That's awesome! I personally don't have an issue with people referring to things as such and not people. It's the people thing that is most troublesome to me.
But of course, my opinion is just one of many about this issue!
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Not A Very PC Thing to Say (Jonathan Chait NYMag piece)
- Thread starter kirblar
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That's awesome! I personally don't have an issue with people referring to things as such and not people. It's the people thing that is most troublesome to me.
But of course, my opinion is just one of many about this issue!It's messier than this. Everyone agrees that it's possible to be negligently ignorant on at least some topics.
To be clearer, what I've got in mind when I say "negligently ignorant" is something like being too ignorant of a subject to participate in an ongoing conversation about it, and in such a way that the ignorant person ought to recognize their ineligibility to participate. If people are talking about astronomical observations and someone butts in to make dumb objections to relativity, they're negligently ignorant. If people are comparing Russian authors and someone who's never read any Russian literature (or spent any time reading about it) butts in with a really strongly-held opinion, they're negligently ignorant. A functioning adult who's that ignorant ought to recognize that they have no idea what they're talking about. It's perfectly appropriate to use social pressure to get these people to fuck off and educate themselves. It should even be obvious to them how to go about educating themselves.
So you can't just say "never think that someone's negligently ignorant". It can happen. It does happen, all the time. But it's important to be very careful in making that determination.
Not really. The problem is there are too many assumptions you'd have to make and none of them are relevant to the content. The only thing that can be gained by addressing background is understanding feelings but these may have limited value in determining things like policy or finding solutions.
JesseEwiak
Member
I think that's simply because social media exists. Those same people were around, and said the same things about black people protesting, or whatever. It's just assumed that only racists were against civil rights in the 60's in the cuddly teddy bear version of American history when in reality, there were a lot of people who didn't give a fuck and wanted to just go to the city on the weekend without a riot happening.
But, I do think there's less people like that. I mean, even fifteen years ago, using 'gay' as an insult was just accepted, even in mainstream culture. Now, only idiots on XBox or 15 year olds who don't know any better (I know, they're the same thing) are almost the only ones to use it as a serious insult.
Yes, sometimes, the "extreme" left makes some mistakes. Every activist movement does. But, that doesn't mean their larger motives are incorrect.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Best one paragraph summary I've read so far. I also wonder what degree lack of tone contributes to this. The internet often regulates conversations to just words, when on the other hand, we speak with so much more; tone and body language.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Hmm. As I'm reading it, the thrust of the article is that by presenting himself as a "socialism lite" to the more radical left, and by straight-up hiring most of its leaders, he captured the support of the increasingly powerful leftward movement that would have otherwise supported a third candidate (or no candidate at all).
Effectively, he moved his more radical supporters towards the middle, and achieved great success thereby, including implementing a number of those supporters more valued goals. Which... is largely my argument about the policing of tone being a valid practical concern
Though it's possible I'm misreading it entirely. I'm pretty tired.
(Though it's worth noting that in that light, the comparison to MLK falls apart. MLK's movement, as I understand it, succeeded because it moved those who were previously in the middle further in his direction).
Proving his point?
blame space
Banned
This sentiment has been simmering for a long time. I'm glad it's finally hit some mainstream outlets.
I want the left to be taken seriously, but it's just hopeless when liberals attack liberals for not being liberal enough. It's all become very Jacobinist (thanks AC Unity) and fallen into the "with us or against us" trap that pervades American politics, not to mention the overblown outrage at inconsequential things like a scientist's shirt choice.
We have The Vagina Monologues being cancelled because it's not "inclusive" enough. We have men who identify as feminists being lambasted and branded misogynists because they disagreed with a female feminist's viewpoint. And we have a student culture so obsessed with shielding people from offense that it's stifling and sidetracking genuine intellectual debate and discussion. How can we even get to "Black people are treated badly" when we can't even get past arguing over "He's white, he can't say that!"
I want the left to be taken seriously, but it's just hopeless when liberals attack liberals for not being liberal enough. It's all become very Jacobinist (thanks AC Unity) and fallen into the "with us or against us" trap that pervades American politics, not to mention the overblown outrage at inconsequential things like a scientist's shirt choice.
