let's just agree to disagree" often enough so that now it just annoys me, whether it's said to me personally or not. It's like one of those no-no's in conversation from a list of "Nazi Conversation Tactics" I've come across on the internet once (or whatever it was called). It really kills discourse and it's just awful because there's nothing you can say to it by definition.
I suppose I'm an unusual case because I almost never disagree with anyone 100%. Everything is a question of degree, and it's within the degrees of truth that the question of refinement and improvement lies. It becomes apparent that most people who engage in so-called "intelligent conversation" don't really care about thinking (which should really be termed re-thinking, because it's not like one only thinks -once- and that's it, job done). Neither do they care about the search for the "truth", assuming that truth is worth searching for or even exists outside of the minds of some fanatics who think they've touched the mind of god. That, or they're mathematicians. Hee. Kidding.
I've noticed that a significant number of semi-random people friend me, so supposedly they read what I say, and yet the amount of replies I get is significantly lower than that of some people who're "plebes" or don't say much beyond "I had pizza today" or whose fics are questionable quality at best. (Bitter? Meeeee?) The greatest amount of discussion, whether from my own posts or those of others' seems to involve instances when people disagree strenuously, most often for personal reasons, like when I've hit upon a pet-peeve or project of theirs, so somehow I've become immensely relevant all of a sudden. If I'm just talking in general non-offensive terms, I'm not all that relevant, I guess, so discussion's at a standstill. Lasair tells me it's because what I say is either entirely convincing or I'm just confusing, neither of which inspires much commentary. And of course, it's not as if I -want- a bunch of me-too's. If anything, because hive-minds are scary, man.
I find it interesting that agreement means silence. The silence of the majority, I suppose. I also find it interesting that this complete agreement is even possible on a large scale. On the other hand, the very duality of agreement/disagreement (while apparently natural) is what concerns me, of course. I don't want to be the prophet of the righteous and the morally/philosophically correct. I also don't want to be that gibbering madman in the corner. Hopefully, there's a happy medium where I can inspire questions and discover new answers by others' questions to me. It is most often in the re-thinking of my position that I really feel that wonderful buzz of sudden insight. Taken alone, my thought is necessarily constrained by a multitude of assumptions and short-cuts and biases I take for granted. It is only when someone asks why and wonders that I can wonder with them.
I don't know what the point of this is. It's not trying to make anyone agree or disagree, by god. I don't think imploring my readers to question me would do any good, since I believe you would if you wanted to. But I feel better having verbalized it, anyway.
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-25 04:43 pm (UTC)I was thinking about this a bit because of recent discussion on Aja's journal about the Slytherins. There's a quote from "The War and Modern Memory" that I really love about "the versus effect" that dominates the 20th century that so seems to apply to HP as well as everything else people talk about nowadays. I think I'm always out of step because I never agree with it. The versus effect is where you look at things as:
"one thing opposed to another, not with some Hegelian hope of synthesis involving a dissolution of both extremes (that would suggest 'a negotiated peace,'which is anathema), but with a sense that one of the poles embodies so wicked a deficiency or flaw or perversion that its total submission is called for..."
I've never been in a discussion really where I couldn't see a negotiated peace. The other side never seems so wicked it needs to be totally subdued. I think I'm just either greedy or vain--I want to be *right* not just win the argument. I don't want to lose anything of value in either side. I want it all! I'd always rather be searching for truth rather than debating to prove who argues better.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-25 05:02 pm (UTC)it's mostly that the word "agree" doesn't fit. i don't -agree- so much as look at the same places you do a lot of the time-- it's like a looking-in-tandem, a sort of... synchronicity. i too am always uncertain, but i prize that uncertainty as the sign of a vitality of mind. i also have this desire to kind of possess the good points on all sides and synthesize. i think it's a sort of -bent- to my kind of intelligence-- the synthetizing, i mean. hmm... i think it's a feminine, emotional-intelligence sort of trait, btw.
masculine would be all about identifying and classifying and separating into groups, i would imagine. heh.
and yet, as much as i can accept other's views as partially valid, i always want to be the -most- valid-- greedy, yeah. heh.
it's a weird sort of contradiction, but i think it's all part of wanting a sort of ever-unreachable perfection where everything sort of falls into place and there's balance and harmony everywhere, in your own mind especially, and the birds start singing and harry & draco start snogging and there's much satisfaction for everyone and orgasms for harry & draco.
ahaha i'm interrupting myself from writing more gun-smut, can you tell?!? *laughs*
no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 08:33 am (UTC)Also I hadn't thought about it this way but you're totally right about how you love the series affecting your wanting to read fanfic. I remember trying to read X-files fanfic and just never feeling like anybody was in character ever. That was my first taste of fanon versions of people and they were amazing. (Now I'm thinking back at my bewilderment at reading Married!Mulder and Scully and trying to figure out who these people were.)
HP is something I'm into almost *because* of what I want and don't get from it. I was never a big fan of the books, exactly. I didn't hate them but I saw flaws (still do, of course). There are other childrens' series I think are more "perfect" or whatever. It's like I'm more interested in the holes the series gives for people to play in than the real series...and I think that's just part of the books themselves. They're not character drive stories, but JKR has come up with some fabulous plot-points-as-character-things for people to take away and think about.
It's kind of like...I remember reading a review of Felicity when it came on and this guy said his friend was watching the pilot and halfway through said, "You know what this show needs? Some monsters. Couldn't she kill a vampire or something?" The guy realized his friend was right because Felicity was essentially dealing with the same stuff as Buffy only Buffy dealt with them in this wonderfully symbolic way. I think some of the characters in HP are stunning because of how primal they are: Sirius with his family, his bond with James, the bully who's thrown into Azkaban to suffer etc. You really don't want specifics about his character. You want him stark and bare so you can write/read a million fanfic stories about that guy. (Draco, obviously, has as much potential although she seems to want to deny it!)
Um, so where was I? Oh yes--the agree to disagree thing I do sometimes read as, "You're just an idiot" or more likely, "You're tiresome." :-) When it comes at the end of a long discussion that's going in circles it's one thing, but when it seems to come out of nowhere you tend to be suspicious. Like...I didn't even know we were disagreeing yet. How can we be agreeing to disagree...?
no subject
Date: 2003-09-26 11:42 am (UTC)Still, I -have- noticed some people who see H/D or are interested in Draco -because- of canon, and who want to somehow... I dunno... expand on canon but in a more direct way, maybe? Like, instead of creating what's missing, they want to interpret and re-arrange and er... be inspired by? I mean, there's Maya and Miss Breed and... well, I can't think of a lot, really, but. Sigh.
There are people who defend canon!Draco as being "good enough"-- ie, already a character that's whole enough for canon purposes, and canon purposes are all that matter... of course, they don't write H/D fic, usually (other than Miss Breed, who writes -great- H/D fic, ehehe). Actually, I've resorted to quoting other people's views 'cause otherwise I'd just be nodding along like an idiot ;)
But yeah. Paying too much attention to canon in HP seems to stifle one's range, and yet that's mostly the complaint of the people who don't write Draco or Harry/Draco at -all-. That's definitely not the problem with most H/D writers, who tend to make them both dreadfully OOC even though there are such possibilities for plausible development for them as a pairing. Of course, that's not what bothers me-- most people are just bad writers and the things they change Harry & Draco -into- are just frightening. `Perfect Imperfection', anyone? *laughs*
Not that any of that had a -point-, actually -.-
But yes...er... often enough that phrase does feel like a brush-off. Probably why it annoys me so much, actually~:)