If only both parties had more defense, then we wouldn't have to worry about it.
But to the actual thing you were saying, I'm definitively against offense being a categorical position of power. We should be very careful giving too much credence merely to an individual's offense. Else what argument do you have against, say, a hate group that is offended by gay marriage? Therefore I agree, offense shouldn't give you any particular power or suggest any behavioral change. If things did work that way, it would be a mad world.
Then we go to context (especially in institutional situations where it's both easier and way harder to understand the interior workings). Do hate groups have a history of being lynched by gays?
I hope you don't mind, but I'm actually not interested in hate groups as a specific. They're an example to show that offense in itself does not (or should not) equate to any sort of power in any given exchange.
I was making an allegory. You seem to have an expertise over the concept, so I'm going to let you understand how the argument works.
I don't see how your allegory ties into the point well enough to make a statement on it. I would appreciate a clarification of how it ties in to the dynamics of offense (specifically in regards to what I was speaking of, as to whether being offended in and of itself should give a person power in the dynamic).
Frankiedarling on
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
My feelings on the reaction of the community ("It's not sexist unless the person saying it hates women deep in his heart, so it can't be sexist because obviously he doesn't hate women!") is a different matter. Because that is some borderline sociopathic shit.
Why is taking the motivation of the speaker into consideration "sociopathic shit"?
This definition of sexism requires that we know the hearts of all speakers. So nothing can ever be sexist, because we can never know that.
Sexism: solved!
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
My feelings on the reaction of the community ("It's not sexist unless the person saying it hates women deep in his heart, so it can't be sexist because obviously he doesn't hate women!") is a different matter. Because that is some borderline sociopathic shit.
Why is taking the motivation of the speaker into consideration "sociopathic shit"?
This definition of sexism requires that we know the hearts of all speakers. So nothing can ever be sexist, because we can never know that.
Sexism: solved!
I added an edit:
Because it seems like the reason some people are up in arms about this whole thing isn't so much the particular linguistic utterance, but rather than underlying motivation it belies and its role as a component of the larger social issues of "sexism" that cause planned parenthood to be defunded, women to be beaten, women to be paid less, etc. If the guy wasn't expressing those sentiments, then isn't that relevant?
Or is it more that his statement can be taken by others to be an endorsement of their hatred of women, so no one should say anything that a bigot could construe as support?
Edit: And, actually, I'd be ok with declaring sexism to be solved. Because then we could get over this stupid shit and focus upon actual, concrete problems.
If a person wants to defund planned parenthood, it really doesn't matter if the motivation is sexist or not. The problem is that planned fucking parenthood is being defunded. The problem isn't the sexism. Sexism is just an assumed cause.
I realize that it's easier to deal with life if we can fabricate a pattern, give that pattern a name, reify that pattern, and then deal with particulars in terms of the universal under which that particular is subsumed. It's a product of evolution that works really well.
But sometimes this shit gets out of hand, and we focus too much on the vague general and lose the particular.
If we completely deleted the notion of sexism, we could still say that defunding planned parenthood, beating women, paying women less, trying to quash the female vote, and a wealth of other situations are still problematic.
We'd just have to deal with them as unique situations, rather than as heads of some fabricated vague general.
The thing about the Hemingway comment is: I wasn't actually "offended" by it, not if you mean I felt a sharp punch to the gut or an emotional reaction or whatever. My reaction to the comment is "stupid sexist shit" and my expectation is that Hemingway feel embarrassed and go "sorry" like an adult.
Well, instead we got the standard non-apology PR statement, but hey, they backtracked at least.
If only both parties had more defense, then we wouldn't have to worry about it.
But to the actual thing you were saying, I'm definitively against offense being a categorical position of power. We should be very careful giving too much credence merely to an individual's offense. Else what argument do you have against, say, a hate group that is offended by gay marriage? Therefore I agree, offense shouldn't give you any particular power or suggest any behavioral change. If things did work that way, it would be a mad world.
Then we go to context (especially in institutional situations where it's both easier and way harder to understand the interior workings). Do hate groups have a history of being lynched by gays?
I hope you don't mind, but I'm actually not interested in hate groups as a specific. They're an example to show that offense in itself does not (or should not) equate to any sort of power in any given exchange.
I was making an allegory. You seem to have an expertise over the concept, so I'm going to let you understand how the argument works.
I don't see how your allegory ties into the point well enough to make a statement on it. I would appreciate a clarification of how it ties in to the dynamics of offense (specifically in regards to what I was speaking of, as to whether being offended in and of itself should give a person power in the dynamic).
There are certain power inequalities that come into play when it comes to offense. This puts something past 'I am offended by gays getting married' into being a part of a context in which one group is kept down. It isn't about power, so much as it is about understanding the context in which offense comes into play. A woman getting offended by a rape joke should be taken seriously because rape jokes take place in a context of constant implicit and explicit violence against women. The solution isn't to stop saying everything, it's to listen when someone tells you that you're being a dick.
Something that most people don't do because the offended person doesn't usually have that much power in any given situation. If they did then this conversation wouldn't have gone on for 50 pages.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
My feelings on the reaction of the community ("It's not sexist unless the person saying it hates women deep in his heart, so it can't be sexist because obviously he doesn't hate women!") is a different matter. Because that is some borderline sociopathic shit.
Why is taking the motivation of the speaker into consideration "sociopathic shit"?
This definition of sexism requires that we know the hearts of all speakers. So nothing can ever be sexist, because we can never know that.
Sexism: solved!
I added an edit:
Because it seems like the reason some people are up in arms about this whole thing isn't so much the particular linguistic utterance, but rather than underlying motivation it belies and its role as a component of the larger social issues of "sexism" that cause planned parenthood to be defunded, women to be beaten, women to be paid less, etc. If the guy wasn't expressing those sentiments, then isn't that relevant?
Or is it more that his statement can be taken by others to be an endorsement of their hatred of women, so no one should say anything that a bigot could construe as support?
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
"Please don't say that" should be a sufficient word to Person A that they stop doing that.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
My feelings on the reaction of the community ("It's not sexist unless the person saying it hates women deep in his heart, so it can't be sexist because obviously he doesn't hate women!") is a different matter. Because that is some borderline sociopathic shit.
Why is taking the motivation of the speaker into consideration "sociopathic shit"?
This definition of sexism requires that we know the hearts of all speakers. So nothing can ever be sexist, because we can never know that.
Sexism: solved!
I added an edit:
Because it seems like the reason some people are up in arms about this whole thing isn't so much the particular linguistic utterance, but rather than underlying motivation it belies and its role as a component of the larger social issues of "sexism" that cause planned parenthood to be defunded, women to be beaten, women to be paid less, etc. If the guy wasn't expressing those sentiments, then isn't that relevant?
No because we can't possibly know that because we can't see into his brain.
Or is it more that his statement can be taken by others to be an endorsement of their hatred of women, so no one should say anything that a bigot could construe as support?
