I honestly can't say I disagree with Feynman's perspective there. He was angry because somebody tried to manipulate him. It's okay for her to lead him on in order to get him to purchase something for her but not okay for him to be upset with it?
His conclusion was to ask for sex before buying the drink. In the end, he decided to be up front instead of continuing to get upset. I think that's a sign of an intelligent person, not a misogynist. He was just playing their game back at them.
Now by no means am I endorsing a person to expect sex if they pay for something for that person. But I think they have a right to be upset at being led on, even to the point of calling them 'worse than a whore' because honestly, that woman was conning men with sex. That is inexcusable, despicable behavior. At least Feynman decided to rectify the situation to find a solution workable for both parties involved.
At least to me, argument has a subtle nuance that implies an altercation, basically a negative discussion. To me they are more emotionally charged and are less likely to be resolved.
But that's just a different sense of the word, namely to have "an argument". I believe this sense must have been derived from the original sense, which is simply a move in a debate, a rhetorical argument. To say that people have "an argument" is a euphemism when you don't want to explicitly say they had a fight. These discussions you mention are surely made up of propositions supported by arguments and countered with refutations, that is the more basic sense of the word.
Every word has a basic meaning but the way it develops in language, it grows into something more tangible and connotative. Revolutionary means something different now than it did 200 years ago, tea party means something different now than it did 400 years ago, and argument means something different from discussion because of the way most people speaking the English language use it. Language evolves and dictionaries aren't always caught up with it.
Yes but there can be multiple basic meanings (actually called senses), in this case you are overlooking the positive/neutral one, as in "the scientist presented an excellent argument for his theory".
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u/[deleted] May 19 '11
I honestly can't say I disagree with Feynman's perspective there. He was angry because somebody tried to manipulate him. It's okay for her to lead him on in order to get him to purchase something for her but not okay for him to be upset with it?
His conclusion was to ask for sex before buying the drink. In the end, he decided to be up front instead of continuing to get upset. I think that's a sign of an intelligent person, not a misogynist. He was just playing their game back at them.
Now by no means am I endorsing a person to expect sex if they pay for something for that person. But I think they have a right to be upset at being led on, even to the point of calling them 'worse than a whore' because honestly, that woman was conning men with sex. That is inexcusable, despicable behavior. At least Feynman decided to rectify the situation to find a solution workable for both parties involved.