Jumping on the Whataboutism Bandwagon

[MineralMan]

45. Well, there it is, I guess.

Il a des idées fixes. (He has fixed ideas.)

There are a couple of people on DU who are fixed on the horrors of circumcision. From time to time, they introduce a thread about that topic in another forum. There used to be a couple of people like that on the old CompuServe Religion and Politics forums, too. I don't know - maybe they're the same people. The point is that there was no point in discussing the issue with them. It was impossible to make any headway in getting them to discuss it in any sort of rational way.

Religion is even more of an idée fixe, and has even more people who will argue endlessly with no possibility of change. Fortunately, there are other people around who like to discuss religion from a more flexible perspective. There will always be those in any such discussion, though, who will persist and argue with broken logic and fixed ideas. There's no way around that, I'm afraid.

It's tempting, sometimes, to use ridicule and other tactics with people like that. I know that I fall victim to that temptation at at times. It's hard to resist. But, it will not change anything, and especially will not unfix someone ideas if they are rigid in their thinking.

So, there it is, I guess.