I agree with this classification, but want to note something that sometimes happens, that is seen incorrectly as an example of the latter scenario (i.e., of the “small errors mistaken for big ones”).
I am talking about a case like this:
Alice: Blah blah. For example, so-and-so.
Bob: Now, hang on there, Alice; so-and-so is actually not an example of blah blah (and possibly so-and-so does not even exist / so-and-so does not happen the way you say / etc.)!
Alice: Yes, sure, fine. That’s just an example, though, don’t nitpick.
Now, at this point Alice often simply ignores anything else Bob says, or gets frustrated and angry and stops reading the comments, etc., but if the conversation continues, what Bob says (or might properly say) would be—
Bob: But wait—what do you mean, “just” an example? It was the only example in your post! And now that you have (apparently) agreed with me that your purported example is actually not an example of your thesis, your post is left with no examples! That is a very serious flaw; you are now presenting a thesis with no empirical support or case studies whatsoever. And I note that you haven’t made any attempt, in your response to me, to replace the defeated example with others, which is odd, since you claim the thing you describe is commonplace… You say I’m nitpicking, yet as far as I can tell, I have inflicted a serious blow on the whole edifice of your essay!
(I once summarized this as: “that [example] was not an example of the thing you mention; but also and relatedly, maybe the thing you mention doesn’t really exist?”)
And in my experience, this never results in Alice seriously re-examining her thesis, because “dismantling an example” is, somehow, automatically classified as “irrelevant nitpicking”, even when that classification is completely nonsensical because without examples, the entire piece of writing is just empty noise.
I agree with this classification, but want to note something that sometimes happens, that is seen incorrectly as an example of the latter scenario (i.e., of the “small errors mistaken for big ones”).
I am talking about a case like this:
Alice: Blah blah. For example, so-and-so.
Bob: Now, hang on there, Alice; so-and-so is actually not an example of blah blah (and possibly so-and-so does not even exist / so-and-so does not happen the way you say / etc.)!
Alice: Yes, sure, fine. That’s just an example, though, don’t nitpick.
Now, at this point Alice often simply ignores anything else Bob says, or gets frustrated and angry and stops reading the comments, etc., but if the conversation continues, what Bob says (or might properly say) would be—
Bob: But wait—what do you mean, “just” an example? It was the only example in your post! And now that you have (apparently) agreed with me that your purported example is actually not an example of your thesis, your post is left with no examples! That is a very serious flaw; you are now presenting a thesis with no empirical support or case studies whatsoever. And I note that you haven’t made any attempt, in your response to me, to replace the defeated example with others, which is odd, since you claim the thing you describe is commonplace… You say I’m nitpicking, yet as far as I can tell, I have inflicted a serious blow on the whole edifice of your essay!
(I once summarized this as: “that [example] was not an example of the thing you mention; but also and relatedly, maybe the thing you mention doesn’t really exist?”)
And in my experience, this never results in Alice seriously re-examining her thesis, because “dismantling an example” is, somehow, automatically classified as “irrelevant nitpicking”, even when that classification is completely nonsensical because without examples, the entire piece of writing is just empty noise.