I was watching a commentary video about the overturning of ROE v WADE and its implications and one sentence happened to tickle my intellectual fancy. Source:
"When it comes to wedge issues, people never arrive at their conclusions because of some long concatenation of reasoned-out thoughts. it's almost always an emotional response"
Cambridge Dictionary defines "concatenation" as "a series of events, ideas, or things that are connected". I'm not so certain that this definition of concatenation is applicable in the aforementioned sentence. I think it takes on a new meaning in the context but I'm not sure what that definition means. So what exactly is the sentence implying? Is it implying that people are not able to present a serious logical argument that everybody can amicably agree upon and resolve a wedge issue--that people use ad hominem/post hoc/post factum rationale to justify and defend their viewpoint which unfortunately prolongs the unresolved nature of wedge issues? What does "concatenation" mean within the context of the sentence?
xbladefate25Cambridge Dictionary defines "concatenation" as "a series of events, ideas, or things that are connected".
As far as I can see, the Cambridge definition is right for this context.
xbladefate25people never arrive at their conclusions because of some long concatenation of reasoned-out thoughts.
concatenation: series, chain, line
P, therefore Q, therefore R, therefore S, therefore T, ...
Or, expressed a little differently:
If P then Q, and if Q then R, and if R then S, and if S then T, ...
CJ
Is the speaker saying people don't use well-thought-out reason to arrive at a logical conclusion via the process of one reasonable thought leading to another reasonable thought, when it comes to wedge issues like abortion? That they predicate their line of justification on a welter of emotions and feelings?
xbladefate25Is the speaker saying people don't use well-thought-out reason to arrive at a logical conclusion via the process of one reasonable thought leading to another reasonable thought [no comma] when it comes to wedge issues like abortion? That they predicate their line of justification on a welter of emotions and feelings?
Exactly.
CJ
xbladefate25I'm not so certain that this definition of concatenation is applicable in the aforementioned sentence.
Look at "chain of reasoning" and "chain of thought". Come to think of it, that's what the writer should have done instead of whipping up a long way of saying it.
So a question to you: is the speaker saying that people don't have the time, inclination, or desire to sit there and slowly come up with a decent solid line of argument with well-thought-out reasoning and logic? That they would rather jump the gun and go straight to arguing their talking points based on emotion and feelings?