[wildmusings]

What is a more generous interpretation of what he said? I didn’t misinterpret it, I used a rhetorical device to unwind his obfuscation of exactly what he was defending. If you only follow a dry analytic tone, then you deny yourself an essential tool for disarming sophistic contortions that defend things that are clearly indefensible when plainly stated.

[dang]

A more generous interpretation seems easy to find, so I'm not sure that arguing about "what he said" would get to the point. The point seems to me to be at a heart level, i.e. do you really want to be generous or not. If you don't, answering your question will just be another argument that does no good, and if you do, then we should talk about that instead.

[wildmusings]

Orwell gives a good example of these kinds of contortions in Politics and the English Language:

‘While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.’

To which the proper response is the ungenerous and sarcastic, "yes, of course it is right to murder your opponents when it benefits you". Because to engage otherwise is to give the sophistry more legitimacy than it deserves.

[dang]

I'm fond of that essay too. But if you're going to play the Orwell card it's best to make sure that you're not playing it cheaply, i.e. to justify personal venting or sophistry of your own. Just because someone else is doing those things doesn't mean we aren't also.