@RP,
You asked me to address Luchog so I'll do my best. Please understand where you see eloquence I see pedantry.
luchog said:
I don't mind your emphasis, but your analysis is off. It's not because something was once used some way at some time. That is silly. It's because something reinforces the problematic aspects of the dominant culture.
I hear this claim a lot, but see nothing to support it. How does it do so?
And, incidentally, that is exactly what happened in several of the examples linked to earlier.
Note that luchog's post is completely without citation, despite making repeated factual claims. So my response to requests for citation are going to be, you first.
How does this happen? I can tell you about how its happened near me. Recently some friends used the word rape to describe something that happened in a videogame which was not sexual and involved only a player and NPC. I asked them to please use another word, Rape should be about sexual assult. They agreed with me and have stopped describing events that are not rape as rape.
Now I'm sure you have heard people talking about particularly one sided events, in a game or wherever, as the victor raping the loser. Do you not see that this adds an element of acceptability to the term? Someone totally raped that thing, they are awesome. <--- That statement reinforces rape culture. Rape culture explains how a couple of juveniles in Stubenville can get away with what they did to that girl with three total mandatory years of prison and with huge numbers of people on the internet exclaiming about how horrible it is that their athletic careers have been cut short. That she should have known not to get drugged at a party...Honestly its like you are willfully blind if you are not seeing this crap.
It's the same idea as removing things like, "In the name of holy god why are you doing that?!" Such a phrase reinforces the religious, read christian, aspect of the dominant culture.
Again, how? What is the mechanism, how does the reinforcement work?
Seriously? If I exclaim something is bad because it is associated to god, then I need the association of god and all the meaning of that word, including implied existence, to have that phrase be meaningful. Look at how much less emotional impact "In the name of three kinds of duct tape" has.
Now if you don't realize the male, racist, gender binary... dashist aspects of our cultures you will see fighting them as silly, but they are documented in sociology
If they are so well-documented, then you won't mind providing links or references to sources for replicated, peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate such.
[/quote]
No.
I will not fight paywalls, I will not do your research for you. Your posts are unsourced. Don't expect backflips from me. If you want to disagree, fine, however understand your claims will be met with equal disdain.
In any case, you are wrong yet again. No one here is denying the existence of such aspects; we simply do not see them being anywhere near as pervasive and pernicious in contemporary Western culture as you and the APlusser insist they are. And we will continue to see such assertions as mere assertions until sufficient evidence is provided. So far, what little evidence has been provided is of highly questionable quality, demonstrating a clear bias and lack of rational, scientific examination.
Or you are all biased against evidence and will reject anything I hand you. In any case, yes, lots of people are denying the existance of such aspects. Lots and lots, all over the comments of FTB, and within this thread.
Here is someone denying any sexism at the confrences
hume's fork said:
On a more serious note, I get the impression that what they don't like is that there are so many atheists and skeptics and humanists who are white males. While I'm all for trying to attract all sorts of people to skepticism, to complain at the attendees that most people who show up on meetups and the like are white males is silly. The people who show up are the ones who are interested and for whom it is convenient. What do you suggest, forcing women and minorities to attend at the point of a gun?
Post #115
and if you accept that A+ wants less of those things then using language to reduce their impact, and make their effects conscious makes sense.
This is to ignore all reliable evidence that language follows culture, it does not create it.
What evidence? Do you see you making factual claims unsourced? My statement was clear, if you accept then behavior follows. You don't? Fine but that's not a rebuttal. I like a book called The Three Laws of Performance. It's management literature, applied philosophy or psychology, take your pick. I have found the descriptions of language use in that book to be powerful in both management positions and life experiences. The underlying principle is that change in culture begins with conscious control of language.
No, not woo at all. No one is claiming to recognize anyone's thoughts, but they can recognize problematic aspects of the culture, and language that reinforces them. That degree in psychology helps quite a lot actually. It's not about personal flaws, but societal ones.
Except that is exactly what is happening. Intent is ascribed, supposed societal flaws are applied to individuals, and people are castigated and verbally abused for their ostensible perpetuation of it.