We have The Vagina Monologues being cancelled because it's not "inclusive" enough. We have men who identify as feminists being lambasted and branded misogynists because they disagreed with a female feminist's viewpoint. And we have a student culture so obsessed with shielding people from offense that it's stifling and sidetracking genuine intellectual debate and discussion. How can we even get to "Black people are treated badly" when we can't even get past arguing over "He's white, he can't say that!"
excelsiorlef
Member
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
It is amusing that the criticisms made in the original article in the OP can be applied to conclusions about this decision. Yet Mr. Chait's article includes the example...
JesseEwiak
Member
Insert Plato/Socrates quotation complaining about the younger generation here.
MHWilliams
Member
A number of responses have already taken on the direct points in his writing, namely the idea that the scope of what he's talking about is nowhere near what his writing insists.
For example:
Not really? The reach of art and entertainment is frankly at an all-time high. We just had a cartoon on Nickelodeon that ended with a lesbian relationship. As I pointed out before, the following paragraph is largely about free speech working as intended, allow you to protest those you disagree with. Next paragraph ignores that trigger warnings are valid and useful for many people. The Vagina Monologues example, as pointed out here again, also incorrect.
Not really. You're seeing voices which have previously been outside the norm - women, minorities, LGBT - begin to not only speak out, but also to speak about problems they've previously had. "PC" is little more than those groups having an influence in the overall conversation that didn't have before. There's a perception of lost as there would be when any measure of control is lost.
Again, seeing these things as bad instead of normal free speech and people making their own valid and useful decisions, is a symptom of Chait's particular point of view. I'm unsure how to point that out without someone attempting to dismiss that as Ad hominem (which is largely the exact same phenomenon Chait talks briefly about in his article.)
Do discussions tend to falter and rely on extremism online? Yeah. Is this a liberal/progressive only thing? Nah.
I don't dismiss Chait's article because he's white, I dismiss him because I take a different view of the outcome and believe he vastly inflates the scope of the problem.
Plus, anytime anyone brings up cultural Marxism, I laugh a bit.
No, they aren't.
This is a huge part of the problem.
Nope. There are conversations you can be unprepared to deal with because you lack the information. If they come up, you stepping in to give your opinion would be the negligently ignorant Got is talking about.
People feel they have the right to enter conversations without knowledge because of the web. Here's an article on Why Wasn't I Consulted? which is points out is the fundamental question on the web.
excelsiorlef
Member
The whole "Rad Fems are now eating their own, the PC crowd is out of control" is just easy points to score and it assumes (sadly correctly) that people will just hear that basic (and misleading) description and run with it.
Never mind that through disagreement and action the end result is now double the amount of feminist plays being put on, curse you PC culture, curse you!
so anyone who says "i'm going to be excoriated for saying x" is proving x when it happens?
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Well, I'll admit I've been guilty of jumping to conclusions about "social justice" issues. But I will listen, and change my mind if additional information enters the situation. At the end of the day, intent and context does mater.
A better example to include would have been with the #CancelColbert campaign. There was no ill intent on Colbert's part, and if you watched the show and understood the context, there was nothing to get up in arms about.
I wonder too and I really don't know myself. I feel like I don't totally have the experience to say because that isn't specifically my disability. It's a really messy, really hard question to answer and my approach is to not use it but also not judge people who do.
Ultimately I think it is one of those things that doesn't say much about the person themselves, just the really crappy origins of our language. That's why I agree that straight up calling someone an -ist over more muddy issues like this isn't helpful. Most people wouldn't even think about pwds when saying dumb, at least I hope! I wouldn't say it's hate speech, ultimately I guess, but it's not perfect and isn't that just our society? We have a lot to improve with our language because it's very focused on gender and ability but there's no clear solution and no judgements to be made about the people using the language. The labels definitely suck because there really isn't a good answer.
I think I was gonna say something else but I forget, hahaha. I guess in the end, it's a bit like enjoying problematic entertainment in that it's fine to use it as long as you keep the problematic stuff in mind and distance yourself from it. Like I said, ableism is so much bigger than the words. The way our language has developed is just a side effect.
