... in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.

Dominant negativity cheats reality of its mutual positives.

The goal of argumentation is to make a case so forceful (note the metaphor) that skeptics are coerced into believing it— they are powerless to deny it while still claiming to be rational. In principle, it is the ideas themselves that are, as we say, compelling, but their champions are not always averse to helping the ideas along with tactics of verbal dominance, among them intimidation ("Clearly . . ."), threat ("It would be unscientific to . . ."), authority ("As Popper showed . . ."), insult ("This work lacks the necessary rigor for . . ."), and belittling ("Few people today seriously believe that . . ."). Perhaps this is why H. L. Mencken wrote that —college football would be more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students.

The psychological components of war have not gone away— dominance, vengeance, callousness, tribalism, groupthink, self-deception