You say that like it's a bad thing. (and I'm not condoning censorship, but a world where bigots feel more uncomfortable putting down unprivileged groups seems awesome)
My feelings on the reaction of the community ("It's not sexist unless the person saying it hates women deep in his heart, so it can't be sexist because obviously he doesn't hate women!") is a different matter. Because that is some borderline sociopathic shit.
Why is taking the motivation of the speaker into consideration "sociopathic shit"?
This definition of sexism requires that we know the hearts of all speakers. So nothing can ever be sexist, because we can never know that.
Sexism: solved!
I added an edit:
Because it seems like the reason some people are up in arms about this whole thing isn't so much the particular linguistic utterance, but rather than underlying motivation it belies and its role as a component of the larger social issues of "sexism" that cause planned parenthood to be defunded, women to be beaten, women to be paid less, etc. If the guy wasn't expressing those sentiments, then isn't that relevant?
Or is it more that his statement can be taken by others to be an endorsement of their hatred of women, so no one should say anything that a bigot could construe as support?
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
"Please don't say that" should be a sufficient word to Person A that they stop doing that.
Why are you offended when I call you stupid? Are you trying to censor me? I have a right to say that you are an idiot! Plus if we stopped at things that offended each other then we couldn't say anything!
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
Oh this is perfectly, wonderfully written.
Person A isn't "contributing something toxic".
The toxicity results from Player B's brain. Because that's what you wrote: "When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it."
What you just wrote is that the problem is Player B's brain.
Unfortunately, you got confused about the causal story of the feeling of dumbness at the end.
Player A says, "You are dumb."
Player B's brain groups that statement with other statments.
This results in Player B thinking that Player B is dumb.
That's what you just wrote.
I assume you don't actually want to maintain that. So, you may want to change your story.
However, if you change your story, then you're going to place Player B's self-conception in the hands of Player A, and that's problematic as well.
My guess is you'd want to have Player B's self-conception to be wholly self-controlled and self-regulated to the entity of Player B....but if that were the case it wouldn't be influenced by what other people say.
And that's the conception of persons that I'm trying to offer...which you think is flawed.
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Why is it that when it comes to Hemingway's statements we lack any mechanism by which to intuit even a likely underlying psychological reality?
But when it comes to declaring motivations for those espousing dissent within the thread it's a simple matter to determine they are lazy and committed to evading criticism?
If only both parties had more defense, then we wouldn't have to worry about it.
But to the actual thing you were saying, I'm definitively against offense being a categorical position of power. We should be very careful giving too much credence merely to an individual's offense. Else what argument do you have against, say, a hate group that is offended by gay marriage? Therefore I agree, offense shouldn't give you any particular power or suggest any behavioral change. If things did work that way, it would be a mad world.
Then we go to context (especially in institutional situations where it's both easier and way harder to understand the interior workings). Do hate groups have a history of being lynched by gays?
I hope you don't mind, but I'm actually not interested in hate groups as a specific. They're an example to show that offense in itself does not (or should not) equate to any sort of power in any given exchange.
I was making an allegory. You seem to have an expertise over the concept, so I'm going to let you understand how the argument works.
I don't see how your allegory ties into the point well enough to make a statement on it. I would appreciate a clarification of how it ties in to the dynamics of offense (specifically in regards to what I was speaking of, as to whether being offended in and of itself should give a person power in the dynamic).
There are certain power inequalities that come into play when it comes to offense. This puts something past 'I am offended by gays getting married' into being a part of a context in which one group is kept down. It isn't about power, so much as it is about understanding the context in which offense comes into play. A woman getting offended by a rape joke should be taken seriously because rape jokes take place in a context of constant implicit and explicit violence against women. The solution isn't to stop saying everything, it's to listen when someone tells you that you're being a dick.
Something that most people don't do because the offended person doesn't usually have that much power in any given situation. If they did then this conversation wouldn't have gone on for 50 pages.
Ok, so offense on its own doesn't give anyone any sort of power. I'm glad we agree. Once you start to add arbitrary modifiers, they become the defining factors instead of offense itself (if we assume offense is the baseline).
On to the details of what you brought up. I'm very unlikely to change my behavior for someone who calls me a dick. They can go fuck themselves, honestly, as they're judging the morality of my behavior versus their level of offense. Which, again, means I don't care. They're being a bigger dick then I am, by far.
Opposite to that: I am more likely to change my behavior for someone who tells me they're being hurt by my behavior. This sort of entreaty makes no judgment as to the morality of my behavior, which instantly elevates it from the "go and fuck thyself" pile to the "let's consider this" stack. Of course, this has to be judged by cost/benefit on an individual basis. If someone's idea of my hurting them is the bed rattling during nightly fun-and-tumble, I may deign my personal sexual gratification above their auditory annoyance. C'est la vie.
To use your example, someone telling me to not tell a rape joke because "it's wrong" will get no action out of me beyond a middle finger. Someone telling me they're triggered by a rape joke will probably never hear one from me again. That's the difference between making a moral judgement on someone and appealing to basic empathy. For all the talk of empathy in these sorts of threads, the entreaties I see are almost entirely based on moral judgment.
So the situation only works in fictional situations where you can assign objective emotional value to statements.
In the real world, such an objective value is meaningless because any statement can have its own value to different persons. So you can try to understand the world through different people's eyes (understanding your own privileges and the blocks that they form against understanding) and understand the context they occur in. Or you can keep the world to pedantic theory and try to find a rule that's perfect.
edit: Arbitrary modifiers like whether or not you hold institutional power over a person. Goodnight guys I'm done with this goosery for the day.
Ethan Smith on
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
Oh this is perfectly, wonderfully written.
Person A isn't "contributing something toxic".
The toxicity results from Player B's brain. Because that's what you wrote: "When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it."
What you just wrote is that the problem is Player B's brain.
Unfortunately, you got confused about the causal story of the feeling of dumbness at the end.
Player A says, "You are dumb."
Player B's brain groups that statement with other statments.
This results in Player B thinking that Player B is dumb.
That's what you just wrote.
I assume you don't actually want to maintain that. So, you may want to change your story.
However, if you change your story, then you're going to place Player B's self-conception in the hands of Player A, and that's problematic as well.
My guess is you'd want to have Player B's self-conception to be wholly self-controlled and self-regulated to the entity of Player B....but if that were the case it wouldn't be influenced by what other people say.
And that's the conception of persons that I'm trying to offer...which you think is flawed.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say? Is it, "If your brain is being damaged by verbal abuse, then tell your brain to cut it out!"
Because if so... would it be it fair to say you haven't read up on much neurology?
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Why is it that when it comes to Hemingway's statements we lack any mechanism by which to intuit even a likely underlying psychological reality?
But when it comes to declaring motivations for those espousing dissent within the thread it's a simple matter to determine they are lazy and committed to evading criticism?
Because the underlying psychological reality of Hemingway neither negates the sexism of his statement nor is particularly relevant?
