The only progress you seem to have made is allow your feelings of abhorrent-ness to disregard all logical arguments that come your way which you decide are abusing their logical authority.
Pretty self-reinforcing thought pattern you've built there.
Pretty self-reinforcing thought pattern you've built there.
You ought to inspect why you yourself are getting defensive over that statement.
The OP starts out dismissing logical arguments and then pats himself on the back for seeing through the grand conspiracy of analytical thought.
Similarly, it’s often helpful to recognize that there’s some social currency to be gained by compromising on low-priority issues that you can spend to get people on board with your high-priority ones— people will pay more attention to the objections of someone who’s generally agreeable than someone who has a reputation of complaining about everything.
Is this so? Let’s call the statement above P0.
Let’s start from first principles. A discussion is performed by agents (peer interlocutors, a speaker and its audience, etc). I believe we can make it an axiom of our discussion that there are at least two sentient agents involved. Assume two (A1 and A2), without loss of generality. Focus on one of them, A1.
A1 joins the discussion in pursuit of a goal G1, and for that purpose puts forward an argument, as does A2 in pursuit of G2. G1 and G2 might or might not be the same.
Lets not concern ourselves much with the mechanics of the argument, but with the goals and their relation to P0.
Focusing on A1 and G1, it its trivially true that if G1 involves convincing A2 of some fact F, then P0 is trivially false except in the specific case in which A2 is the sort of agent which can only be convinced by a purely logical argument.
Empirically, most humans are not such agents.
Unproven conjecture: No human is such an agent.
Empathic communication (communication relating to feelings) is known to be an effective tool in convincing human agents [1].
Therefore P0 is invalid, arguments based on feelings are likely to have a use in discussion when the goal is to convince.
Let’s, however, assume that G1 is the goal of the idealized logician, to “arrive at the truth, whatever it might be.” Two cases arise:
Either A1 holds all the facts and the means of reasoning required to arrive at the truth, in which case communication with A2 is unnecessary. Or else A1 requires information or processes from A2 to arrive at the truth.
In the later case, if G1 == G2, meaning both agents seek the truth as their primary (perhaps only) objective, and this remains true through the whole discussion, then P0 could apply, under those strengthened premises.
However, if the goal of A2 is not initially the pursuit of truth, or if G2 ever changes after becoming the pursuit of truth, then A1 must attempt persuasion on A2 to (re-)align their goals. This could benefit from an emotional argument.
And this is all assuming A1 has the pursuit of truth as its only goal, and not, say, a performative goal of showing its command of logic, at the expense of the optimal process for arriving cooperatively at the truth. It also assumes that persuasion from one agent might not be used to move the other closer to the truth, or more receptive to future logical arguments, which might be possible in situations where the agent’s internal process is not perfectly logical (consider e.g. the practice of psychotherapy).
As a side note, when the goal G1 is performative, an emotional argument can be cloaked in the language of logic, for example the argument put forward by A1 might on the surface be about the subject of discussion, while intending in truth to convey information about A1’s social standing, for example, to show off education or intelligence by means of elaborate language not otherwise needed to make the argument persuasive or logical (e.g. [2]).
Other possible goals include, e.g. the didactical, the parodical, or that of artistic expression.
[1] https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b879/4bf1a7e6845f87824c52a3...
[2]
p.s. By the way, the above throwaway comment is also a self-demonstrating example in another way. I wrote it only to make a point regarding the idea that "logical arguments are the only kind of worthwhile communication, talking based on feelings is incorrect/unacceptable". However, this still shows up in a thread about recent news involving RMS. This comment is neither pro or against RMS or the reasons for his resignation(s). I don't believe it will be read as either, but it certainly could be read in that context. Given part of the discussion is about reading the social cues, particularly during an emotionally charged topic of discussion... I do wonder if this is an example of what not to do (strategically)? And, if so, whether that is a good thing or not (normatively). Provided as food for thought, I have not arrived to an answer nor am I engaged in seeking one.
In particular, OP does not claim that logic is not a useful tool for discussion. OP seems to claim that it’s use to shut down important voices and experience that isn’t framed in those terms, by people who don’t have the power to be heard, allows those who do to deny those people inclusion into discussion. OP even says that he fights fire with fire, ie uses logic against logical people to try to bring those silenced people’s experiences into conversation.
I see your dismissal of OP’s argument, as an example of OP’s point. Not only does the “facts” your pointing out seem awfully defensive to a personal, emotional image of “logicalness” that OP’s point calls into question (ie your “facts” aren’t just “facts”), but the next step is to call for that line of thought to be dismissed entirely because it stands outside your personally invested framework.
Nor do I fundamentally agree that statements made from feelings have no place in discussion just because they aren’t framed in the same logical framework as the hyper rational people who shoot those types of statements down. People’s feelings are typically based on lived experience relevant to a topic and contain content that, while not neatly packaged into the cogent, easily digestible logical argument you’re looking for, remain informative for ethically ambiguous topics.
To tie it to the literal situation that Stallman has found himself in, he has made dispassionate arguments about things like children being able to consent to sexual encounters with adults. If you’re expecting an abused child to give you a well formed, logical argument for why those actions are or are not ethical, then you’ve found quite the exceptional victim. Otherwise, the lack of that argument effectively silences the child’s ability to convey the importance of their trauma, and empowers influential people like Stallman to make those hyper-rational arguments that ignore and actively erode those people’s legitimate experiences.
It’s the adults who listen to the incoherent pain of those children, who are able to have those children’s voices heard in discussion, and therein lies the value of listening to, not dismissing, “emotional” appeal in debate.
Stallman’s case is a very cut and dry example of the kind of dispassion that represents my take of OP’s post, about how excessive application of “logic” corrodes productive discussion. This doesn’t just happen to children, this happens to capable adults whose cultural backgrounds (non-Western bluntness? doesn’t speak your language?), or complicated circumstances (traumatized rape victim?) make speaking clearly, logically and dispassionately about an ethical issue difficult.