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Variations of "A 1000 points of view"

note

I try to demonstrate below the case for my post “A 1000 points of view”.

Original

For every topic, idea, argument, belief, there are a 1000 points of view.

Addressing every single one is counterproductive for several reasons. It dilutes the core message, weakening its impact and clarity. It makes your view harder to follow, and confusing to your audience. Most of all, it exhausts your readers' attention, one of the gravest crimes a writer can commit. Going over every possible point of view serves no one, apart from philosophers and academics, if at all.

A skilled writer is aware of unexplored arguments and subtleties within their composition. Deliberately, they limit their scope to maximize their impact. Disregarding 995 points of view, they defend 1 or 2, and engage in discourse against 3 or 4.

An astute reader understands that a writer's delivery is contextual, refraining from pedantically nitpicking "flaws" in the writer's work in favor of absorbing the essence.

After all, the utility of any literary work lies in its potential to inspire ideas, invoke action, or trigger contemplation. Such potential is heightened when the work is succinct, sharp and focused.

Too short

For every topic, idea, argument, belief, there are a 1000 points of view. Addressing all of them is counterproductive. The writer should choose to ignore most views, and defend his own, only arguing against a few selected counter-arguments.

(Almost) Too long

For every topic, idea, argument, belief, there are several points of view. In a few cases, the points of view are very limited, and in others there can be thousands or even million points of view.

Addressing all of them is counterproductive for a variety of reasons. It dilutes the core message, weakening its impact and clarity. It makes your view harder to follow, and confusing to your audience. Most of all, it exhausts your readers' attention, one of the gravest crimes a writer can commit.

Of course, there are cases where going over as many points of view as possible can be favorable. Philosophers tend to enjoy entertaining alternating views, and in academic work addressing the discussion space as much as possible can increase the validity and trustworthiness of the work.

Skilled writers are, in several cases aware of unexplored arguments and subtleties within their composition. In the ideal case, they choose to limit their scope such that they maximize their impact, while in other cases it can be laziness, or even ignorance that results in limited argumentation. In many cases, a writing that strikes a good balance between addressing points of view and strength of delivery, will defend 1 or 2 points and argue against 3 or 4. Sometimes it can be beneficial to explicitly contextualize the environment in which the argumentation takes place, while other times it can be favorable to leave it ambiguous such that the reader creates their own context based on what they need.

Astute readers often notice that the writer is delivering their work in context, and refrain from pedantically pointing out all the other environments, perspectives or corner cases in which the author's case will be invalid. This behavior can have a wide range of effects: the argumentative reader can be an internet troll in one end, genuinely widen the author's and audience's view on the other end, and everything in between.

In many cases, the utility of literary work lies in its ability to inspire ideas, invoke action, or catalyze thoughts. These results are usually better achieved when the work is sharp, succinct, and focused. There are also situations where the argumentation itself can excite the reader, but this can depend on the topic, the character of the reader, and the amount of attention energy that the reader is willing to spend on the writing.

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