Whereas the motivations of people posting in a thread is always a part of a the discussion therein.
shryke on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I don't know if you can or not, because I can't read your mind. Therefore, if I say something that you get offended by, and you say "hey Remi that's a shitty thing to say", the thing for me to do would be to say "I apologize for having offended you", instead of assuming that they're getting offended for some idiotic reason. Do you know why I would take them at their word about it?.
I think you're mis-characterizing the position of your interlocutors within the thread - what do you mean when you say "assuming they're getting offended for some idiotic reason".
It has been the case that the reasons offered for offense were I sufficiently convincing, it is not a matter of assumption.
I am happy to understand that this might simply be a misstatement.
I don't know if you can or not, because I can't read your mind. Therefore, if I say something that you get offended by, and you say "hey Remi that's a shitty thing to say", the thing for me to do would be to say "I apologize for having offended you", instead of assuming that they're getting offended for some idiotic reason. Do you know why I would take them at their word about it?.
I think you're mis-characterizing the position of your interlocutors within the thread - what do you mean when you say "assuming they're getting offended for some idiotic reason".
It has been the case that the reasons offered for offense were I sufficiently convincing, it is not a matter of assumption.
I am happy to understand that this might simply be a misstatement.
It wasn't a couple of pages ago that someone accused a blogger of only writing about a subject because it's her job to be morally offended all the time.
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
Oh this is perfectly, wonderfully written.
Person A isn't "contributing something toxic".
The toxicity results from Player B's brain. Because that's what you wrote: "When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it."
What you just wrote is that the problem is Player B's brain.
Unfortunately, you got confused about the causal story of the feeling of dumbness at the end.
Player A says, "You are dumb."
Player B's brain groups that statement with other statments.
This results in Player B thinking that Player B is dumb.
That's what you just wrote.
I assume you don't actually want to maintain that. So, you may want to change your story.
However, if you change your story, then you're going to place Player B's self-conception in the hands of Player A, and that's problematic as well.
My guess is you'd want to have Player B's self-conception to be wholly self-controlled and self-regulated to the entity of Player B....but if that were the case it wouldn't be influenced by what other people say.
And that's the conception of persons that I'm trying to offer...which you think is flawed.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say? Is it, "If your brain is being damaged by verbal abuse, then tell your brain to cut it out!"
Because if so... would it be it fair to say you haven't read up on much neurology?
I'm trying to think of the shortest way to say it.
When I feel sad, the sadness is the result of my personal interpretation of various situations. Some of those situations were caused by natural events. Others were caused by things persons did or said.
But, at the end, my feeling of sadness results from my interpretation.
I have control over how I interpret things that other people say and do.
I take this to be an empowering notion.
And it's the realization that resulted in my never being offended.
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
Oh this is perfectly, wonderfully written.
Person A isn't "contributing something toxic".
The toxicity results from Player B's brain. Because that's what you wrote: "When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it."
What you just wrote is that the problem is Player B's brain.
Unfortunately, you got confused about the causal story of the feeling of dumbness at the end.
Player A says, "You are dumb."
Player B's brain groups that statement with other statments.
This results in Player B thinking that Player B is dumb.
That's what you just wrote.
I assume you don't actually want to maintain that. So, you may want to change your story.
However, if you change your story, then you're going to place Player B's self-conception in the hands of Player A, and that's problematic as well.
My guess is you'd want to have Player B's self-conception to be wholly self-controlled and self-regulated to the entity of Player B....but if that were the case it wouldn't be influenced by what other people say.
And that's the conception of persons that I'm trying to offer...which you think is flawed.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say? Is it, "If your brain is being damaged by verbal abuse, then tell your brain to cut it out!"
Because if so... would it be it fair to say you haven't read up on much neurology?
I'm trying to think of the shortest way to say it.
When I feel sad, the sadness is the result of my personal interpretation of various situations. Some of those situations were caused by natural events. Others were caused by things persons did or said.
But, at the end, my feeling of sadness results from my interpretation.
I have control over how I interpret things that other people say and do.
I take this to be an empowering notion.
And it's the realization that resulted in my never being offended.
Suffering from depression? Find another way to feel, sadsack! You have the power to cure all mental disease if you just think positive!
So the answer to the question, "_J_ is aggressively ignorant about neurology" is "yes."
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
Oh this is perfectly, wonderfully written.
Person A isn't "contributing something toxic".
The toxicity results from Player B's brain. Because that's what you wrote: "When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it."
What you just wrote is that the problem is Player B's brain.
Unfortunately, you got confused about the causal story of the feeling of dumbness at the end.
Player A says, "You are dumb."
Player B's brain groups that statement with other statments.
This results in Player B thinking that Player B is dumb.
That's what you just wrote.
I assume you don't actually want to maintain that. So, you may want to change your story.
However, if you change your story, then you're going to place Player B's self-conception in the hands of Player A, and that's problematic as well.
My guess is you'd want to have Player B's self-conception to be wholly self-controlled and self-regulated to the entity of Player B....but if that were the case it wouldn't be influenced by what other people say.
And that's the conception of persons that I'm trying to offer...which you think is flawed.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say? Is it, "If your brain is being damaged by verbal abuse, then tell your brain to cut it out!"
Because if so... would it be it fair to say you haven't read up on much neurology?
I'm trying to think of the shortest way to say it.
When I feel sad, the sadness is the result of my personal interpretation of various situations. Some of those situations were caused by natural events. Others were caused by things persons did or said.
But, at the end, my feeling of sadness results from my interpretation.
I have control over how I interpret things that other people say and do.
I take this to be an empowering notion.
And it's the realization that resulted in my never being offended.
Suffering from depression? Find another way to feel, sadsack! You have the power to cure all mental disease if you just think positive!
I'm guessing you've never been in therapy.
They tend to not say "You have no control over yourself."
Actually, not to take a side here, but the concepts _J_ is espousing are fairly core to the concept of REBT. It is, of course, up in the air if you AGREE with them, but it's a fairly defined thing, as it were. (Unless I've had a few too many "refreshing cold beverages" tonight... Ahem.)
As a form of disclosure, I agree with him in that I find the concept of "I control my responses to any given situation" to be somewhat empowering, but I don't find other points of view to necessarily be invalid.
Carry on!
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Why is it that when it comes to Hemingway's statements we lack any mechanism by which to intuit even a likely underlying psychological reality?
But when it comes to declaring motivations for those espousing dissent within the thread it's a simple matter to determine they are lazy and committed to evading criticism?
Because the underlying psychological reality of Hemingway neither negates the sexism of his statement nor is particularly relevant?
Whereas the motivations of people posting in a thread is always a part of a the discussion therein.
The argument presented is not "it is irrelevant to the issue" it is "the counter-argument is wrong because we cannot read minds".
I'm not suggesting that or the other is the correct position, I am pointing it put that you can't have it both ways. Even if I were to stipulate that Hemingway's statements were unacceptably sexist it would not resolve the dilemma.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I don't know if you can or not, because I can't read your mind. Therefore, if I say something that you get offended by, and you say "hey Remi that's a shitty thing to say", the thing for me to do would be to say "I apologize for having offended you", instead of assuming that they're getting offended for some idiotic reason. Do you know why I would take them at their word about it?.
