Maybe, it is wasted time to write further on this thread. But I’ll give it a try.
Am 02.06.2022 um 19:05 schrieb Chris Murphy
<lists(a)colorremedies.com>:
…
This is inappropriate. And I don't accept that this is some sort of
language barrier issue either because of the consistently inflammatory
language you regularly use.
My wording is simply a brief summary of the sad development related to the Change
Proposal. If anything is ‚inappropriate', it's the behavior of some towards users
of Fedora Server, unfortunately.
But if I'm going to spend some time here, maybe I should do it sensibly. Let's
gladly undertake a meta-analysis of communication to decide on 'appropriateness‘.
What was at the beginning?
There was a Change Proposal regarding the Fedora ==installation media==.
And now we encounter phrases like
making "bootable degraded
RAID" setups a release requirement
Chris also made such a Qualification of a "degraded raid" as the result of the
Change Proposal as „degraded RAID“ in several other emails, too.
What does a 'degraded RAID' have to do with system installation?
Right, nothing. This is clear to anyone who knows just a little about RAID. And Chris is
undoubtedly one of those who knows a lot more than a little about it.
So what's the point?
System installation is the responsibility of the Change Owner rsp. of the distribution.
‚Degraded Raid‘ is the responsibility of the system administrator. And they also have the
means to fix the problem. And the problem looks much more harmless right away, because a
degraded raid is the positive case of a system error that prevents a total failure.
What we find here is a deep reach into the mothballs of destructive rhetoric. The problem
is first =redefined= from an installation problem to an operational problem and at the
same time the =responsibility is shifted= from the causers, the change proposal owners, to
the user, in this case the system administrator.
This is a well known rhetoric strategy, and one of the typical fallacies in rhetoric.
This strategy is called =fallacy of Equivocation= [1].
And Chris reinforces Equivocation here with another rhetorical trick, =omitting= essential
information. For example, that the change in the installation media results in a
non-bootable software raid system following installation steps that are part of the
anaconda installation options for years. To talk about a ==bootable== degraded raid is
blatant misdirection. Software raid doesn't boot at all after Change proposal [5].
You find a more detailed analyses of this rhetorical =fallacy of Omission= in an article
using the example of Adolf Hitler's Seizure of Power in post WW I Germany [2].
All these rhetorical tricks are all neither new nor innovative. You already find most of
it in the works of Aristoteles, in the period 300 BC, 2000 years ago [3]. But they're
far from obsolete. This destructive rhetorical discussion tactics has been perfected and
digitally amplified especially in recent years and applied with huge socially devastating
consequences, known under the headings of "fake news“, "alternative facts“ and
(Russian) "cyber terrorism".
But back to the matter at hand.
The use of the aforementioned tactics is not a coincidence or an isolated case in Chris
email communication. Already in this mail, you can find this also in other places. For
example
If you expressly want certain people
to show up at your meeting, you need to extend them an invitation and
see what times work for them. It's not like most people have the
ability to just drop what they're doing to attend a SIG's meeting
without knowing their attendance is needed well in advance.
The request is plausible at first reading. However, the sentence systematically =omits=
that it was about the absence of the Working Group members among change proposal owners.
Therefor there is no reason at all to invite them specially or to coordinate an
appointment. They have already been invited and they have agreed as members to attend
regularly.
Again, the destructive principle is the same, the fallacy of omission [2]. An initially
plausible assertion is made, which is falsified by omitting essential contextual
information in such a way that it can be wonderfully used to accuse discussion
participants. In this case, Chris accuses the Working Group of not having acted
appropriately and thus implicitly of being "to blame" for the disaster itself.
And this tactical element has the further advantage in terms of destruction, that the
discussion is extended to an additional element, which has nothing to do with the original
problem, but that draws attention und thus the original discussion is de-focused and
chaotic and cannot be brought to a successful conclusion. In the rhetoric this destructive
tactic is known as „fallacy of Red Herring“ [1].
If desired, I would be happy to push the linguistic analysis even further and we can have
a socio-linguistic proseminar. But it would quickly become boring, because the same
disruptive rhetorical principles can be found in many variations in nearly all of
Chris' emails.
Anyway, back to the beginning.
In view of all this devastating rhetorical tricks, I consider my wording in the entrance
mail to be very 'appropriate‘.
Finally - very importantly - I don't want here the slightest misconception to arise.
With the analysis I expressly do not claim that there is an evil person at work who only
wants to intentionally destroy. That would be beyond any socio-linguistic analyses. Such
an analyses is strictly about the structure of communication, not about intentions of
participants. That’s a matter of psychology or politics. It is well known among these
sciences that the mechanism of action of rhetorical structures, are not aware of and are
effective "behind the back of the actors“. It must therefore be conceded that Chris
is not acting out of malice. Certainly on purpose, certainly with the choice of unfair and
indecent methods, but not maliciously.
Rather, I would be happy if we could take this as an opportunity to reflect our course of
discussion and learn from some rhetoric analyses and suggestions for constructive
discussion. A good start might be the three Rapoport's rules [4], where the second
rule might be the most important one: Start with „finding some merit in the other's
position“ instead of the usual "refute or invalidate the other's position“, as it
is characteristic for many of Chris' mails (but not only his).
And it would be even better if we could put the episode behind us together as an
unfortunate interlude and simply get down to pragmatically solving the actual problem
(using aforementioned Rapoport's rule 2), namely the conversion to GPT without
affecting our current users.
And maybe in the future, if a problem arises, we should immediately start looking for
constructive, pragmatic solutions instead of building up any actual or supposed defensive
position. And when in doubt, asking for more information instead of making quick claims
would be fine too.
And if we succeed in doing that, I will gladly revoke my wording in the initial mail as
premature.
[1] A colloquial representation provides "Rhetoric and Composition/Rhetorical
Analysis"
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Rhetoric_and_Composition/Rhetorical_Analysis
[2] „Rhetoric“
https://www.diplomacy.edu/topics/rhetoric/
[3] Aristotle: Rhetoric
http://bocc.ubi.pt/pag/Aristotle-rhetoric.html
[4] A non-scientific complicated summary can be found in Wikipedia: "Rogerian
argument“.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogerian_argument
[5] Issue #87 "Software Raid on a BiosBoot system using GPT partitioning scheme“
https://pagure.io/fedora-server/issue/87