Semantics ... or just an exactitude of Understanding?

[Plenum]

There was a recent side tangent in a thread involving Ooo and anagogy, and I think it highlighted an interesting point for me.  Namely, we have all witnessed discussions that devolved into 'semantics', and someone disagreeing with someone else because something was perhaps not articulated clearly enough, and yet the meaning and intent was (to me) seemingly clear.

And then there is bringing up fine points, as a matter of refining understanding, and trying to explain to someone else that the way they expressed something is flawed not because it was phrased inaccurately, but the phrasing itself indicated a perspective or understanding that was incomplete.

It is a subtle point, and every situation is unique, so there's no hard and fast rules about making such assessments about other-selves and how they are trying to relate their understandings.

I am reminded of a Ra quote which points to the seeker ('the student') and the one trying to supply the seeking ('the teacher').  One is teacher and student in different situations, and one is not exclusively one or the other.

"In the realm of the mental bodies there are variations of mental energy transferred. This is, again, dependent upon the knowledge sought and the knowledge offered. The most common mental energy transfer is that of the teacher and the pupil. The amount of energy is dependent upon the quality of this offering upon the part of the teacher as regards the purity of the desire to serve and the quality of information offered and, upon the part of the student, the purity of the desire to learn and the quality of the mind vibratory complex which receives knowledge."

[APeacefulWarrior]

I think one of the things that's hardest for people to accept is that words are only pointers towards ideas, rather than being ideas in themselves. No word or phrasing can ever truly encompass the whole of the idea it's trying to describe. But it's very easy for people to get hung up on verbage, seeking a "perfect description" that can never really exist, or quibbling over details that realistically just boil down to differences in perception/opinion.

Nietzsche might say that this is just another example of how Platonism has corrupted discussion, by creating false ideals of objective perfection which are impossible to obtain.

The other element here, I think, is that more fundamentally negative entities often have a very hard time recognizing any opinions besides their own as having any relevance or correctness. So anyone who's on a negative path (and I'm not pointing fingers or being moralistic here) is going to tend to automatically dismiss perceptions that are in variance with their own. Words and rhetoric are generally one of the most popular ways they try to do this - flood the discussion with their point of view, and attempt to negate any conflicting opinions that might suggest their POV is not the objectively correct POV.

(See also: The entire premise and practice of Ayn Rand's "Objectivism"...)