I think you're mis-characterizing the position of your interlocutors within the thread - what do you mean when you say "assuming they're getting offended for some idiotic reason".
It has been the case that the reasons offered for offense were I sufficiently convincing, it is not a matter of assumption.
I am happy to understand that this might simply be a misstatement.
It wasn't a couple of pages ago that someone accused a blogger of only writing about a subject because it's her job to be morally offended all the time.
That was a lot of pages ago and didn't form the basis of Deebaser's critique of anjuli's (sorry new person, I know I got that wrong) argument.
Do you remember when I explained how gender and racial based insults don't exist in bubbles, that context matters [way back on page 29].
Well, gender and racial assignments of classless objects or situations have the same property.
The only difference between them calling this "black person mode" and "girlfriend mode" is that society has a harder time recognizing the second as unacceptable than it does the first. They're both class based assignments of classless objects.
These class based assignments assign the negative connotations to the object and in this situation the class based assignment. And, in this case, we have a clear reasoning to believe that the object in question is the "lesser" of the objects being assigned the class based name.
It does not matter if the assignment was intended to be sexist. It does not matter if the people who made the assignment are sexist. What matters is that the class based assignment was sexist.
But the class wasn't even women. It was "girlfriends." I think that the reasonable way to read the statement is "girlfriends who don't really play games mode." Anything else seems like trying to pick a fight on the basis that language is imprecise. I don't see why we would ever elevate the tool of language over its purpose of communicating ideas and allowing others to understand what we are thinking.
But "girlfriends" having nothing to do with video games, or that mode of video games.
Except for that one way they do have something to do with video games, but that's the "girls can't play video games" meme. And that's sexist.
Even if he meant "girlfriends who don't really play games mode.", then what does that mean for the guys? That they don't need the mode? They're just better?
I agree that he misspoke, and probably doesn't mean what he said he meant, that doesn't change the fact that what he said was sexist. (doesn't mean he's a sexist though)
When I read his statement, it was very clear to me that he meant it was a way to get your girlfriend who doesn't like videogames to play coop with you instead of just sitting on the couch board while you play. This is a well known concept that I think absolutely is true in many (but nowhere near all) cases. I honestly feel like people who are reading this to say anything different are just looking for something to be mad about. If his original statement had been "get your girlfriend who doesn't like videogames to play coop with you instead of just sitting on the couch board while you play mode" would that be offensive?
Hardly anyone perpetrating discrimination is aware they are doing it. Even the truly terrible right wing demagogues don't think so.
We literally cannot imagine what thing people in the future might find us terrible for.
Intent is irrelevant.
I am WAY behind in this thread (I haven't read more than a few pages from when the topic was gender norms) but am kind of amazed that the topic is still the girlfriend mode comment.
I think intent is extremely important if our concern is precission in communicaton, and an honest evaluation of what people are saying. In a perfect world, we would be able to communicate the direct content of our thoughts and noone would ever misunderstand what anyone was thinking. We don't live in that world though, so we are stuck with the imprecise tool of language, and with the fact that for a number of reasons we tend to have words which can carry varying (and often nuanced) meanings. If we try to interpret statements divorced from the speaker's intent, then we are just exacerbating the problems inherrent to language, instead of trying to overcome them. The word "Shalom" means (among other things) hello and goodbye in Hebrew. If we decide that intent is irrelevant in interpretting language, then every time two people see each other and say "Shalom" we have no way of knowing if they are greeting each other or if one or both of them is being rude and saying "goodbye" immeadiately on seeing the other. This does not strike me as behavior that we want to encourage.
I think a good rule of thumb when interpretting a vague and potentially offensive statement is to figure out if the speaker seems to intend offense. If he does not, then don't interpret him as having said something offensive.
If we're concerned about assigning blame then we would need to look at intent. Luckily, we don't need to be concerned with that.
What we are concerned with is the mountain of scientific evidence that sexist attitdues, assumptions, and stereotypes permiate the consciousness of women and men, and that in turn causes problems, harm, for both men and women.
So when "women are incompetent" is a trope that is subtly reinforced wherever women go, even if it's just jokes or teasing, even if it's just because it's a convinient trope to go to for lazy comedy filmmakers, even if it's just a math teacher who is concerned that his female students won't do as well, and ends up communicating his expectations regarding women and men to his students (without meaning to), it ends up actually making people believe that "women are incompetent." It doesn't matter how much of that is intentional or unintentional. It doesn't even matter if ALL of it is unintentional. The harm is still done.
Therefore, when we see that message, that science has proven actually exists almost everywhere in our society, when we see someone dropping that message accidentally, then it is kind of important that we just tell them not to.
We don't need to make this a reflection that the person doing it is a bad person, any more than a teacher is angry at her students when they give a wrong answer. The point is to educate and move on.
It isn't just about assigning blame though, its about precision in communication. I am saying that if a statement could be read to be sexist or could be read to not be sexist, then you should not just say "it's sexist because the words COULD be sexist" if the intention was not sexist. Quite frankly, looking at words in isolation and calling sexism if the words could be read that way strikes me as really bad faith.
As has been pointed out ad nauseam, using gendered language to talk about an even that is genderless is sexism. It's just about as basic a definition as you can get. You can argue about whether or not it was simply trivial and didn't matter, you can't argue about whether it's sexist or not. The definition is pretty clean and easy to grasp.
sex·ism /ˈsɛksɪzəm/ Show Spelled[sek-siz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles.
2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially, such discrimination directed against women.
Edit: actually, by trying to change the definition of sexism based on intent or how you feel about someone, you're making communication less clear, not more so. Stick with the definition.
And I am saying that it wasn't using gendered language to describe something genderless. He was referring to a common situation in which a guy wishes his nongamer girlfriend would play the game, and is saying that this is a way to get her into it. Since there are more male gamers than female gamers if we exclude things like MMOs and social/iphone games, I don't think it is accurate to call this a nongendered situation.
Except I am a girl without a boyfriend who plays video games? And there are guys who never played a game before, who would need an easy mode to play a game the first time? So yeah, it's a nongendered situation. "Newbie" is not synonymous with "girlfriend", not matter how big the statistic is for girlfriends who don't play video games. Unless it's literally all girlfriends, which we know it is not.
"The term is not gendered" or "the situation is gendered" are both equally specious.
He was referring to a specific gendered situation. I don't see why you would read it as a categorical statement that all girlfriends and only girlfriends will use this mode.
A better question is why an individual would take a comment about a vague general to be aimed at their particular person.
The guy was not talking about you.
He was talking about a caricatured version of a vague general.
Like how black people love watermelon?
Exactly.
Edit: Really. Life becomes so much easier once you realize this.
It's sad that I can't tell if you're serious or not.
I don't get upset when other persons make disparaging remarks about general categories to which I could consider myself belonging.
I sometimes get upset when persons make disparaging remarks about me.