Source? None again... Here yours is a positive claim I can't link to you a nothing. You also didn't address my point. Why is it that insulting someone is seen as so much worse than reinforcing or participating in discriminatory social practice?
The last bit here is pure hyperbole. You are projecting your bias and not looking at events as they occur, you are also expecting strangers to be treated identically as friends, which is absurd. (If you prefer you may read this as my view of the same events is substantially different from yours.)
No, I am describing what I view to be the case, after attempted rational examination; supported by similar attempts at rational examination by others.
And yet again, you are wrong in your continued ascribing of intent. No one is expecting strangers to be treated identically to friends. No one sane does that. What we are expecting is for both strangers and friends to be treated rationally for the purposes of debating issues. It's clear from their repeated statements to that effect that the APlussers are not interested in doing so.
People enter regularly and expect to be trusted and offered the benefit of the doubt when they say problematic things. When you say "for the purposes of debating issues" you are projecting a value onto a place that does not exist for it. A+ is not debate club. Stop expecting it to be. That is not, has not been and is unlikely to ever be the purpose of the place. It exists to give a voice to those who previously were marginalized and did not have one.
Why do you think something has to have intent to be sexist or racist or what have you?
Because without intent, it cannot be. It's just that simple. Without the intent to be dashist, any perceived dashist language is, at worst, an unfortunate linguistic holdover.
Nonsense. Here is a great example
Quinn said:
People have responded to this point already, but I thought I'd chime in too since it's a case where I get to apply my "lived experience," which apparently trumps all other input...
ApostateltsopA said:
Why do you think something has to have intent to be sexist or racist or what have you? If I start calling people by a word that begins with N am I not being racist? Even if I don't know what it means or the connotation behind it?
Funny you should mention it, but there was a time when I literally did that very thing.
[I should preface this by noting that I am a white guy (person of whiteness?), since my avatar has occasionally led people to assume otherwise.]
I was about 8 years old, and I heard one of my friends at school use a word that I had never heard before. As far as I could tell, it was a synonym for "dummy," since my friend was using it in that way. And since it was a novel and kinda silly-sounding word, I started using it the same way, indiscriminately letting it replace "dummy" or "lame-brain" or "jive turkey" or whatever other generic term of disparagement I may have used at the time. That went on for probably about a week before I said it in front of my parents, who asked me why I said it and what I thought it meant, and then explained to me what it actually meant and why I shouldn't use it. And once I understood that it was really a not-nice name for a black person, I thought "Oh, that's dumb," and stopped saying it.
Would you honestly suggest, with a straight face, that the behavior of my 8-year-old self in that episode was racist? Because if so, then either you are using a definition of "racist" that's so far removed from the common understanding as to be useless, or even worse, you're erasing my lived experience!!!
Yes, this is racist. Note, your 8 yr old self was not racist. You were not being racist by any intent, but you used a word that boils down to "Bad because of black" where the badness of whatever you are applying the adjective to is because of the race described by the word, how can that not be racist?
Incidentally, dumb is abelist. Bad because of inability to speak. Someone who can not speak is bad. That is the derivation of the word. It's common use, bad because of slow thinking or low IQ is also ableist ascribing the value of a human being as lower because of this difference.
If I start calling people by a word that begins with N am I not being racist? Even if I don't know what it means or the connotation behind it?
If you have no clue as to the meaning of the word, and have no intent to be racist, then no, you are likely not racist. The principle of charity applies, and the outcome will go in one of two directions:
1) You will be informed that the word contains a clear and well-established racist connotation in contemporary culture, and is actively used as a racist pejorative; in which case you will stop using it out of charity and a wish to not be seen as a racist.
2) You will be informed that the word contains a clear and well-established racist connotation in contemporary culture, and is actively used as a racist pejorative; but you will continue to use it, at which point it is safe to assume that you are either a racist, or a complete nutjob.
