Intellectual Aggression

Intellectual Aggression

Here the aggression is channeled into an intellectual undermining of another person by various techniques. A person who does this tries to denigrate the knowledge of someone else so that they can appear to be correct. This is done in a variety of ways. For example, if a person wishes to confuse or destroy the arguments of another, he uses subtle logical word play or semantic traps. He can ask another person to define what they mean by every word that they say and then the person gets so busy doing that, that everything he says need a new definition. This gets to be a sport among intellectuals and is the basis of sophistry, logical expertise, high polish and skill at word play. It's where the word "sophisticated" comes from. Such people try to expose inconsistencies but are unable to resolve paradoxes themselves. Thus, they can be utterly destroyed intellectually by someone who can.

Christopher Hills

Replies:

intellectual aggression and semantics, by John, 11/4/98 Help, by Robin Sircus, 11/4/98 re:help, by John, 11/5/98 Reality Check II, by Dale R. Smith, 11/6/98 Crying Wolf Boys and their Balls, by Robin Sircus, 11/6/98 Robin, by Dale R. Smith, 11/6/98 Do I smell smoke?, by John, 11/6/98 Dear John, by Robin Sircus, 11/10/98 Sophisticated?or Abuse?, by Summer, 12/16/98 Yes, that would be abuse!, by Dale R. Smith, 12/17/98

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