I assume you don't want a bunch of anecdotes. But, yeah, life becomes far easier when you don't take comments about "men" or "grad students" or "gamers" to be about yourself. They are made about vague, general categories.
And I am not a vague, general category.
Well it's easy to talk about how racism and sexism don't hurt anybody when you're not one of the classes of people who regularly have to suffer the effects.
I never said "racism and sexism don't hurt anybody".
Particular persons are harmed sometimes.
That harm sometimes results from sentiments that can be categorized as "racist" or "sexist".
I think that if we clarified most of the terms utilized in this conversation, and started talking about particular instances and persons rather than these completely vague general notions, then things would go much smoother.
It's as if person have this idea of "sexism", whatever the fuck that is, walking around with a stick hitting "women", whatever the fuck that is.
Particular person makes a particular statement about a general category of "girlfriends" with respect to a general category of "gaming".
How has that personally affected any particular woman? Point to the actual harm.
This was discussed back on page 52 between Arch and HamHamJ
So don't invent something here please. No one has said shit about the fact that this character has a skill tree geared towards newer players. No one gives a shit about that.
What people are pissed off about is the insinuation that these newer players will be your girlfriend, and that girlfriends need this skill tree.
So please understand that everything in your post has nothing to do with what is actually going on.
Sure it does. You're ignoring something good because it wasn't packaged PC enough.
Also sweet! Victim blaming! "Hey, don't hang out with assholes!" Instead of "hey! let us encourage assholes to be less so!"
No on'es behavior is going to be changed by some shit on some blog that the people who actually need to change will not even read. If there is any chance of changing already existing behavior it's with the people you actually know, but that means actually confronting those people.
"Girlfriend skill tree" is only descriptive as much as it plays into stereotypes about boys and girls.
If there was no stereotype that girls are worse at video games than boys, then "girlfriend skill tree" would make as much sense as "colorless green ideas skill tree."
But it's not a baseless stereotype. The vast majority of cases, and the ones the designer was likely to be personally familiar with, are going to be male gamers with girlfriends who don't play video games. Criticizing him for not scrubbing his statement of this fact and calling it something gender neutral is asinine.
As you'll notice toward the end of this exchange they are dipping into the "intention: relevant to what and how?" topic, the other discussion that was dredged up once agin during the last few pages and is going over the exact same things as prior posts.
and the following posts had me lol'ing all over the place, I kinda wish I could report it for awesome, but it would require like an essay describing the context, and that would kill the joke anyhow.
One thing that may help is to imagine applying the same standard to other social issues as is being applied here.
Is it worth bringing up global warming every time someone drives a car or turns on a light? After all, they're contributing to the problem when they do those things.
Should you raise a ruckus every time you see someone buy a soda? After all, they're contributing to the cultural obesity problem.
What about when they buy consumer goods that are made in other countries? Slave labor was probably involved at some point.
So should we apply this standard to everything, where it's worth bringing up even minor instances because it "raises awareness" and perhaps takes some tiny step towards solving a larger cultural problem?
One thing that may help is to imagine applying the same standard to other social issues as is being applied here.
Is it worth bringing up global warming every time someone drives a car or turns on a light? After all, they're contributing to the problem when they do those things.
Should you raise a ruckus every time you see someone buy a soda? After all, they're contributing to the cultural obesity problem.
What about when they buy consumer goods that are made in other countries? Slave labor was probably involved at some point.
So should we apply this standard to everything, where it's worth bringing up even minor instances because it "raises awareness" and perhaps takes some tiny step towards solving a larger cultural problem?
It was hyperbole the first time you said this and it still is. There were other posters who pointed out it was hyperbole the first time, too.
My feelings on the reaction of the community ("It's not sexist unless the person saying it hates women deep in his heart, so it can't be sexist because obviously he doesn't hate women!") is a different matter. Because that is some borderline sociopathic shit.
Why is taking the motivation of the speaker into consideration "sociopathic shit"?
This definition of sexism requires that we know the hearts of all speakers. So nothing can ever be sexist, because we can never know that.
Sexism: solved!
I added an edit:
Because it seems like the reason some people are up in arms about this whole thing isn't so much the particular linguistic utterance, but rather than underlying motivation it belies and its role as a component of the larger social issues of "sexism" that cause planned parenthood to be defunded, women to be beaten, women to be paid less, etc. If the guy wasn't expressing those sentiments, then isn't that relevant?
Or is it more that his statement can be taken by others to be an endorsement of their hatred of women, so no one should say anything that a bigot could construe as support?
Edit: And, actually, I'd be ok with declaring sexism to be solved. Because then we could get over this stupid shit and focus upon actual, concrete problems.
If a person wants to defund planned parenthood, it really doesn't matter if the motivation is sexist or not. The problem is that planned fucking parenthood is being defunded. The problem isn't the sexism. Sexism is just an assumed cause.
I realize that it's easier to deal with life if we can fabricate a pattern, give that pattern a name, reify that pattern, and then deal with particulars in terms of the universal under which that particular is subsumed. It's a product of evolution that works really well.
But sometimes this shit gets out of hand, and we focus too much on the vague general and lose the particular.
If we completely deleted the notion of sexism, we could still say that defunding planned parenthood, beating women, paying women less, trying to quash the female vote, and a wealth of other situations are still problematic.
We'd just have to deal with them as unique situations, rather than as heads of some fabricated vague general.
First; You are subjecting your players to the tyranny of small decisions, and when they attempt to approach a situation with an awareness of this fact, you decry that they are being irrational and silly.
Technically true, but that's how you dodge the tyranny of small decisions; You deliver an improportional, irrational, response to a given small situation because a series of rational responses ends up making the end result rationally unfavourable. Arguing that this is "stupid shit" is ignoring the big picture.
(Late perhaps, but nevertheless, the dismissal of being told your bad at games being a minor thing because its not a "marketable skill" is essentially handwaving given what constitutes a marketable skill in the modern media climate. Being good at games - or you know, blogs - is a marketable skill and arguing that the implication is "vapid" because it is not about a marketable skill requires a much more stringent characterizion of when sexism is and when its not "vapid")
Second, but closely related; Cultural root causes. The motivation for defunding planned parenthood is not irrelevant. The same cultural idea that gave rise to that particular idea gives rise to other actions, and while preventing each of these individual actions is certainly laudable, claiming that examining the underlying motivations are "fabricating patterns" is ignoring the complex fabric of culture in favour of more easily digestible morsels of actions. Sometimes neccesary in order to act, but not in itself a virtue.
Why is it bad to quash the female vote? The opposite of that why, the why that seeks to quash the female vote, is most likely going to be sexism. Why would we ignore this?
Why is it bad to quash the female vote? The opposite of that why, the why that seeks to quash the female vote, is most likely going to be sexism. Why would we ignore this?
Because the motivation to do X isn't relevant when the problem is X.
The action that results from the motivation is the problem.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Why is it bad to quash the female vote? The opposite of that why, the why that seeks to quash the female vote, is most likely going to be sexism. Why would we ignore this?
