Quote:
George S. Ledyard wrote:
Hi Fred,
While I get what you are saying, I think I'd like to put in a plug for the positive argument. I think most people are extremely dependent, social beings. They are essentially herd, or perhaps more kindly, tribal beings. Most folks want leadership. If you don't give them good leaders, they will follow bad ones.
So, when folks make statements about the way they think things should be and perhaps shouldn't be, I think it becomes part of the process of people actually deciding what it is that they think. The last thing one would want, in my opinion, is to have everyone as a "ditto head" for lack of a better message being put out there.
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George,
I agree entirely with the need for an affirmative argument, the need for positive examples, and the purity of the impulse that often lies at the root of a "should/should not" argument.
It's simply that my experience is that presenting binary choices -- with one of the two framed negatively-- alienates many of the people that need to be brought along.
Framed positively, I find that aspiration to best practices can be encouraged effectively. Framed negatively, I find that acknowledging that the world is a messed up place and that harm reduction is a worthy undertaking that may be more effective than insistence on an idealized and unrealizable standard based in abstract moral/ethical considerations is sometimes the only place to start.
Or so a semi-reformed abuser of the "should/should not" construction advises....
Cheers,
FL