You always want the tone to be effective, but just what constitutes effective is dependent on what you’re trying to accomplish today. If it’s not just to get people converted today, Mr. Nice Guy is not necessarily the best tactic.
Ridicule can be effective. Moral condemnation can be effective. Maybe both are not so effective at the moment of conversion, but a Bad Cop today can soften someone up for a Good Cop tomorrow.
Sam Harris had a wonderful smackdown of Christianity on moral grounds in a relatively recent debate with Craig. Comments like “evil”, “morally reprehensible”, “psychopathic”, etc. And well executed. I thought it was about time.
Some groups are accustomed to thinking of themselves as moral paragons, and those who disagree with them as too morally weak to be good. They think everyone agrees with their moral premises of what is good, but that others just willfully shirk the good. I think it is helpful to enlighten them, and let them know that some may find their morality an abomination.
There’s also just the theory of expanding the universe of discourse in your direction by taking your argument to even unjustified extremes, so that the less extreme versions can now look more “moderate”.
And then sometimes the argument is being made to encourage the home team, instead of win over the visitors. People like seeing the enemy rhetorically horse whipped.
So the likely mistake one makes in criticizing tone is assuming you know what the speaker is trying to accomplish today.
I find nothing in particular to disagree with here, except your presumption that the person criticizing tone necessarily cares about what the speaker is trying to accomplish. I’ve lambasted people for “rallying the home team” before, because “rallying the home team” is irrelevant to my objectives, whereas the damage to group reputation involved was directly detrimental to those objectives.
You always want the tone to be effective, but just what constitutes effective is dependent on what you’re trying to accomplish today. If it’s not just to get people converted today, Mr. Nice Guy is not necessarily the best tactic.
Ridicule can be effective. Moral condemnation can be effective. Maybe both are not so effective at the moment of conversion, but a Bad Cop today can soften someone up for a Good Cop tomorrow.
Sam Harris had a wonderful smackdown of Christianity on moral grounds in a relatively recent debate with Craig. Comments like “evil”, “morally reprehensible”, “psychopathic”, etc. And well executed. I thought it was about time.
Some groups are accustomed to thinking of themselves as moral paragons, and those who disagree with them as too morally weak to be good. They think everyone agrees with their moral premises of what is good, but that others just willfully shirk the good. I think it is helpful to enlighten them, and let them know that some may find their morality an abomination.
There’s also just the theory of expanding the universe of discourse in your direction by taking your argument to even unjustified extremes, so that the less extreme versions can now look more “moderate”.
And then sometimes the argument is being made to encourage the home team, instead of win over the visitors. People like seeing the enemy rhetorically horse whipped.
So the likely mistake one makes in criticizing tone is assuming you know what the speaker is trying to accomplish today.
I find nothing in particular to disagree with here, except your presumption that the person criticizing tone necessarily cares about what the speaker is trying to accomplish. I’ve lambasted people for “rallying the home team” before, because “rallying the home team” is irrelevant to my objectives, whereas the damage to group reputation involved was directly detrimental to those objectives.