Because the motivation to do X isn't relevant when the problem is X.
The action that results from the motivation is the problem.
Better to cure the disease than simply treat the symptoms. Otherwise you'll be treating the symptoms forever.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Why is it bad to quash the female vote? The opposite of that why, the why that seeks to quash the female vote, is most likely going to be sexism. Why would we ignore this?
Because the motivation to do X isn't relevant when the problem is X.
The action that results from the motivation is the problem.
Better to cure the disease than simply treat the symptoms. Otherwise you'll be treating the symptoms forever.
That is the bumper sticker we are supposed to believe, yes.
If there were some "it" that was a disease, I might agree with you. If the actions were symptoms, I might agree with you.
I am a person saying its okay to reference the popular idea that many gamer's girlfriends are not into games.
Why?
Why would you say my wife is not in to games?
. . .
This is not a categorical statement. It does not preclude men who are not into games or women who are, regardless of relationship status. Note the use of "many" above.
Here's what you want to say: Any particular linguistic utterance, such as "girlfriend", can have a different meaning depending upon the context. It is not the case that "girlfriend" always means the same thing, in every situation, when stated by any person.
Player A can mean "girlfriend" as "my particular significant other who is a female, while I am a male."
Player B can mean "girlfriend" as "this is my long-term significant other to whom I am practically married, but since we live in a red state, we cannot be married."
Player C can mean "girlfriend" as "an insulting term to apply to this particular male friend, who is being more sensitive than men are stereotypically considered to be."
Player D can mean "girlfriend" as "she is a girl, and she is a friend, but she's not my 'girlfriend'" (See: Pete & Pete)
That's the way out of this particular trap. "Girlfriend" does not have one concrete, absolute, fixed meaning. So, the way you understand "girlfriend", the way Quid understands "girlfriend" and the way video game guy understands "girlfriend" may be three completely different notions.
Except that the girl part is static. You're just going on about the definition of friend.
Well, except for player C, but if anybody thinks that's what was meant by the Gearbox guy (or any mainstream press release) probably has other issues with sex/gender.
Yeah, there's really no meaning of the word that changes the sexism inherent in the statement.
Ah, so now we have "inherent meaning" up and running.
Good times.
No, we really don't.
No matter which definition you choose of girlfriend, the statement is still "we made an easy way to play the game. You know, for the females."
It isn't "for the females." It is for a specific subset of people (girlfriends who don't game). Please stop trying to make this into a categorical statement about women.
He has to construe it as a categorical statement about all women.
Otherwise he has no argument.
No one has said girlfriend = all women.
Meanwhile not one of you geese has demonstrated a girlfriend to not be a woman.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
My feelings on the reaction of the community ("It's not sexist unless the person saying it hates women deep in his heart, so it can't be sexist because obviously he doesn't hate women!") is a different matter. Because that is some borderline sociopathic shit.
Why is taking the motivation of the speaker into consideration "sociopathic shit"?
This definition of sexism requires that we know the hearts of all speakers. So nothing can ever be sexist, because we can never know that.
Sexism: solved!
I added an edit:
Because it seems like the reason some people are up in arms about this whole thing isn't so much the particular linguistic utterance, but rather than underlying motivation it belies and its role as a component of the larger social issues of "sexism" that cause planned parenthood to be defunded, women to be beaten, women to be paid less, etc. If the guy wasn't expressing those sentiments, then isn't that relevant?
Or is it more that his statement can be taken by others to be an endorsement of their hatred of women, so no one should say anything that a bigot could construe as support?
Edit: And, actually, I'd be ok with declaring sexism to be solved. Because then we could get over this stupid shit and focus upon actual, concrete problems.
If a person wants to defund planned parenthood, it really doesn't matter if the motivation is sexist or not. The problem is that planned fucking parenthood is being defunded. The problem isn't the sexism. Sexism is just an assumed cause.
I realize that it's easier to deal with life if we can fabricate a pattern, give that pattern a name, reify that pattern, and then deal with particulars in terms of the universal under which that particular is subsumed. It's a product of evolution that works really well.
But sometimes this shit gets out of hand, and we focus too much on the vague general and lose the particular.
If we completely deleted the notion of sexism, we could still say that defunding planned parenthood, beating women, paying women less, trying to quash the female vote, and a wealth of other situations are still problematic.
We'd just have to deal with them as unique situations, rather than as heads of some fabricated vague general.
First; You are subjecting your players to the tyranny of small decisions, and when they attempt to approach a situation with an awareness of this fact, you decry that they are being irrational and silly.
Technically true, but that's how you dodge the tyranny of small decisions; You deliver an improportional, irrational, response to a given small situation because a series of rational responses ends up making the end result rationally unfavourable. Arguing that this is "stupid shit" is ignoring the big picture.
This is interesting.
Just so we're clear - do I understand you correctly that you are saying that for social problems that are by nature the aggregate of a myriad of tiny, almost trivial non-problems that the the solution is to irrationally overplay the significance of individual issues as a political and rhetorical strategy?
I ask because this is manifestly not the conclusion nor recommended strategy of those who analyse collective action problems. it does raise a number of interesting questions - like what it means to be rational in such circumstances, whether it is true that social issues can only be solved by this means and it would also be one of the rare arguments for (domain-limited) irrationality (which is interesting in and of itself).
I am a person saying its okay to reference the popular idea that many gamer's girlfriends are not into games.
Why?
Why would you say my wife is not in to games?
. . .
This is not a categorical statement. It does not preclude men who are not into games or women who are, regardless of relationship status. Note the use of "many" above.
Here's what you want to say: Any particular linguistic utterance, such as "girlfriend", can have a different meaning depending upon the context. It is not the case that "girlfriend" always means the same thing, in every situation, when stated by any person.
Player A can mean "girlfriend" as "my particular significant other who is a female, while I am a male."
Player B can mean "girlfriend" as "this is my long-term significant other to whom I am practically married, but since we live in a red state, we cannot be married."
Player C can mean "girlfriend" as "an insulting term to apply to this particular male friend, who is being more sensitive than men are stereotypically considered to be."
Player D can mean "girlfriend" as "she is a girl, and she is a friend, but she's not my 'girlfriend'" (See: Pete & Pete)
That's the way out of this particular trap. "Girlfriend" does not have one concrete, absolute, fixed meaning. So, the way you understand "girlfriend", the way Quid understands "girlfriend" and the way video game guy understands "girlfriend" may be three completely different notions.
Except that the girl part is static. You're just going on about the definition of friend.
Well, except for player C, but if anybody thinks that's what was meant by the Gearbox guy (or any mainstream press release) probably has other issues with sex/gender.
Yeah, there's really no meaning of the word that changes the sexism inherent in the statement.
Ah, so now we have "inherent meaning" up and running.
Good times.
No, we really don't.
No matter which definition you choose of girlfriend, the statement is still "we made an easy way to play the game. You know, for the females."
It isn't "for the females." It is for a specific subset of people (girlfriends who don't game). Please stop trying to make this into a categorical statement about women.