But this is not what the A+ crowd is doing. Far from it. They are manufacturing intent. For all their "Intent is not magic" nonsense, that is exactly what they are doing. Manufacturing and ascribing intent on the flimsiest of pretexts. Calling it "subconscious" is disingenuous at best.
And worse, they are giving themselves a free pass to use dashist language when attacking others. Not the same dashist language, but just as dashist, and just as hurtful as anything they claim to be upset by. Indeed, in some cases even moreso. Their refusal to acknowledge this, and their continued defense of such language, amply illustrates their own elitism and intellectual dishonesty.
The accusations of "subconscious" sexism in such ridiculous examples as the limerick debacle shows just how malleable and self-serving their language regarding intent really is.
What dashist language are A+ people using? "Bigot"? Is Bigot "dashist"? I will admit I should have been more clear, you seem to agree with me that the pejorative which starts with N and means Black Person Bad is a racist word. You even agree that the word is racist even if I don't know it's racist when I use it. You agree that people who do know what it means will rightly point out that meaning to me, and that I should correct my language use once I am not ignorant.
Yet when this exact sequence happens on the A+ board you accuse the A+ people of being Dashist. How do you reconcile that cognitive dissonance?
What if I hold doors for women only? I may be trying to be nice or have been taught chivalry, but am I not reinforcing the idea that women need to be sheltered and protected?
Chivalric codes are a bad example, as they have always been intentionally sexist; have a religious origin. Regardless, whether you think women have to be sheltered and protected from the big bad evil world, or you consider that women have to be sheltered and protected from the big bad dashist world, you are still applying the same demeaning view of women. Insisting that they're so fragile that they cannot handle being exposed to the occasional sexist remark without being irreparably damaged is just as patronizing and oppressive as any religion-based coddling. Worse, in fact, since it's inherently hypocritical. Either women are equally strong and capable, and able to handle the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or they're delicate flowers who need to be protected from the contumleys of a vicious world. You can't have it both ways; and attempting to do so is the hypocrisy at the core of the Third-Wave Feminism embraced by SJWs.
Nope, that is pure straw. I am not saying that "women can't handle hearing a gender based slur" when I say, "Hey that was a gender based slur and it is not cool" I'm not objecting to the slur because women are weak and need protection, I'm objecting to the idea that being feminine makes something bad as a neolithic attitude which holds us back as a people. Your claim that we should just suck up the abuse to prove that we can take it is a defense of bullying.
What if I think that gay and lesbian are choices that people have made to be contentious and I oppose letting them get married, because I think they are lying? Am I not still a bigot?
You are conflating several different issues here. One is scientific evidence, the other is personal value systems. The question of nature vs. choice with regard to homosexuality is irrelevant to the question of equal rights re: marriage. The real problem here is that SJWs do no more to differentiate those two issues than do religious bigots.
You did not answer my question. You dodged it. Is the behavior I described bigotry? If yes, then intent is not needed. If no, well then we will have a different conversation. If you will not answer direct questions then what is the point of talking to you?
Intent is important. It doesn't excuse misbehavior though.
Intent is
paramount. If there is no ill-will, there is no "misbehaviour"; there is only an unfortunate accident proceeding from ignorance. Only if one starts attacking others for the accident, instead of recognizing it as such, making any necessary apologies, and moving on, is there any misbehaviour. But that is precisely what the APlussers are doing, they are refusing to acknowledge the existence of accidents, instead ascribing them to "subconscious" intents. (Incidentally, there is a gross inconsistency I failed to note in my previous reply. An act cannot be both "subconsious" and "unintentional", because the former inherently requires an intent. To claim something is "subconscious"
and "unintentional" is oxymoronic, and yet another example of the intellectual laziness of the APlussers.)
Source? I'll cite the conversation with Glob, repeatedly he was told, and others said of him that there was almost certainly no intent to harm. Your characterization above is false. As for ill will and misbehavior, do you protest manslaughter charges? Someone died, but there was no intent, should those people in prison for manslaughter be released? Or is there some burden on all of us, all the time, not just not to hurt each other on purpose, but also to be reasonably careful that we don't hurt each other by accident. Is there not fault in being underly cautious?
