Whether disagreement or disrespect it comes down to the same thing: I cannot accord the same worth to those ideas which I tolerate as I do to those ideas which I propound.

I’m glad you’ve completed your training. Mine is ongoing.

Update on Disagreement vs Disrespect

At http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/disagreement-is.html one finds the following:

But this does seem a handy opportunity to repeat that while disagreement isn’t hate, it is disrespect. When you knowingly disagree with someone you are judging them to be less rational than you, at least on that topic. (Judging them less informed or experienced by itself can’t create disagreement.) It might be only a minor disrespect, if you think this disagreement suggests little about whether you’d disagree with them elsewhere. But disagreement is disrespect, nonetheless.

I do not agree that disrespect is as benign as you seem to put forth. I am not ready to ignore words four and five. In fact Webster includes the word incivility in its definition which doesn’t square with Doug’s ideal of being civil to one another because they’re made in God image.

Perhaps disagree is better. You have to get all the way down to definition #3 before you find quarrel but you certainly never find discourtesy, rudeness and contempt.

Yes, I much prefer you disagree with my idea to have lunch at HuHut before you disrespect it, for I’m much happier having lunch with someone who disagrees with my ideas than with someone who disrespects them.

As for sensitivity training – Doug says his article is the training so I’ve already been to his.

Discussions would be so much simpler if each word had a single unequivocal meaning. Of course, no one of us would perhaps learn anything.

If it’s fine with you, can we both skip the sensitivity training that neither of us would appreciate? Thanks.

You should read a book called “Language is Sermonic” by Richard Weaver. Words betray our thoughts, whether we like it or not.

~Fastidious

We, being human, do struggle with divorcing ideas from people (so as to tolerate the people but not support the ideas they espouse). In reference to the lawyer from the Big Apple, it can be especially difficult to tolerate people who bathe themselves in a worldview to the extent that I cannot separate who they are from what they believe: because they do not want me to.

If ideas cannot be judged, weighed and then accepted and rejected, then the ultimate end of such thinking is that all ideas are equal. I do believe that’s the point of the kitten reference.

Though disrespecting ideas may seem fraught with peril, we constantly do so in order to remain sane. Someone may have the idea that for lunch we should go to HuHot. Someone else may think that Qdoba is the way to go. Unless we are to eat lunch in two places today, it is inevitable that someone’s idea is disrespected: that is, it is accorded less respect to the point of not being chosen as appropriate or proper or whatever.

On the “ideas of Global Warming” I’d agree that the syntax is poor. A better word than “of” would have been “regarding.” I suppose one of the things which we all must tolerate is lack of perfection in communication on the part of each other.

I’ll sum it up with this – “my seminar isn’t hosted by a condescending feminist lawyer from the Big Apple.” He is clearly not rejecting ideas here, rather the person – therefore it is preposterous for him to expect that I should accept his later assurances that he’s rejecting the idea of Prop 8 and not people. The fact that he can’t see that he’s doing it makes the whole post suspect.

“All people are created equal, but all ideas are not.” – I agree.

“People should be tolerated, but ideas ought to be judged, weighed…” – I agree.

“…and accepted or rejected.” – false choice. I agree that there are cute kittens; I don’t agree we should eat them. Alive. For fun.

“We treat each other with civility because we are all creatures made in the image of God.” – I love people because they are made in the image of and by God. I treat them with civility because I’m bad at loving everybody and I want to live in a civil society.

“But our ideas are not made in the image of God, so there are philosophical grounds to disrespect some ideas.” – Wow this to me seems fraught with peril.

“Which is why I can be tolerant and still call your ideas of Global Warming a complete fraud.” – hmmm…”ideas of Global Warming.” Did the meaning of ideas just get hijacked? A bit like rejecting the idea of kittens I think.