He has to construe it as a categorical statement about all women.
Otherwise he has no argument.
No one has said girlfriend = all women.
Meanwhile not one of you geese has demonstrated a girlfriend to not be a woman.
When I say to a male friend, "Hey, girlfriend!" in a joking manner, I am utilizing the term "girlfriend" to refer to a person who is not, in fact, a girl.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I am a person saying its okay to reference the popular idea that many gamer's girlfriends are not into games.
Why?
Why would you say my wife is not in to games?
. . .
This is not a categorical statement. It does not preclude men who are not into games or women who are, regardless of relationship status. Note the use of "many" above.
Here's what you want to say: Any particular linguistic utterance, such as "girlfriend", can have a different meaning depending upon the context. It is not the case that "girlfriend" always means the same thing, in every situation, when stated by any person.
Player A can mean "girlfriend" as "my particular significant other who is a female, while I am a male."
Player B can mean "girlfriend" as "this is my long-term significant other to whom I am practically married, but since we live in a red state, we cannot be married."
Player C can mean "girlfriend" as "an insulting term to apply to this particular male friend, who is being more sensitive than men are stereotypically considered to be."
Player D can mean "girlfriend" as "she is a girl, and she is a friend, but she's not my 'girlfriend'" (See: Pete & Pete)
That's the way out of this particular trap. "Girlfriend" does not have one concrete, absolute, fixed meaning. So, the way you understand "girlfriend", the way Quid understands "girlfriend" and the way video game guy understands "girlfriend" may be three completely different notions.
Except that the girl part is static. You're just going on about the definition of friend.
Well, except for player C, but if anybody thinks that's what was meant by the Gearbox guy (or any mainstream press release) probably has other issues with sex/gender.
Yeah, there's really no meaning of the word that changes the sexism inherent in the statement.
Ah, so now we have "inherent meaning" up and running.
Good times.
No, we really don't.
No matter which definition you choose of girlfriend, the statement is still "we made an easy way to play the game. You know, for the females."
It isn't "for the females." It is for a specific subset of people (girlfriends who don't game). Please stop trying to make this into a categorical statement about women.
He has to construe it as a categorical statement about all women.
Otherwise he has no argument.
No one has said girlfriend = all women.
Meanwhile not one of you geese has demonstrated a girlfriend to not be a woman.
This is relying on the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Shame on you Quid.
Again, we're back to the idea of "offence" being something separate and distinct from "actual harm". Which is silly, when something is offensive its usually considered so because of a harmful context its associated with, not just because its some arbitrary collection of words that for some reason triggers chemicals in peoples brains for some irrational reason.
Painting nazi slogans on a synagogue isn't "offensive" in the sense that jewish people see it and go "well, I sure am offended now". Its offensive in that people see it and think "fuck fuck fuck the neo nazis are here and we are not welcome".
A politician thinking its ok to use black stereotypes isn't just "offensive" in that black people will hear it and go "I don't even like watermelon, that's silly, whats he talking about" its offensive in that black people hear it and think "well, I guess thats how the people in power see us I guess, just like the last 200 fucking years."
Now you can debate whether or not "girlfriend mode" even approaches that level of harm (personally I'm sick of talking about it) but to act like "offense" is something that you just choose to feel or not doesent make any sense.
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I don't see how your allegory ties into the point well enough to make a statement on it. I would appreciate a clarification of how it ties in to the dynamics of offense (specifically in regards to what I was speaking of, as to whether being offended in and of itself should give a person power in the dynamic).
This definition of sexism requires that we know the hearts of all speakers. So nothing can ever be sexist, because we can never know that.
Sexism: solved!
I added an edit:
Because it seems like the reason some people are up in arms about this whole thing isn't so much the particular linguistic utterance, but rather than underlying motivation it belies and its role as a component of the larger social issues of "sexism" that cause planned parenthood to be defunded, women to be beaten, women to be paid less, etc. If the guy wasn't expressing those sentiments, then isn't that relevant?
Or is it more that his statement can be taken by others to be an endorsement of their hatred of women, so no one should say anything that a bigot could construe as support?
Edit: And, actually, I'd be ok with declaring sexism to be solved. Because then we could get over this stupid shit and focus upon actual, concrete problems.
If a person wants to defund planned parenthood, it really doesn't matter if the motivation is sexist or not. The problem is that planned fucking parenthood is being defunded. The problem isn't the sexism. Sexism is just an assumed cause.
I realize that it's easier to deal with life if we can fabricate a pattern, give that pattern a name, reify that pattern, and then deal with particulars in terms of the universal under which that particular is subsumed. It's a product of evolution that works really well.
But sometimes this shit gets out of hand, and we focus too much on the vague general and lose the particular.
If we completely deleted the notion of sexism, we could still say that defunding planned parenthood, beating women, paying women less, trying to quash the female vote, and a wealth of other situations are still problematic.
We'd just have to deal with them as unique situations, rather than as heads of some fabricated vague general.
Well, instead we got the standard non-apology PR statement, but hey, they backtracked at least.
There are certain power inequalities that come into play when it comes to offense. This puts something past 'I am offended by gays getting married' into being a part of a context in which one group is kept down. It isn't about power, so much as it is about understanding the context in which offense comes into play. A woman getting offended by a rape joke should be taken seriously because rape jokes take place in a context of constant implicit and explicit violence against women. The solution isn't to stop saying everything, it's to listen when someone tells you that you're being a dick.
Something that most people don't do because the offended person doesn't usually have that much power in any given situation. If they did then this conversation wouldn't have gone on for 50 pages.
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
"Please don't say that" should be a sufficient word to Person A that they stop doing that.
No because we can't possibly know that because we can't see into his brain.
You say that like it's a bad thing. (and I'm not condoning censorship, but a world where bigots feel more uncomfortable putting down unprivileged groups seems awesome)
Why are you offended when I call you stupid? Are you trying to censor me? I have a right to say that you are an idiot! Plus if we stopped at things that offended each other then we couldn't say anything!
Oh this is perfectly, wonderfully written.
Person A isn't "contributing something toxic".
The toxicity results from Player B's brain. Because that's what you wrote: "When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it."
What you just wrote is that the problem is Player B's brain.
Unfortunately, you got confused about the causal story of the feeling of dumbness at the end.
Player A says, "You are dumb."
Player B's brain groups that statement with other statments.
This results in Player B thinking that Player B is dumb.
That's what you just wrote.
I assume you don't actually want to maintain that. So, you may want to change your story.
However, if you change your story, then you're going to place Player B's self-conception in the hands of Player A, and that's problematic as well.
My guess is you'd want to have Player B's self-conception to be wholly self-controlled and self-regulated to the entity of Player B....but if that were the case it wouldn't be influenced by what other people say.
And that's the conception of persons that I'm trying to offer...which you think is flawed.
Can you read player B's mind?
It's my fictional character.
But when it comes to declaring motivations for those espousing dissent within the thread it's a simple matter to determine they are lazy and committed to evading criticism?
