{"id":13388,"date":"2013-01-30T01:04:05","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T06:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=13388"},"modified":"2013-01-30T01:04:05","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T06:04:05","slug":"a-tolerable-response-to-intolerable-sophistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/01\/30\/a-tolerable-response-to-intolerable-sophistry\/","title":{"rendered":"A tolerable response to intolerable sophistry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Here\u2019s a terrific video from Minute Physics (via<\/em><\/a>), in which they take a silly question and respond with far more seriousness, and creativity, than it deserves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens if an immovable object meets an unstoppable force?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/iframe>\nThe conclusion, if you can\u2019t watch the video linked and embedded above, is that \u201can immovable object\u201d and \u201can unstoppable force,\u201d if they\u2019re to be understood to mean anything real at all, \u201care really just the same.\u201d<\/p>\nAnd, abiding by the semantic silliness of the riddle, if they were to collide, \u201cthey must pass right through each other with no effect on each other at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2013\/01\/Screenshot-2013-01-30-at-12.58.19-AM.png\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-13389\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2013\/01\/Screenshot-2013-01-30-at-12.58.19-AM-300x168.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\"><\/a>The fun thing about this is that they cheerfully take the riddle at face value \u2014 as though it were an actual, honest question about objects and forces rather than just a pretzeled bit of word-play, in which opposite adjectives are employed to create a linguistic paradox that doesn\u2019t correspond to anything real. The question isn\u2019t about physics, the question is about language and the way that language can be played with to destroy meaning rather than to convey it.<\/p>\nAll of which is why I\u2019m bookmarking the link for this video as my new response for the routine right-wing harrumph of \u201cOh yeah?<\/em> Well if you\u2019re so tolerant, how come you won\u2019t tolerate my intolerance?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\nThe semantic game of immovable object vs. unstoppable force is intended<\/em> as a game \u2014 as an impish bit of wordplay that most people recognize is only that and not an actual attempt to say anything meaningful about anything real.<\/p>\nThe sad thing about the \u201cI demand you tolerate my intolerance!\u201d harrumphing is that those folks don\u2019t seem to realize that what they\u2019re saying is just a semantic game. They\u2019ve gotten stuck inside their own linguistic pretzel and imagine it still communicates some idea or corresponds to some reality rather than just demonstrating the pliability and liabilities of language.<\/p>\nWhich makes me wish that an omnipotent God would make a rock so heavy that even he couldn\u2019t lift it, then drop it on them. But instead, I\u2019ll just refer them to this video.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The semantic game of immovable object vs. unstoppable force is intended to be just that, a game — an impish bit of wordplay that most people recognize is not an actual attempt to say anything meaningful about anything real. The sad thing about the “I demand you tolerate my intolerance!” harrumphing is that those folks don’t seem to realize that what they’re saying is just a semantic game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-13388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>A tolerable response to intolerable sophistry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The semantic game of immovable object vs. unstoppable force is intended to be just that, a game -- an impish bit of wordplay that most people recognize is not an actual attempt to say anything meaningful about anything real. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A tolerable response to intolerable sophistry","description":"The semantic game of immovable object vs. unstoppable force is intended to be just that, a game -- an impish bit of wordplay that most people recognize is not an actual attempt to say anything meaningful about anything real. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}