It is perception that is not magic. Literally anything can be perceived as belonging whatever dashist label the self-described victim wants to see it as, if one twists one's perceptions enough. For example, millions of religious people perceive the actions of atheists to remove religion from government as an attempt to erase them, to devalue and even destroy them. Many of them have ancestors or relations who were brutally tortured and murdered for their faith. Some have even been personally oppressed in their lifetimes. How are their perceptions any less valid than yours? What is the statute of limitations on oppression?
And? Lets take your example. Lets say I'm talking to a christian who believes their fore bearers were horribly tortured for Christianity. They take offense at my desire for secular government. Would it be right for me to post my feelings all over their pro-christ in government chat board? Would you seek out such a place to rub secularism in their faces? Would you get up in arms if you were banned from the christian chat room for that behavior? Yes anyone can be offended by anything, but not all offense is equal and not all positions are equally defensible. It seems we agree that more christ in government is bad, do you disagree with me that less sexism in government is good?
Perception is useless unless backed by evidence. Not personal anecdotes, but rational, verifiable evidence. That is not to say that all such claims should be dismissed out of hand. Quite the contrary, they should be evaluated critically, and charitably; and any reasonable person would want to avoid causing unnecessary discomfort to others. The problem is, there are too many people, particularly among SJWs, who take things to irrational extremes; while insisting that charity only works one way. That every slightest bit of their own discomfort should be accomodated, however ridiculous the circumstance; while they owe nothing of the sort to anyone else, even true victims of oppression, if said victims do not hold the same party line.
Where? You seem to be talking about general in the world behavior, or what happens at A+ which is not general in the world but a designated safe space for those people you just complained about? As for your nonsense about evidence, perception is evidence. It is often incomplete, but it is also the only evidence we usually have to go on. There is not time to set up a double blind study of everything. We go beyond perception when perception is failing, like at a magic show. We can clearly see that what we perceive is being manipulated, and more study is needed. To imply that every perception should be doubted until it can be backed by evidence is pure hyper-skepticism, and useless since we will need to perceive the evidence and wind up in Descartes's territory with no way out.
Let me put this another way. When evaluating claims, theories, or assertions, the first thing that a skeptic asks is not "Does it fit my worldview?". It is not even "Does it fit the established scientific consensus?" The first thing a skeptic asks is "Is it internally consistent?" Because if it is not at least internally consistent, then there is no point in pursuing it further. And that is the problem, amply demonstrated over and over by the APlussers. They are simply not internally consistent. They are irrational, elitist, and hypocritical. That is why they can attack outsiders, scream about "Schroedinger's Rapists" and "erasing" and "privilege", while simultaneously attacking rape victims and deaf individuals for daring to have differing opinions on how they should react to their traumas and disabilities, for refusing to be destroyed or defined by them.
That is the core of SJW's problem with language, and their attempts to redefine everything and create an idiosyncratic vocabulary. All of their post-modernist language games are nothing more than an, at best, intellectually lazy attempt to evade acknowledgement of and responsibility for their own internal inconsistency and self-congratulatory mental masturbation. They are the worst sort of pseudo-intellectuals.
"Attacking rape victims"
This here, this claim, this often and repeatedly debunked claim. The rape victim was apologized to, in big red capps text, yet that incident is repeated adnausium here as though it happened repeatedly and as though no retraction were made. Seriously, this is disingenuous as hell. you should be ashamed of yourself.
Then you make a claim about a deaf person, I assume you mean Mr.Samsa since you didn't bother to cite anything, again. Note, no mod action was taken on that poster. No claim about deafness was poo pooed. The issue was about the medical model and about xir interpretation of philosophy and the conduct on that thread. ANd AGAIN, you are pointing to one single instance as though it were chronic and more than it was.
Your objections are unsourced, hyperbolic and disingenuous. You avoid direct questions and you are the one held up as a champion of reason.
It bogles my mind.
Can that guy be more of a dickless sissy?