And I mean, there are definitely some words that are just plain bad to use no matter what. The r word and autistic as an insult, like you said. I can't gel with crippled either, not even as a metaphor, unless it's sarcastic/reclaiming. It's like, some can only have hate or contempt behind them, but other words are complicated.
appaws
Banned
Very good explanation. I see what you are saying.
I am not informed enough to responsibly participate in this conversation, but I want to post and say thank you to everyone who is carrying the discussion forward here without devolving into a digital screaming match. The ability to learn through exposure to the informed/educated opinions of others is valuable when coupled with learning on your own, and I appreciate it.
MHWilliams
Member
Finally got a chance to read this article posted by someone earlier. Greenwald is always hit or miss with me, but he has an argument that overall resonates with what I'm saying.
I'd extend this beyond journalists. I think it's a rather human thing to do and the connections one can have on social media only amplify the issue.
I disagree with the middle section that vicious attacks are a part of having a platform, but not all dissenting comments are vicious attacks. There is definitely a way to disagree without making it viciously personal, without resorting to death threats, doxxing, or what have you. But someone disagreeing with me, as they have on my own site, is par for the course.
I'd extend this beyond journalists. I think it's a rather human thing to do and the connections one can have on social media only amplify the issue.
I disagree with the middle section that vicious attacks are a part of having a platform, but not all dissenting comments are vicious attacks. There is definitely a way to disagree without making it viciously personal, without resorting to death threats, doxxing, or what have you. But someone disagreeing with me, as they have on my own site, is par for the course.
I can see, particularly after reading through this thread, how some of Chait's specific examples may be flawed, but there's definitely truth to the overall premise of the article. The de Boer piece linked in the OP shows some heartbreaking specific examples of that.
It's something I've been noticing on GAF more, and it absolutely suffocates certain threads. One recent example I noticed was the response to this post by Dragonborn in the recent Anita Sarkeesian thread on Gaming side. It's not a good post, but the pile-on in response jumps almost instantly to trying to lump him in with a group that can easily be dismissed. It's not the only example in the thread.
Something like that shouldn't necessarily be a moddable offense, and goodness knows that Anita threads are awash with disingenuous arguments that make it hard to pick out someone who's just ignorant from a troll. But I'm sick of getting outraged at people for being wrong about small things. I don't have the energy for it. I don't like seeing disagreements that could lead to constructive dialogue drowned with negativity and sniping at people's hidden intentions.
If people aren't even given the chance to have a good faith argument where they express points that others might disagree with (points that might be wrong, even) before getting dogpiled, there's no opportunity for growth.
It's something I've been noticing on GAF more, and it absolutely suffocates certain threads. One recent example I noticed was the response to this post by Dragonborn in the recent Anita Sarkeesian thread on Gaming side. It's not a good post, but the pile-on in response jumps almost instantly to trying to lump him in with a group that can easily be dismissed. It's not the only example in the thread.
Something like that shouldn't necessarily be a moddable offense, and goodness knows that Anita threads are awash with disingenuous arguments that make it hard to pick out someone who's just ignorant from a troll. But I'm sick of getting outraged at people for being wrong about small things. I don't have the energy for it. I don't like seeing disagreements that could lead to constructive dialogue drowned with negativity and sniping at people's hidden intentions.
If people aren't even given the chance to have a good faith argument where they express points that others might disagree with (points that might be wrong, even) before getting dogpiled, there's no opportunity for growth.
MHWilliams
Member
That isn't even outrage. That's one poster saying "this frequently happens in threads about X topic" and others agreeing in relation to that post.
That's asynchronous communication.
That wasn't even a poster being wrong about a small thing. That was a poster stating a comment and others disagree-ing. That is literally conversation. What is the constructive dialogue that springs from the post in your example? In a thread about Sarkessian posting one-week of her worse harassment, what is the particular value of that post in the discussion?
You may have a point you're making, but that's an odd example to use.
Why would anyone say Lolita shouldn't have been written and couldn't be created today? In your specific case, a "hey, graphical sexual content" label might help others, as it has in games and film.
