Good post on "interpretative charity"

This is one of the best blog posts I've read in a while now from one of the best critical thinkers out there. He nails a point that has always bothered me but couldn't always express: the lack or misunderstanding of "interpretative charity" in both the blogosphere and in intellectual circles. He writes:

"A common misconception takes interpretative charity to be an inability to say anything contrary about someone's thoughts or actions... a sort of well-meaning but naive refusal to engage in argument because a nicer and more well-meaning interlocutor could always be plausibly imagined. The idea is that the overly-charitable interpreter nuances a person's position to death so that even the worst crimes and falsehoods could be justified in the name of standing aloof from uncivil polemic... While I don't see any need to link other conversations, this post originated out of continued frustration with the idea, held by a few folks, that I can be something of an etiquette obsessed contributor to... blogs, unwilling to ever just go out and offer a straightforward criticism."

The author, speaking of a paper he wrote where he exhibits this "interpretative charity", says that his critique:

"simply couldn't have been made without taking most of the paper to follow through certain arguments on the basis of their own most reasonable terms. That is, without prioritizing interpretative charity some critiques actually remain unavailable."