Seven ways to disagree

This comes via John Nery: web guru Paul Graham names seven different kinds of disagreement. Why the need to classify? He says:

The result [of all the conversation on the web] is there's a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. That doesn't mean people are getting angrier. The structural change in the way we communicate is enough to account for it. But though it's not anger that's driving the increase in disagreement, there's a danger that the increase in disagreement will make people angrier. Particularly online, where it's easy to say things you'd never say face to face.

If we're all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. What does it mean to disagree well? Most readers can tell the difference between mere name-calling and a carefully reasoned refutation, but I think it would help to put names on the intermediate stages. So here's an attempt at a disagreement hierarchy. (Emphasis mine)

The lower you are on the ladder, the less sophisticated your disagreement. (Predictably, the lowest rung is occupied by "name-calling.") Folks at CreateDebate liked Graham's piece so much they made a helpful graphic. The pyramidal shape is intentional; there's a lot of the lower stuff on the web and less of the higher, more sophisticated (and more difficult) stuff, which is why the figure narrows as it rises.

Nifty, eh? It's a good and handy tool you can use to evaluate arguments, yours and someone else's. I think I'll use this the next time I teach critical thinking and argumentation.