Why is it acceptable for a poster to accuse another poster of pretension–i.e., dishonesty–in a CS thread? (From about here on.) This has always been the case. You’re not allowed to call someone a liar in GD, but you can say essentially the same thing in CS: to accuse someone of pretension, in this context, is to accuse them of saying one thing but meaning another. “You don’t really like that movie/book/whatever, you’re just saying so to make yourself appear hip/smart/whatever.” That’s an accusation of dishonesty.
It wouldn’t bother me so much–I’m perfectly capable of responding to such accusations–only, this is the part that flummoxes me: there’s really no response that is allowed in CS. In this thread, Little Nemo explicitly accuses others of dishonesty–responds to posts with namecalling (snob, poser, etc.), which while not terribly extreme are still personal and not germaine to the actual discussion. Any engagement with that will eventually merit a mod intervention.
Further, when Nemo continues to debate dishonestly–he pulls a quote out of context as “evidence” that I’m disdainful of his taste in movies, when the quote in question was about his dishonest debate tactics–and has no further response.
In other words, he takes the discussion in a personal direction, refuses to have even that discussion honestly, and then whines that the responses to his personal remarks have a personal tone to them.
Obviously–obvious because this is always, always the response to the kind of questions I’m posing here–obviously the suggestion will be, “Just don’t respond to his personal remarks.”
Which brings us back to the entire point of my post: Why is that kind of personal remark–accusing someone of critical dishonesty–perfectly acceptable, but to respond it it is not acceptable?
The fact is that I, and a couple others–valleyofthedolls, jordanr2–had some cogent and reasonable responses to Nemo’s undefended accusations, but while he’s allowed to lob them, we’re not allowed to reply. It just seems like a totally foolproof wa
To preempt a couple of obvious arguments: [ul]
[li]No, Nemo did not begin by calling me pretentious; he referred to an off-board critic as such. But he eventually turns the accusation on me personally.[/li][li]Again, yes I know the preferred option is not to respond at all. Which, repeating myself, brings us back to the main question.[/li][li]Yes, Nemo was modded too, not just me. But there’s no question in my mind that his remarks would’ve gone un-modded as perfectly acceptable if I hadn’t responded to them.[/li][/ul]
Bottom line, it seems to me that if it’s acceptable to accuse someone of artistic dishonesty–i.e., pretension or its synonyms–then it should be acceptable to accuse them of debate dishonesty in the same discussion.