How rude

Social media can be a rather rude place at times. There are moments of thoughtful give-and-take, but there are moments when the interaction consists of name calling those in the opposition. Maybe I'm becoming an old fuddy-duddy, but I'm not impressed with the latter. Rather than strengthening a person's position, it seems to weaken it, in my opinion. Any reasonable debate about an idea is lost in the rapid exchange of derogatory comments, and maybe that's the point. Maybe we've lost the whole concept of debating ideas for the sake of the truth in the desire to have the last word, even if that last word is an insult.

In With Good Reason, the author gives details of several fallacies of presumption. Here's what he has to say about the fallacy of begging-the-question epithets:

[T]he error lies in the use of stated language that reaffirms what we wish to prove but have not yet proved. An epithet is a descriptive word or phrase used to characterize a person, a thing, or an idea. A favorite device of poets, the epithet has little place in logic. We have seen that to beg the question is to assume the point in dispute. We shall now see that it is possible to do this with a single word or phrase, one which suggest that a point at issue has already been settled when in fact it is still in question. Since many of our words possess both a descriptive and an evaluative dimension, the possibilities for question-begging epithets are endless...

The fallacy of question-begging epithets is so widespread that it has come to be know by a variety of labels: mud slinging, name calling, use of loaded words and controversial phrases, verbal suggestions and emotive language. Question-begging epithets are objectionable because their object is to arouse our passions and prejudices through the use of emotionally charged language. By overstatement, ridicule, flattery, abuse, and the like, they seek to evade facts, leading us to believe that the terms so used properly describe the people or events in question when they may not so at all.¹

Which leads to another question: If Christians are to be people of the truth, shouldn't we be as accurate as possible in our interactions with and our descriptors of people, even those we disagree with? After all, this is:

a dispute not between competing individuals but competing ideas... We are seeking reasons for why we think a belief is true. In arguing this way, we do not attack the other person, but we are both attacking an issue or problem... The goal of this type of argument is not to win but to find the truth. In fact, if you can show me that a belief I had thought was true is actually false. I have not lost but have won, because I do not want to hold a false belief and am now closer to the truth.²

1. With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies, S. Morris Engel, St. Martin's Press, 1990, 4th edition, pp. 139-140.
2. Prelude to Philosophy: An Introduction for Christians, Mark W. Foreman, IVP Academic, 2014, og. 60. (emphasis mine)