On your latter point, language is a fluid thing. I too, write for a living. Language changes. Daily, monthly, weekly. The words we use now aren't the words we used a decade, for various reasons. No one can prevent us from writing anything, outside of those who employ us. Period. Even then, there are tons of other platforms for your work.
Do you truly believe that using a word will lose you every platform you can publish on?
I suspect that you have misread her, since if you haven't she would be expressing some rather out of character opinions.
Maybe it is, because it's not a very valuable post. It's the continuation of a tangent that was already pretty off-topic in the thread, and there isn't really any insight in it. But I think there's still a dialogue that can take place there, which was represented by the first two posts responding to it.
I don't think that "this frequently happens in threads about X topic" accurately characterizes those posts. Lists like that (and by extension, the bingo card that showed up towards the end of the thread) are a way of refusing to engage by dismissing all users of that argument as a certain type of person, one who deserves ridicule and scorn. It's described as the "M.O. of GGers", and it's clear enough what kinds of people they are. It's a way of sniping at the poster's character.
I'd rather people not get thrown into categories before they have a chance to explain themselves, based solely on using one or two flawed arguments or poorly chosen words. If they're engaged in actual dialogue, they have a chance at developing through reflection, or better articulating themselves, the way your response helped me more clearly express my ideas.
Sometimes that engagement isn't rewarded, but I think positivity is worth the effort.
MHWilliams
Member
I did think the content seemed odd for Fiction.
I got you. I just thinking censoring is a bit strong, because we rarely run into something so completely... totalitarian? Things like "retard" naturally fell out of favor, as avoiding the negative connotation has become the norm.
I do agree there are those to bring down the hammer of Thor when they see certain words, but in my day-to-day life i find that to be more of an outlier.
I can agree with this. Well said.
The really ironic thing is that one of the main tenants of Anita Sarkeesian's videos is that games can make mistakes but not be bad games overall. You just seek out those wrongs to right rhem.
Yet in a discussion about her, you see people get immediately dismissed and lumped in with harassers and GGers because they repeated some line in a bingo chart made by someone who gets a boner at the thought of a witch hunt b
Yet in a discussion about her, you see people get immediately dismissed and lumped in with harassers and GGers because they repeated some line in a bingo chart made by someone who gets a boner at the thought of a witch hunt b
Yeah I agree -- seems to me like the internet has gotten worse in this regard over the past year or so. I'd probably be classified as a libertarian and I can't stomach it much these days. The feelings of moral superiority of the left have seemed to hit an all time high.
BobbyRobby
Member
I think this is largely a function of activists interacting less with people face to face. They spend more of their time online and form friends largely with people who reinforce their personal beliefs. Disagreements are taken more personally because of this.
I can't really think of an online community that is moderate nowadays. They tend to skew pretty heavily one way or another, and drown out the opposition.
I wonder what will happen as more people turn away from mainstream media. There's less of a collective culture now than before. I think people will become more splintered, and maybe create additional, viable political parties.
I can't really think of an online community that is moderate nowadays. They tend to skew pretty heavily one way or another, and drown out the opposition.
I wonder what will happen as more people turn away from mainstream media. There's less of a collective culture now than before. I think people will become more splintered, and maybe create additional, viable political parties.
That takes a lot of mental toughness to do, so props!
Okay, so to maybe get people up to speed since I dunno who actually knows this (but I'm sure you do Fiction, lol), crippled is a straight up slur to refer to people with physical disabilities (especially those with mobility issues). Like, think of the worst slur you know for any group, and that's what crippled is for physical disabilities. It's not like lame, which meant someone who couldn't walk and now mostly is used as uncool (though people still call me lame because they're poops
)Moving on: with creative writing, I definitely don't think there are any hard rules for what "should" be in a work of literature or not. I mean, we see other slurs in all sorts of acclaimed books that help us see what kind of discrimination people went through, or as something subversive in its own way. Sometimes, like you said, authors have to write things they would never say. Hell, even in third-person narrative the narrator might not say the things the author would say. Literature is just sooo fluid and so I can't say what's right or wrong. Every word has a proper context, every word has a place, and I would never tell someone not to write a word because it could have a powerful and positive impact used in the right way.
