User:Ezekial Riddle/Deflecting

Deflecting is the act of changing the subject of an argument, done either intentionally or unwittingly. An easily recognized instance of deflecting is a politician "not answering the question."

Reasons for Deflecting
I will identify what I believe to be the two fundamental circumstances for deflecting, and reasons why people deflect per circumstance.

Intentionally
People deflect intentionally when the argument proposed to them catches them out of their "comfort zone." This serves two purposes.

The first is that it stalls for time. This gives the responder a time to make a response about the proposed argument, while fudging an answer. This is most common in speech, where a person is expected to give an answer immediately after someone asks a question (unlike written media).

The second purpose is that the responder avoids answering the question proper all together. This stems from the responder not having or not willing to give a proper answer. Usually a proper answer would incriminate the responder, and thus he avoids the question all together with a response only slightly related to the subject at hand.

Unwittingly
People deflect unwittingly when they aren't part of an ongoing argument, but feel like their opinion is important enough to warrant interrupting said argument. This sort of deflection usually comes in the form of a rhetorical question. An example of such often occurs here in the Official Guild Wars Wiki, along with various Guild Wars fansites:

If you don't like Guild Wars, why don't you stop playing?

Any response to this question does nothing to address the arguments before the question, and thus the subject is turned from a possible flaw in game design to a flaw in the player discussing the aforementioned flaw.

To people who are unaware of the fallacious nature of that question, this will stop them dead in their tracks. However, the question above can be revised to something obviously fallacious, while keeping the same, fundamental meaning:

If you don't like Guild Wars, go fuck yourself.

In both instances, the contributor has nothing to add to the argument other than irrelevant and empty words. The former is much less crass, though, and often gets asked with impunity (i.e. it's never called out as fallacious).

Intentional Deflecting
If you catch someone intentionally deflecting, you must call them on it. If a person's response to a question does nothing to address the question tell them, "You're deflecting," or, "You're not answering the question."

From Lie to Me (paraphrased): Foster: Did you tip off the SEC? Loker: Why would I risk my job to do that? Foster: You're deflecting.

From The 2010 Californian Republican Gubernatorial Debate (paraphrased): (Moderator): Do you believe that the current trend of climate change is man-made or part of a natural cycle? Steve Poizner:  (Moderator): ''Okay, but you didn't answer the question. Is climate change man-made or a natural event?''

Unwitting Deflecting
If you catch someone deflecting unwittingly, simply call out their argument as fallacious, and explain how their "argument" adds nothing to the main subject.

For the sake of illustrating this point, let's make a few assumptions:
 * 1) ArenaNet, deliberately or not, has allowed pre-nerf Ursan Blessing into PvP.
 * 2) Nothing has happened to fix this problem over the course of two months.
 * 3) Player A has undertaken the burden of showing why this is bad.
 * 4) Player B likes the change, as it allows him to play high-end PvP on the same ground as everyone else, and is thus more fair to casual players like him.

The Argument: Player A: ''Ursan Blessing is destroying Guild Wars' PvP. Ursan Blessing has devolved Guild Wars into nothing but button mashing and sheer luck. PvP is no longer fun.'' Player B: ''If you don't like it, why don't you quit playing Guild Wars? Just because you aren't having fun doesn't mean others aren't.'' Player A: ''What does my not liking it have anything to do with Ursan Blessing being a problem? It doesn't. Whether or not I played Guild Wars, Ursan Blessing in PvP would still be a problem.''

While in most cases Player B would quickly become butthurt, claiming Player A to be a pompous, elitist ass that only wants his favored skills "balanced" so he can succeed, Player A would know that he was in the right and that he can largely ignore any opinion provided by Player B.

Catching Your Unwitting Self
Everyone, at some point or another, will unwittingly deflect. Identifying when you are deflecting, and how to get back to the original subject is a good skill to have.

In written media, like internet forums, simply check to see if your contribution in anyway address the subject, or if you're just adding words. If you can't formulate a reasonable response, do yourself a favor and don't even try.

In speech and audio media, catching yourself and revising your argument is nigh impossible. Thus, you must preventatively correct yourself. If you're thrown a hardball, give yourself a few seconds to think, rather than blabbing the first things that come to mind and trying to segue that into what you really mean to say. At the risk of sounding stupid, ask the person to clarify what he means.