From: young@sasquatch.serum.kodak.com (Rich Young (x37176))
Subject: An argument settled? (was Re: Why Hunters Quit)
Organization: Clinical Products Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 13:37:15 GMT

altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar) writes:

>rigg@osnome.che.wisc.edu (Tim Rigg) writes:

[...]

>>The hostility and hatred is hardly onesided.  You certainly don't
>>believe that all the AR folks are calm rational folks who never
>>partake in a bit of flamethrowing, do you?
>
>I've been called unprovoked "so ignorant that it is ugly",
>a "fascist", a "commie", etc.  Yes, feelings run high
>on both sides, but on balance it seems to me that 
>the AR folk have been more civil and fair in their
>exchanges.  Yes, I will exhange tic for tac, but I've
>never called anyone "ignorant" or "stupid", but I will
>call addleheaded a point of view (not a person) that I 
>think is simply wrong.  Anyway, we need a third, disinterested
>party to do an impartial review if we are to settle this
>one with some objectivity.

	I think it's reasonable to assume that no one in this forum will
	accuse me of being a "disinterested third party", but the following
	quote, lifted from another group, gives criteria against which
	both sides may evaluate their respective performances to date.  My
	own, personal, feeling is that culpability here is quite broad
	enough to encompass both sides, but judge for yourselves (note that
	this is an excerpt, NOT the entire article):

"[Laird Wilcox] has authored a very good article titled "What is Political
Extremism?" which appeared in _Free Inquiry_ magazine, I believe, in which he
characterized the behavioral traits of extremist groups as:

   1. Character assassination
   2. Name calling and labeling
   3. Irresponsible sweeping generalizations
   4. Inadequate proof for assertions
   5. Advocacy of double standards
   6. Tendency to view their opponents and critics as essentially evil
   7. Manichean worldview
   8. Advocacy of some degee of censorship or repression of their
      opponents and/or critics
   9. Tend to identify themselves in terms of who their enemies are:
      whom they hate and who hates them
   10. Tendency toward argument by intimidation
   11. Use of slogans, buzzwords, and thought-stopping cliches
   12. Assumption of moral or other superiority over others
   13. Doomsday thinking
   14. Belief that it's okay to do bad things in the service of a "good"
       cause
   15. Emphasis on emotional responses and, correspondingly, less
       importance attached to reasoning and logical analysis
   16. Hypersensitivity and vigilance
   17. Use of supernatural rationale for beliefs and actions
   18. Problems tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty
   19. Inclination toward "groupthink"
   20. Tendency to personalize hostility
   21. Extremists often feel that the system is no good unless they win

The article in question, which goes into each of these points to some
degree of detail, is reprinted in _The Hoaxer Project Report_."

-Rich (young@serum.kodak.com)

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