On reflection, I don’t think the online discourse makes the same distinction I made in the parent comment, and I also don’t think there is a clean distinction, so I retract the words for this distinction, although I think the distinction I pointed to is useful.
Tone arguments, in the broad sense, criticize arguments for their tone, not their content (as I wrote in the post).
More narrowly, tone arguments claim something like “more people would listen to you if you were more polite”. This is a subset of “broad” tone arguments.
The Geek Feminism article on tone arguments (which, I was reluctant to link to for obvious political reasons) says:
A tone argument is an argument used in discussions, sometimes by concern trolls and sometimes as a derailment tactic, where it is suggested that feminists would be more successful if only they expressed themselves in a more pleasant tone. This is also sometimes described as catching more flies with honey than with vinegar, a particular variant of the tone argument. The tone argument also manifests itself where arguments produced in an angry tone are dismissed irrespective of the legitimacy of the argument; this is also known as tone policing.
Which is making something like the policing vs. argument distinction I made in the parent comment. But, the distinction isn’t made clear in this paragraph (and, certainly, tone arguments don’t only apply to feminism).
On reflection, I don’t think the online discourse makes the same distinction I made in the parent comment, and I also don’t think there is a clean distinction, so I retract the words for this distinction, although I think the distinction I pointed to is useful.
Tone arguments, in the broad sense, criticize arguments for their tone, not their content (as I wrote in the post).
More narrowly, tone arguments claim something like “more people would listen to you if you were more polite”. This is a subset of “broad” tone arguments.
The Geek Feminism article on tone arguments (which, I was reluctant to link to for obvious political reasons) says:
Which is making something like the policing vs. argument distinction I made in the parent comment. But, the distinction isn’t made clear in this paragraph (and, certainly, tone arguments don’t only apply to feminism).