I agree it can be okay/excusable to give in to the urge of taking digs at people who you think have unfairly harmed you. At the same time, I think it can make a big difference whether someone is doing this because of (1) or (2) of the following:
(1) they perceive situations like this as a social game about who manages to get the audience on their side, within which tactics like making insinuations about others’ character or repeating hearsay is fair game as long as it works / if the audience will think it’s okay/excusable/justified, etc.
or whether it’s
(2) while they’re pissed off and tempted to retaliate, they also feel strongly bound to a code of fairness where it’s only really okay to make bad insinuations if you’re very likely to be right, so they’re worried about saying the wrong thing, being biased, etc. I.e., they genuinely consider the possibility that they’re too emotionally invested and in the wrong themselves in the sense of feeling too much negativity about the other party and giving a distorted impression of them.
I interpret John G. Halstead’s point along the lines of “if they were doing (2) instead of (1), why does it look like they’re trying to have their cake and eat it? Why does it look like they’re simultaneously saying that accusations like that (which they chose to repeat/air publicly) are often about things that aren’t actually too bad or shouldn’t be trusted, but also saying that they mostly trust them and think they’re actually bad?”
I agree it can be okay/excusable to give in to the urge of taking digs at people who you think have unfairly harmed you. At the same time, I think it can make a big difference whether someone is doing this because of (1) or (2) of the following:
(1) they perceive situations like this as a social game about who manages to get the audience on their side, within which tactics like making insinuations about others’ character or repeating hearsay is fair game as long as it works / if the audience will think it’s okay/excusable/justified, etc.
or whether it’s
(2) while they’re pissed off and tempted to retaliate, they also feel strongly bound to a code of fairness where it’s only really okay to make bad insinuations if you’re very likely to be right, so they’re worried about saying the wrong thing, being biased, etc. I.e., they genuinely consider the possibility that they’re too emotionally invested and in the wrong themselves in the sense of feeling too much negativity about the other party and giving a distorted impression of them.
I interpret John G. Halstead’s point along the lines of “if they were doing (2) instead of (1), why does it look like they’re trying to have their cake and eat it? Why does it look like they’re simultaneously saying that accusations like that (which they chose to repeat/air publicly) are often about things that aren’t actually too bad or shouldn’t be trusted, but also saying that they mostly trust them and think they’re actually bad?”