Posted by
CRB on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 10:23:02 PM
A nuance is a subtle difference. A nuanced argument is done by making a point using a subtle difference in the meaning of words and then drawing a conclusion based on the newly-inserted meaning. Here are a couple of examples:
Conservative: We want to stop socialized medicine.
Liberal: Conservatives want to stop making medicine available to people.
or
Liberal: We want to help people with positive programs.
Conservative: Liberals only want to set up more socialism.
As is obvious, nuanced arguments can bee entirely dishonest. And while one may legitimately argue from a nuance based on key words that a person may employ, it may or may not necessarily be the case.
The folks over at Street Prophets have provided us with a real-life example of an illegitimate nuanced argument. In this case the discussion falls around the recent CNN series God's Warriors and an interview with a pastor. As the transcript quotes the pastor ...
FUITEN: The secularists always say, you're trying to set up a theocracy. You're trying to put your values on us.
And I say to myself, hey, wait a second here. This is the way it's always been in America. You come along with your secular agenda. You're the ones trying to put your values on America, not me. Our values are native here. It's yours that are foreign. You're the illegal alien here, not me.
Take note that the pastor is talking about values, not the presence of a person as a participant and citizen within a society. But the author of this post took the phrase "illegal alien" and attached a new meaning to the word. And the nuance was not at all modest, with these conclusions:
You see, he doesn't think non-dominionists should be considered citizens...or have rights. At all.
Yup, Joel's Army slip is showing quite a bit...for once, they revealed on national television that they don't consider non-dominionists Americans at all.
The lengths that some will go to with the intention of the simplest and clearest misrepresentation of others is quite amazing ... and frightening. Yet it goes even further.
The Left has a new religious term, designed to denounce evangelicals who work to bring liberal denominations back to orthodoxy, and that term is "steeplejacking." It's a term of frequent use over at the radical pluralist TalkToAction, and now appears here and on DailyKos.
The concerns expressed are generally framed politically. Even our evangelistic and ecclesiastical efforts are seen through the glasses of politics. But this should not affect our efforts or rhetoric. To call liberal groups back to orthodoxy, to get involved with the people and ministries of other groups is not unethical or otherwise wrong. Let the ministry continue.