If This Thread Had Been Written By Someone Else!?

[Boyo_Jim]

Wow, you truly are a dim bulb.

[Roland_Orzabal]

@Equipoise

I’m so confused! Are you Pitting lissener’s reasonable OP and his polite, intelligent and quite correct attempts to keep the thread from being hijacked, or are you Pitting the asshole dicks who hijacked it?

Attempts to clarify or challenge definitions of terms used in the premise of an argument can hardly be considered hijacks. Hell, it’s one of the essential features of rational debate; the premise must be fully understood by all parties before discussion of each of its elements can occur.

There are a number of phrasings in the original OP – “most violent”, “mainstream”, “graphically violent” – that lend themselves to a certain subjectivity. Definitions of these terms must be agreed upon, even if only (literally) for the sake of argument, before honest debate about the premise is possible. If lissener wanted people to accept his definitions by fiat, and only discuss whether any other movies better fit those definitions, then he’d have done well for his own sake to offer them up front and make that request clear…especially around here, where nitpickery of one’s terms is stock-in-trade.

On the other hand, if he intended the terms to be subjective – with everyone using their own definitions of “violent”, “mainstream”, etc. – then the thread becomes essentially a poll. If we accept beforehand that you and I have different definitions of “violent”, it’s impossible (or at best utterly pointless) for us to have a reasonable debate about whether Rambo was more violent than Saw.

To sum up, you can’t argue if you don’t know what you’re arguing about. Seeking clarification is not a hijack, and if you don’t bother to clarify, you can’t blame people for substituting their own assumptions to fill the void.

And people wonder why my replies tend to be so long…

[lissener]

I agree, a straightforward request for clarification is never a hijack.

[Crocodiles_And_Boulevards]

@Roland Orzabal

Attempts to clarify or challenge definitions of terms used in the premise of an argument can hardly be considered hijacks. Hell, it’s one of the essential features of rational debate; the premise must be fully understood by all parties before discussion of each of its elements can occur.

There are a number of phrasings in the original OP – “most violent”, “mainstream”, “graphically violent” – that lend themselves to a certain subjectivity. Definitions of these terms must be agreed upon, even if only (literally) for the sake of argument, before honest debate about the premise is possible. If lissener wanted people to accept his definitions by fiat, and only discuss whether any other movies better fit those definitions, then he’d have done well for his own sake to offer them up front and make that request clear…especially around here, where nitpickery of one’s terms is stock-in-trade.

On the other hand, if he intended the terms to be subjective – with everyone using their own definitions of “violent”, “mainstream”, etc. – then the thread becomes essentially a poll. If we accept beforehand that you and I have different definitions of “violent”, it’s impossible (or at best utterly pointless) for us to have a reasonable debate about whether Rambo was more violent than Saw.

To sum up, you can’t argue if you don’t know what you’re arguing about. Seeking clarification is not a hijack, and if you don’t bother to clarify, you can’t blame people for substituting their own assumptions to fill the void.

And people wonder why my replies tend to be so long…

**lissener **clarified several times, and quite to my own satisfaction. I also completely understood the boundaries he was setting, but several participants in that thread were clearly threadshitting. Boyo Jim continues to do so.