I think the meaning is, that on reading something unpalatable, one may be tempted to write it off as “crazy” or “stupid” quickly, and then ignore it, and trying to see the good in it may be more useful; and calling the writer crazy or stupid will make further communication more difficult. So when someone uses those words too readily, that person is called “mean”, and seen as not “nice”.
Yes… This is the exact sort of problem of which I am trying to make people (the atheist faction) on the Richard Dawkins website aware. The site is obviously a haven for atheists, yet most of them are aggressively hostile to any theistic (or even deistic) beliefs, which in turn, makes communication almost impossible. In many cases, it even turns a person or two away who might have been teachable in terms of rationality (I advocate teaching of critical skills rather than the assault of their beliefs).
Although, even doing this (teaching critical/rational skills) can be incredibly hard when the core of a person’s belief is based upon the very irrationality that one is trying to correct. This creates a very obvious Catch-22 situation.
I think the meaning is, that on reading something unpalatable, one may be tempted to write it off as “crazy” or “stupid” quickly, and then ignore it, and trying to see the good in it may be more useful; and calling the writer crazy or stupid will make further communication more difficult. So when someone uses those words too readily, that person is called “mean”, and seen as not “nice”.
Yes… This is the exact sort of problem of which I am trying to make people (the atheist faction) on the Richard Dawkins website aware. The site is obviously a haven for atheists, yet most of them are aggressively hostile to any theistic (or even deistic) beliefs, which in turn, makes communication almost impossible. In many cases, it even turns a person or two away who might have been teachable in terms of rationality (I advocate teaching of critical skills rather than the assault of their beliefs).
Although, even doing this (teaching critical/rational skills) can be incredibly hard when the core of a person’s belief is based upon the very irrationality that one is trying to correct. This creates a very obvious Catch-22 situation.