That being said, I don't see cripple as a metaphor any different than cripple as a slur. From a cripple's perspective, it's all a same, all a slur. Because really, cripple as a verb means to make someone unable to walk, and from that it became a metaphor for well, just about anything devastating. I even double checked Merriam-Webster cause that's how I am and it was all derivatives of "disabling" someone. When I see it used that way, I see someone saying, "hey, you see what this thing did to this thing here? well, now it's just as bad as lil." But I'm not bad, and despite society's insistence otherwise and going through hell with all the pain and therapy and dropping out, I've had to radically accept my body as good. Different, but good. So when we took that word back, when we got together and claimed cripple solidarity, that was sacred. That's why the word is a big deal to me, because I'm still called a cripple for using mobility aids, still have to make the decision to turn my mind from that every day.
But like I said, I can't say to you, "hey Fiction, never write the word cripple or you're a Bad person!!" because there are so many good reasons to write it. One day we could go to a library and read all sorts or crappy stuff turned awesome like A Modest Proposal and talk about it for days, that's how amazing language is. It's just that I personally think metaphors without context are not a good reason. They just make me wanna cry, lol.
That's is some freaking rough stuff to go through. I'd say more but I'm sure you've heard it all.
I definitely agree that censorship is not the option for works of creative writing, at all. Even if troublesome things are written, we can refute them. Discussion is good. We've had a good discussion, even if we don't see everything the same way! 
MidgarBlowedUp
Member
Good article. And I agree with it. It's the reason I don't bring up facts Sarkeesian gets wrong in some of her videos. Doesn't mean I disagree with her or hate her or something, it just means some of what she says is flawed. I mean, I can't fucking critique anybody? Screw that noise.
I don't really see it. I'll expand on this, but in light of Pepboy and Oddmorsel's comments just above (when I started writing this, at least) I think some setup is useful.
So, a common reaction to Chait's piece on the more liberal parts of the internet is that really he's just unhappy that people are allowed to criticize him, to call him out when he says something stupid, and so on. Chait's going to read these criticisms as being quite unfair - he understands himself to be in favor of (more-or-less) content neutral norms for speech that promote rational discourse, etc., etc., and of course he's okay with (non-harassing, threatening, etc.) calling out and even some mockery. Chait'll say it's a problem, though, when calling out and mockery end up replacing reasonable discussion, especially when they're used so as to prevent people from speaking up at all.
Where this gets a little tricky is that people disagree about what "reasonable discussion" looks like. If someone says something really stupid or rude or whatever, nobody thinks they have much right to be reasonably engaged. Chait would agree that if Hannah Rosin had instead written a piece about how Muslim anchor babies are going to have overthrown the US government and imposed sharia law by 2020, a reaction consisting mostly of mocking tweets would be pretty appropriate.
Now, we don't all agree precisely on what's reasonable, but probably it's a good idea to try to be humble in making this determination. Maybe we're wrong. And certainly we'd like others to extend us the same courtesy. I like to think that I'm pretty charitable when it comes to this sort of thing. I spend a lot of time talking to people I disagree with about things we disagree on, where actually we probably each think the other's view is monstrous, and these conversations are enjoyable and respectful and all that good stuff, and we leave each thinking the other is intelligent and in-some-sense well-meaning. This is all some throat-clearing on the way to saying that sometimes we do get to draw a line and say that some contribution is really kind of silly, and when even I don't see the value in someone's speech you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone even broadly sympathetic to my politics that it's not deserving of mockery.
Moving on to the actual complaint: I think dogpiling on gaf is a problem. I think lots of posters are too quick to conclude the worst about other posters. I think lots of posters, including ones I basically agree with on the issues, spend too much time just trying to disrespect people who disagree with them and are a lot more interested in arguing than in discussing.
