There there, Kumarji, you can call ME...
Can I call you a scruffy-looking nerf-herder?
The problem is not so much that civility breaks down. It does. I'm certainly no saint. And I've certainly been called worse by better people. The problem is when accusations of insult are used as evasion. It's not uncommon for someone cornered and pinioned by fact to suddenly declare that he's been insulted and that for that reason he's excused from addressing anything further. Even if the debate has actually been spirited, the timing of the declaration is what's suspicious. It's possible for legitimate objections to become diversions when dubiously timed.
Similarly the problem with calling non-ascetes "greedy" is not that it comes across as insulting. The problem is that it is a moral judgment made from shaky footing, and thus has less conviction. If you want to convince someone of the truthfulness of an allegation of fact, you present them with evidence and invite them to make reasonable inferences. If, on the other hand, you want to convince someone of the objective moral rectitude of a proposition, the claimant's own indifference to it makes the objectivity argument less convincing.
It's worth looking at the
tu quoque fallacy. Many formulations of the fallacy would seem to suggest it's not required for Kumar to be strictly ascetic in order to make a convincing case for ascetism. More often than not, that suggestion overlooks allusions in the formulation to merit arguments that appeared previously. The
tu quoque fallacy applies when there is a merit argument unconnected to the behavior of the claimant. Kumar has attempted and exhausted those; they were entirely refuted. Thus lacking a merit argument for his case, he has attempted to establish ascetism as a self-evident, universal moral obligation. Insofar as moral premises vary from person to person (whereas facts do not), the claimant's faithfulness is indicative of the objective strength of the putative moral absolute. Logically, one's own asserted impunity challenges the proposition that the imperative is as absolute as claimed.
Rhetoric, not logic, is better at instructing us in why Kumar's hypocrisy is relevant. Rhetoric allows us to have arguments based in equity, and the "clean hands" concept then applies. Christianity illustrates this in the words of Jesus, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Western secularism speaks of "the pot calling the kettle black." Neither Jesus nor the anonymous author of the kettle idiom are arguing against the merits of the accusations, which
tu quoque would have us believe are all that matters. Both instead encourage us to weigh accusations according to the circumstances in which they arise, to see which of logic or equity results in a better overall outcome.
(For Kumar's sake, the Christian quotation above comes from a story in the Bible where the authorities of Jesus' time -- who did not like him -- disingenuously bring to him a woman who has committed adultery and asks him to determine her sentence. Normally the sentence would be death. Rather than simply discuss adultery and other moral issues with Jesus in a learned, abstract way, they have personified the argument by presenting an actual defendant. Jesus must either agree that the specific woman should die, as the law dictates, or advocate violating the law in order to show mercy. The former answer would have embarrassed Jesus in front of his followers, while the latter answer would have revealed him to be a lawbreaker. Jesus correctly characterizes the exercise as a rhetorical trap and, while tacitly agreeing to the sentence prescribed in the law, turns the tables and requires the accusers to commit the overt act of carrying out the sentence. Jesus acknowledges the woman's guilt in adultery, but more equitably excuses her as a pawn in someone else's game.)
It is considered polite by some to point out impoliteness and to negotiate the issue with those with whom one is engaged in a discussion, rather than simply reporting it.
That's one prong of my rationale: once I report something, the consequences that follow are out of my hands. I might want to see if a less consequential remedy is possible. And this seems to be where Kumar is heading with this:
If you want we should ne formal not natural, we shall point out and resolve issue immediately. We can not waste time in remembering, searching and beating the past since we are discussing a lot. Still, if something had happened from my side as routine or unknowingly, I apologize for the same(jain tradition).
Good-faith efforts at resolving conflict blur into bad-faith efforts to use alleged incivility for rhetorical effect. Where there arises some disagreement over whether a post is truly insulting, suggesting it be submitted for moderation flushes out the intent. If recipient of a disputed insult is unwilling to have a dispassionate third party give his opinion, it's a point in favor of it being a rhetorical ploy. Consider when I tried to hold Kumar accountable for calling me an egotist. He demanded evidence of it. But as it turned out, there was never any question in his mind that he had done it. He just wanted to make it seem like my imputation failed for lack of evidence, assuming that I wouldn't want to go look for it. Having been thus flushed out, he tried to pivot the issue to why he had done it, not whether. It's a rhetorical ploy. Civility becomes the red herring that distracts from the claimant's poor performance on the merits. I believe there is value in exposing these dishonest debate tactics.
The other prong is that the moderators expect us to have a reasonably thick skin. They don't want to adjudicate every potentially rancorous post. As I said, I've been called much worse than an egotist. Kumar's caliber of name-calling has no emotional effect for me. It is salient only in how it distracts from the true argument. So I'm not going to waste goodwill with the moderators by reporting every impetuous barb he throws. Unless, of course, that becomes his entire argument.
As you may have noticed here and elsewhere, there is a distinction made between criticizing a belief or an argument and criticizing an individual.
And this is where Kumar's thin skin shows. There is evidence he considers this a safe harbor in which his religious beliefs can be discussed without criticism. Obviously that is not the case. The flaws of his religion are not safe from comment.
Clearly there's a certain bit of overlap here, and it is important not only to understand where and how it applies, but also to possess at least a modicum of skill in expression. If you lack either of these, you should be very careful.
Quoted for emphasis.
