Let us say that these inquiries were usually not answered—either not at all, or not satisfactorily. And now imagine that someone started downvoting these inquiries of yours.
Maybe we should write a post about this kind of conversational dynamic![1]
Alice asks Bob a question. Bob can’t answer, either for legitimate or illegitimate[2] reasons, but doesn’t want to straightforwardly say, “Sorry, I can’t answer that because …” for fear of losing face in front of the audience, so instead resorts to more opaque stonewalling tactics. Usually, Alice will eventually take a hint and give up. But if she doesn’t, we have a high-stakes battle of wills adjudicated by the audience—will Bob be exposed as being phony, or will Alice be derided as a pedant?!
A legitimate reason for not being able to answer might be: the question is an isolated demand for rigor, where Bob doesn’t have a rigorous formulation of his point, but thinks the non-rigorous version is good enough and should be conversationally “admissible.”
Maybe we should write a post about this kind of conversational dynamic![1]
Alice asks Bob a question. Bob can’t answer, either for legitimate or illegitimate[2] reasons, but doesn’t want to straightforwardly say, “Sorry, I can’t answer that because …” for fear of losing face in front of the audience, so instead resorts to more opaque stonewalling tactics. Usually, Alice will eventually take a hint and give up. But if she doesn’t, we have a high-stakes battle of wills adjudicated by the audience—will Bob be exposed as being phony, or will Alice be derided as a pedant?!
Where by “dynamic”, I mean “thingy”.
A legitimate reason for not being able to answer might be: the question is an isolated demand for rigor, where Bob doesn’t have a rigorous formulation of his point, but thinks the non-rigorous version is good enough and should be conversationally “admissible.”