That said, I don't see the value in the linked post. In a lot of earlier Sarkeesian threads that sort of post would have gotten someone banned, and when I saw that in the ban record I'd have nodded and gone on with my day without a second thought. What we've got here is someone coming into a thread about the harassment received by a particular woman only in order to say that they don't like the woman in question. That's it. There's some boilerplate afterwards aimed at preventing the sort of reaction the post ended up getting, but that's obviously not the meat of the post. This poster's substantive contribution to the conversation was that Anita Sarkeesian "just kind of feels fake", that she's not a ""real" gamer" (scare quotes in original). And this is in a context (which I'm pretty sure this poster was well aware of) of many, many people expressing basically this opinion about the same woman in lots of other threads where individual people's opinions of the woman weren't really the topic. If the posts in reply to this post are lazy or uncharitable, how much worse is the post itself? If the response is a dogpile, unfairly judging the poster, the post itself is part of a mountain of the same off-topic, uninteresting, lazy, and poorly-expressed judgment about someone the poster really knows very little about. This is not the sort of speech that gives rise to "constructive dialogue" and "good faith discussions".
I want to end by suggesting that if you think that "PC culture" is some huge problem, if you think that valuable speech is being chilled, it really weakens your case when you rally around examples like this. The principled rallying around even really silly speech is fine to rile up people who already agree with you, but what you want is for reasonable people who don't see what the problem is to look at your examples and think to themselves "oh God what have we wrought?". If the case against "PC culture" is that posts like the one linked aren't treated respectfully, it's really easy for people to respond in the way that so much of the internet has responded to Chait. "It was a bad post, and what you don't like is just that people mock silly, value-less speech coming from that perspective in exactly the way that you would mock silly, value-less speech coming from others". There's a reason that the people who want to argue that Chait just doesn't like being criticized focus on the bits where he complains about prominent writers being the victims of hashtag mockery for saying that the patriarchy is dead or where he kind of seems to be upset about the existence of a conversation about microaggressions or trigger warnings. There's a reason that Chait himself spends a lot of time on the much more concerning stuff, like the anti-abortion protester or the student satirist, but he ends up having to move on to noticeably weaker examples because it's very hard to argue that we've got a widespread problem otherwise.
pants
Member
I actually don't mind these people's arguments, I just find their method of argument infuriating. Always feels more like being told how to think and if you don't comply, you'll be shut down with memes and meaningless buzzwords, rather than an actual bidirectional exchange of ideas.
It's like they feel no burden to support their argument and feel that their outrage is support enough.
Vermillion
Banned
I'm all for trans rights. But do you really think that this is the right response?
Women can be discriminated against because of their biology. It's not wrong to talk about that discrimination just because women with a different biology may not have the same experiences.
EDIT:
Keep it 100, Slate article.
The problem is you're not allowed to criticize the mistakes or you get called for "tone policing".
What happens then is the moderates leave, leaving only the nutters, who proceed to radicalize themselves even more and make themselves even more toxic to everyone else. And yes, that leads to the dogpiling here as mentioned above.
These things do tend to be pendulums that way too far one way then the other- the cobweb theory of economics applies here as well. Right now it is swinging too far in favor of political correctness. The one thing the SJ crowd often fails to get is that in order to win real, lasting change- you need to support of people of the middle, not to antagonize them unnecessarily.
The good thing about this Chait article is that it has produced some great rebuttals and clarifications by many different people. It's important to be self-critical and have look inwards and I definitely think a lot of writers have done this in their rebuttals to Chait.
The bad thing about this Chait article is that the ones who are in dire need of listening and to consider the experiences of others will entrench themselves even further and feel even more vindicated in being offended by the ones who challenge their way of speech and opinion. And this vindication stems from some far-out incidents on some random campus or in a classroom. So these people will go on about their merry way to continue inserting themselves in a conversation they usually don't have much experience with, instead of stopping up and listening to what is being argued in order to proceed having a natural discourse.
The bad thing about this Chait article is that the ones who are in dire need of listening and to consider the experiences of others will entrench themselves even further and feel even more vindicated in being offended by the ones who challenge their way of speech and opinion. And this vindication stems from some far-out incidents on some random campus or in a classroom. So these people will go on about their merry way to continue inserting themselves in a conversation they usually don't have much experience with, instead of stopping up and listening to what is being argued in order to proceed having a natural discourse.
pants
Member
Another thing that puts me off talking with people: I really don't like that people make an argument about a fictional group of people in abstraction before they even appear in a conversation. The conversation inevitably becomes about this phantom group instead of the actual people participating in a conversation and their opinions. This isn't limited to the 'PC crowd' either. I see so many people who want to discuss things drowned out by people constructing a hypothetical extreme to raise their ire against that isn't at all represented by anybody in the conversation, yet anyone now participating has to choose an extreme side or will just be ignored.
