dishonest and unprincipled
Re: Re: I'm biased against that guy 'cos he mugged me -- Andries Top of thread Forum
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Jonti ®

04/02/2005, 13:43:16
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Andries,

I expressed concern that your use of language here obfuscates rather than clarifies.

Let me try again. If someone goes about town mugging folk, then those who know the person (but who are anaware of his practice of violent street robbery) would be said to have only a partial picture of the person's character.

And others who also know the person, but who are aware (whether through first hand experience or otherwise) of the person's tendency to robbery with menaces, would be said to have a more accurate picture.

That's just plain English, nothing more.

But you have argued that those who are ignorant, or claim ignorance, of a person's crimes are in a better position to remain objective, than those who have noticed what's been going down.

That's just plain stupid, nothing less.

Here's what I wrote to you, that you just brushed off. Try and take the point seriously, as a failure sensibly to respond could be taken as casting something of a shadow on your integrity.

You say that those who have been let down by another's dishonesty are likely to see their betrayer in a false light ("more evil than he actually is").

But most people would say that the dishonest person has, by their act of betrayal, revealed their true colours. Especially if those acts of betrayal are systematic and charactaristic.

Ordinary English usage is that those who don't know about a dishonesty are deceived -- and so are likely to experience the perpetrator as less evil than he actually is. And ordinary English usage would be to say that those who do know about the dishonesty -- those who are *not* deceived -- are more likely to be seeing the perp in his true colours.

I would be grateful if you could find the time to respond to my concern that you use language not to communicate any information, but rather to obscure and obfuscate what would otherwise be clear. I've explained my concern -- which really boils down to the impression that you are an unprincipled liar -- in some detail.

You can continue to joke and dodge, of course. I can't stop you proving my point for me. But I think you really should try to explain your amazing pretzel logic, otherwise people will likely draw the most unfavourable conclusions about your intentions.

Jonti
-- never a premie







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