Whether true or not

In a comment to his original post, Andrew Seal declines to defend his “very queer” reading of Death Comes for the Archbishop. The blame, he says, is not his. “I’m done arguing with you for entertainment’s sake,” he says. “If I thought you ever might countenance a view that you haven’t already accepted, I’d make an effort.”

This is not a particularly novel approach to refutation. It spices up the huffiness of “I won’t dignify that with a reply” by adding a pinch of argumentum ad hominem. But what happens if I stipulate that Seal is correct about me as a person? Despite evidence to the contrary, I refuse not merely to consider but even to countenance—to put up with—a view that I have not accepted prior to hearing it explained. Okay, this doesn’t make any sense to me either. How can you swallow an opinion before you fully grasp it? Let that pass. What Seal is trying to say is that I am close-minded, inflexible, mulish. I just will not agree to cultural marxism, no matter how many times I hear it explained to me. Fine. I stipulate this is true about me too. My mind is made up. Ain’t nothing you—or, at least, Seal—can do to change it.

My question is this. Do any of these malignancies and personality defects on my side absolve someone who has advanced a view from defending it against criticism?

I am assuming, from his comment, that Seal believes it is rationally inadequate to disagree with criticism in advance of reading it. The principle of non-contradiction would seem to suggest, accordingly, that either the critic who offers a “very queer” reading and then confirms it as “significantly more meaningful,” or the critic who denies the reading, is mistaken. Is either critic excused from the intellectual responsibility of correcting error by the miscreancy of the other?

If I am serious about my views, I must defend them against all comers. To complain about how criticism is hurled at me, whether it is rude or aggressive, is to protect my personal dignity, not the validity of my thought. To remark upon the place or rank of my critic (“I will not lower myself to answer a mere undergraduate”) is anxiously to guard my status, which implies that my ideas are advanced, not in pursuit of truth, but to bolster my reputation. And to sneer at the person of my critic is to preserve my identity, because my views contribute to my sense of self, whether they are true or not.