Should You Play Word Games When Debating?
Definitional traps and word games in debate; are they just, should they be used in negotiation? Lawyers often debate definitions, and they debate the definition of a law. They do this in the best interests of their clients who pay them money, if that definition doesn’t suit them, they look for case law which does, and then they look at evenly applied enforcement to see if that fits or if there are problems there which they can use in their argument, that is if they can’t win a victory on the other points.
That’s all well and good, because all is fair in love, war, and apparently law.
But this doesn’t necessarily make it correct or right to use word games when debating online, by e-mail, or even with friends at a coffee shop. Not long ago, I was reading the blog of an acquaintance who explained how he used the word games to debate his points of view, in a competitive way against his opponent’s points of view on things such as religion, politics, homosexuality, immigration, asylum law, and other topics that interested him.
His strategy was very pretty cut and dry. What he would do is find ambiguity in the statements made by his opponent, and then he would make his opponent define the words they were using, and as the conversation, dialogue, discussion, and debate progressed, he would simply hold them to those definitions. Interestingly enough, not everyone has complete command of the English language, so often they choose words falsely or perhaps incorrectly for lack of finding a relevant term to use in its place at that particular moment, we all do this I suppose.
For this individual I would ask the following questions, and make a couple comments;
Have you found that as per game theory the very folks that may be worth discussing such topics with may chose to disengage, as you debate using “word games” because it is entirely possible to use seventh grade debating tactics like this, and those who have previously played see the trap in advance of the end of the tic-tac-toe simulation.
Those who through perhaps ego, choose to continue the debate, have only three potential outcomes with the word game strategy – lose or draw, or they can quit and turn over that chess board. In which case their better part of valor (leaving the battlespace or quitting the game in an act of discretion), also serves the “word gamer strategist” in believing they’ve won, when in reality they’ve failed to change anyone’s mind or bring them into the dialogue.
Why, because a person who feels disrespected of course wants revenge, and will seek such, perhaps through angry discourse or hateful verbal attacks. I’ve found that you cannot win an argument or debate, and when you think you have you should remember “a person against their will is of the same opinion still.” Yet, in that case, why waste energy on folks who are not going to listen, and why play word games with those who might? Please consider all this.
Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes it’s hard to write 20,000 articles; http://www.bloggingcontent.net/
Note: All of Lance Winslow’s articles are written by him, not by Automated Software, any Computer Program, or Artificially Intelligent Software. None of his articles are outsourced, PLR Content or written by ghost writers.