Agreeing with some viewpoints should also not mean that you automatically agree with every other viewpoint the speaker made. I often also see speakers dismissed with "yeah but he/she also said this" when it doesn't tie into the topic at all.
Endlessly frustrating.
Agreeing with some viewpoints should also not mean that you automatically agree with every other viewpoint the speaker made. I often also see speakers dismissed with "yeah but he/she also said this" when it doesn't tie into the topic at all.
Endlessly frustrating.
@Fiction: It seemed to me like you lack alternatives to words like 'dumb' and 'stupid'. And I occasionally use those descriptors of situations as well, so I'm not criticizing you or anything. But in case we want to have alternatives or expand our vocabulary of dismissive descriptors or whatever we want to call it, there are a ton of stuff we could use (scroll down to after the middle): http://www.autistichoya.com/p/ableist-words-and-terms-to-avoid.html Just wanted to compliment the conversation, but I apologize if my contribution is unnecessary/unwarranted.
This is the important take-away from this discussion. I hope no one will actually dismiss future criticisms or arguments because of this, but I do predict it will happen (or it already has happened).
This is the important take-away from this discussion. I hope no one will actually dismiss future criticisms or arguments because of this, but I do predict it will happen (or it already has happened).
dapperbandit
Banned
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions..."
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Ami's bingo game struck a nerve, huh
pants
Member
Why is this necessary? I was enjoying reading everyone's thoughts till this.
I'm curious, what are those problems these left-wing students are having that you don't find "real"? And what constitutes a "real" problem? I want to understand.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Don't let me stop you. It's not like what I was responding to was some earth-shattering observation.
More on topic, I've given up on any serious discussion online largely due to the points in the article and in some of the rebuttals; you generally have people who are genuinely interested in learning something/making change for the better, people who are loudly against it, and people somewhere in the middle. I got tired of trying to educate people through a thick slime of opposition and admittedly fell to the allure of snark. I don't take it personally when people do the same to me online because the chance of anyone affecting my real life is pretty slim. I leave the education to those with the links and aptitude for it and try not to be too abrasive, but hey
I seriously can't believe Chait attempts to link the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the muddied discussion of free speech with a PC police run amok with examples of a cancelled theatre play, a smashing of an anti-abortionist protester's sign, some people in a Facebook group felt disinclined to participate, and a college student getting fired from a newspaper.
I have no idea that this 'PC police' wield such incredible power. It comes across to me as Chait and left-winged/liberal people agreeing with him feel hurt by being criticized on the grounds of identity politics in a regular discourse.
Nonetheless, I think it's a really important conversation or topic and it's something that I always try to keep in mind when touching on this topic, but I don't think Chait is the most capable person to fruitfully kickstart a discussion on rhetorical diplomacy and misguided/exclusionary "social justice" endeavours.
No, not at all. I understand what you mean and I feel the same way, depending on who I am with or what situation I am in.
I have no idea that this 'PC police' wield such incredible power. It comes across to me as Chait and left-winged/liberal people agreeing with him feel hurt by being criticized on the grounds of identity politics in a regular discourse.
Nonetheless, I think it's a really important conversation or topic and it's something that I always try to keep in mind when touching on this topic, but I don't think Chait is the most capable person to fruitfully kickstart a discussion on rhetorical diplomacy and misguided/exclusionary "social justice" endeavours.
Does that make me a hypocrite?
No, not at all. I understand what you mean and I feel the same way, depending on who I am with or what situation I am in.
http://mattbruenig.com/2012/05/10/purity-leftism/
This came up in my feed at the same time as the Chait piece and pretty accurately describes the sorts of issues that come up when dealing w/ those types. It's politics as performance/self-indulgence, rather than as an actual push for real change
fushi
Member
Honest question: are you not bothered by the fact that you are fanning the flames and basically helping lower the level of discourse on a subject you actually care about?
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