The Argument Clinic

I've really been having it out in the comments with this guy Ben over the past 2 weeks or so. First, he came and left a comment in one of my abortion rants, and we started to argue. (What had set me off, I think, was that Ben presented the notion that the pro-life movement makes some strong points, and dismissed the notion that the right to domain over one's own body makes a persuasive case for legal abortion.)

So, okay, no harm no foul. We argued but it remained as civil as possible, I thought. Then, yesterday, Ben started commenting in another column, about Paul Haggis and Crash. Again, we tusseled, but this time, for whatever reason, the conversation stuck with me. Ben had basically argued that I was being unneccessarily hostile, that I was haranguing him for no good reason and trying to pick a fight.

And looking back over our comments now...I think he's right. Ben came on here and made some general comments about an article I had linked to, and I bet his head off.

What made me go after him? Honestly, I have no idea. Here's some of what Ben said:

A friends girlfriend recently suggested I was homophobic because I didn't think Brokeback was any good and it really pissed me off. I thought then, as I do now, that such a criticism was not only unjustified, but was downright cowardly. Brokeback lost because it peaked too soon and oversaturated the market. If the Oscars were held a few weeks ago it probably would have won, but the facts were that the populist Brokeback wave had already started to roll back by the time people were casting their votes.

And here's how I replied:

Ben...you concern me. You really do. I feel like, every time you leave me a comment, you're trying to excuse your own intolerant, closed-minded point of view. Frankly, I'm getting a bit sick of it.

Yikes. That's kind of personal and mean, and totally not appropriate for the tone of his initial comment. What got into me last night?

Ben does kind of say things in a roundabout way, and I can kind of see now why I got turned-around and flustered communicating with him. Sometimes, he'll make comments that seem connected to what I was talking about, but actually move things in an entirely new direction. Like, I was arguing that Brokeback Mountain should have won the Oscar because it was the far-superior, memorable and more important 2005 film, and then Ben came on and said that Brokeback had not lost because of the Academy's secret homophobia. A fair enough point, but not exactly the thing I was talking about. And most blog commenters don't do that, so I got taken off-guard.

Finally, Ben does one thing that I really really really don't like...He picks nits. Now, this isn't to say that I never make fun of some other blogger or commenter for messing up their spelling or grammar or something. But Ben likes to pull out sentences you've written and "correct" them for you, even if it's stuff you could never have actually known. I referred to him as "an American" once, because we were arguing abortion, and then he threw in my face that he's not actually American, so there.

Then, in our last discussion, I said "obviously, I didn't mean to offend you." And then he shot back "It wasn't obvious." Not exactly fostering smooth, open communication there.

But I don't want to turn this around on Ben. It's my fault. I was being a downright bad host. I'm never going to convince people to come on here and read this stuff every day if I bite their head off whenever they try to provide feedback. Criticism noted.