How not to argue

Name: ---------------
Gender: --------
Deduced age: ----------
Status: Student in some university presumably of beloved sing.ah.pore.
Alias: articwind
Post regarding: Holier than thou?

One of the more important points in making arguments is credibility. And providing links or quotes for people to examine the evidence/topic for themselves is a very good way of advancing credibility. Unfortunately articwind didn't provide a link to whatever he was talking about.

Excerpt :
"There was this topic on this PSC scholar and his blog. Apparently this scholar posted some racist stuff on his blog. So there was this huge argument in the thread abt who's right or not. I was standing on the side that tried to put forth the idea of:
a) Its your own [Toot] blog. You can post images of you having sex with the dog next door for all the world cares
b) People are trying to bunknife(bao toh in hokkien) him to relevant authorities due to jealousy
And my personal opinion that:
a) Singaporeans are ALL racist.
b) Some people just don't get the idea."

The post was about some of his own comments made in some forum regarding some scholar blogger making some racist comments causing a whole lot of argument on some thread in said forum, and said comments (by articwind) did not receive well from other forum patrons. And yes you guessed it, i'm not particularly interested in this part, but its some form of introduction to get my own typing fired up.

One of the steps towards presenting a case for argument is not to contradict oneself. Exemplarily shown by "I was standing on the side that tried to put forth the idea of:". One cannot be both abstaining and voicing at the same time.

Confusion in point idea "a", "Its your own [Toot] blog.". Articwind believes that a blog is personal and therefore up to the individual to do as he/she wants. Indeed, a blog does belong to the individual, and said individual can upload anything he/she wants. But the content would then in public space, and a person is responsible and accountable for whatever he/she says. Articwind is confusing the right to expression, with the right to free expression, and the right to controlled expression (which is something one should adopt when living in beloved sing.ah.pore.).

Too much coverage in opinion "a", "Singaporeans are ALL racist.". The word "all" is very tricky, and putting it in bold doesn't help. Always avoid using the word all in arguments. Doing so would result in having to make justification for exceptional cases. Always be prepared for exception and replace "all" words with "many", "most" and the like.

Coverage is ok for opinion "b", "Some people just don't get the idea.". However, blatant disregard for your opposers would only sell oneself as closed-minded and unable to accept new perspectives to evaluate and form better judgment. But then again, the coverage was ok because of ambiguity, maybe he was referring to some opposers rather than all opposers which forms some part of the population.

Definition of "flame"
A flame is an attack on someone made on a personal level in public space.
Example :
"You're stupid." is a flame.
"What you said is stupid." is not a flame.
"Is that your nose or is that a cancerous growth?" is a creative flame.

Excerpt :
"Anyway, the whole thread were filled with people coming in and flaming me..."

Which is not very surprising considering that he just flamed a population of four million as racist. He shouldn't have complained that people are flaming him when he flamed an entire country.

Excerpt :
"But what I do not condone is speaking something which is correct for the sake of it being correct and the social norm. Who decides this social norm? Society. Everything that is correct, like not smoking, not sporting tatoos, not being racist, yada yada, is decided by who? Society."

To borrow a phrase from Celly, "what the fyuck"! Who, if not society, decides society's social norm? You? To borrow a phrase from Xiaxue, "pui"! C'mon, there are jokes that are more funny.

Ok, enough of flaming. The point is, articwind's perspective on social norm is self-biased. What he refers to as social norm, is a population of pro-gahmen people who believes in holy and righteousness, in his opinion. But what of him/her who is on the other side of the fence? Does deviant behavior not constitute as a social norm for upstart youngsters? Is defiance and deviation as social norm possible?

Fallacy of blurring distinction. By labeling that which he/she disagree with a generic term like social norm, one can attempt to stigmatize the voice of opposers in a nasty "You just one part of the large mindless mob.". In a proper argument, one should give opposers adequate lee-way to make their points. This is one way of improving one's own credibility.

Who then decides the social norm? A very good question. Its people. They are people who learn from experience and desire a life that is amicable. Individually, they choose a course of action that facilitates such a life. Together, these people would then form what is being stigmatically labeled as social norm.

PS: Although i'm criticizing articwind's biased perspective on social norms, and he mentions social norm as "... not sporting tatoos ...". I have nothing against tattoos. Those are not my words.