Ok, so offense on its own doesn't give anyone any sort of power. I'm glad we agree. Once you start to add arbitrary modifiers, they become the defining factors instead of offense itself (if we assume offense is the baseline).
On to the details of what you brought up. I'm very unlikely to change my behavior for someone who calls me a dick. They can go fuck themselves, honestly, as they're judging the morality of my behavior versus their level of offense. Which, again, means I don't care. They're being a bigger dick then I am, by far.
Opposite to that: I am more likely to change my behavior for someone who tells me they're being hurt by my behavior. This sort of entreaty makes no judgment as to the morality of my behavior, which instantly elevates it from the "go and fuck thyself" pile to the "let's consider this" stack. Of course, this has to be judged by cost/benefit on an individual basis. If someone's idea of my hurting them is the bed rattling during nightly fun-and-tumble, I may deign my personal sexual gratification above their auditory annoyance. C'est la vie.
To use your example, someone telling me to not tell a rape joke because "it's wrong" will get no action out of me beyond a middle finger. Someone telling me they're triggered by a rape joke will probably never hear one from me again. That's the difference between making a moral judgement on someone and appealing to basic empathy. For all the talk of empathy in these sorts of threads, the entreaties I see are almost entirely based on moral judgment.
So the situation only works in fictional situations where you can assign objective emotional value to statements.
In the real world, such an objective value is meaningless because any statement can have its own value to different persons. So you can try to understand the world through different people's eyes (understanding your own privileges and the blocks that they form against understanding) and understand the context they occur in. Or you can keep the world to pedantic theory and try to find a rule that's perfect.
edit: Arbitrary modifiers like whether or not you hold institutional power over a person. Goodnight guys I'm done with this goosery for the day.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say? Is it, "If your brain is being damaged by verbal abuse, then tell your brain to cut it out!"
Because if so... would it be it fair to say you haven't read up on much neurology?
Because the underlying psychological reality of Hemingway neither negates the sexism of his statement nor is particularly relevant?
Whereas the motivations of people posting in a thread is always a part of a the discussion therein.
I think you're mis-characterizing the position of your interlocutors within the thread - what do you mean when you say "assuming they're getting offended for some idiotic reason".
It has been the case that the reasons offered for offense were I sufficiently convincing, it is not a matter of assumption.
I am happy to understand that this might simply be a misstatement.
So, we're not talking about sexism.
We're talking about how different people interpret particular statements, and the degree to which they are offended by them.
It wasn't a couple of pages ago that someone accused a blogger of only writing about a subject because it's her job to be morally offended all the time.
You've turned a conversation about sexism into that, yes.
Congratulations?
I'm trying to think of the shortest way to say it.
When I feel sad, the sadness is the result of my personal interpretation of various situations. Some of those situations were caused by natural events. Others were caused by things persons did or said.
But, at the end, my feeling of sadness results from my interpretation.
I have control over how I interpret things that other people say and do.
I take this to be an empowering notion.
And it's the realization that resulted in my never being offended.
I thought that was because you were a rich white man.
Suffering from depression? Find another way to feel, sadsack! You have the power to cure all mental disease if you just think positive!
So the answer to the question, "_J_ is aggressively ignorant about neurology" is "yes."
I'm guessing you've never been in therapy.
They tend to not say "You have no control over yourself."
As a form of disclosure, I agree with him in that I find the concept of "I control my responses to any given situation" to be somewhat empowering, but I don't find other points of view to necessarily be invalid.
Carry on!
I'm not suggesting that or the other is the correct position, I am pointing it put that you can't have it both ways. Even if I were to stipulate that Hemingway's statements were unacceptably sexist it would not resolve the dilemma.
That was a lot of pages ago and didn't form the basis of Deebaser's critique of anjuli's (sorry new person, I know I got that wrong) argument.
This was discussed back on page 52 between Arch and HamHamJ
As you'll notice toward the end of this exchange they are dipping into the "intention: relevant to what and how?" topic, the other discussion that was dredged up once agin during the last few pages and is going over the exact same things as prior posts.
Quid's response to SKFM and the following posts had me lol'ing all over the place, I kinda wish I could report it for awesome, but it would require like an essay describing the context, and that would kill the joke anyhow.
Is it worth bringing up global warming every time someone drives a car or turns on a light? After all, they're contributing to the problem when they do those things.
Should you raise a ruckus every time you see someone buy a soda? After all, they're contributing to the cultural obesity problem.
What about when they buy consumer goods that are made in other countries? Slave labor was probably involved at some point.
So should we apply this standard to everything, where it's worth bringing up even minor instances because it "raises awareness" and perhaps takes some tiny step towards solving a larger cultural problem?
It was hyperbole the first time you said this and it still is. There were other posters who pointed out it was hyperbole the first time, too.
Technically true, but that's how you dodge the tyranny of small decisions; You deliver an improportional, irrational, response to a given small situation because a series of rational responses ends up making the end result rationally unfavourable. Arguing that this is "stupid shit" is ignoring the big picture.
(Late perhaps, but nevertheless, the dismissal of being told your bad at games being a minor thing because its not a "marketable skill" is essentially handwaving given what constitutes a marketable skill in the modern media climate. Being good at games - or you know, blogs - is a marketable skill and arguing that the implication is "vapid" because it is not about a marketable skill requires a much more stringent characterizion of when sexism is and when its not "vapid")
Second, but closely related; Cultural root causes. The motivation for defunding planned parenthood is not irrelevant. The same cultural idea that gave rise to that particular idea gives rise to other actions, and while preventing each of these individual actions is certainly laudable, claiming that examining the underlying motivations are "fabricating patterns" is ignoring the complex fabric of culture in favour of more easily digestible morsels of actions. Sometimes neccesary in order to act, but not in itself a virtue.
Why is it bad to quash the female vote? The opposite of that why, the why that seeks to quash the female vote, is most likely going to be sexism. Why would we ignore this?
Because the motivation to do X isn't relevant when the problem is X.
The action that results from the motivation is the problem.
Better to cure the disease than simply treat the symptoms. Otherwise you'll be treating the symptoms forever.
That is the bumper sticker we are supposed to believe, yes.
If there were some "it" that was a disease, I might agree with you. If the actions were symptoms, I might agree with you.
But that's not how people work.
No one has said girlfriend = all women.
Meanwhile not one of you geese has demonstrated a girlfriend to not be a woman.
This is interesting.
Just so we're clear - do I understand you correctly that you are saying that for social problems that are by nature the aggregate of a myriad of tiny, almost trivial non-problems that the the solution is to irrationally overplay the significance of individual issues as a political and rhetorical strategy?
I ask because this is manifestly not the conclusion nor recommended strategy of those who analyse collective action problems. it does raise a number of interesting questions - like what it means to be rational in such circumstances, whether it is true that social issues can only be solved by this means and it would also be one of the rare arguments for (domain-limited) irrationality (which is interesting in and of itself).
When I say to a male friend, "Hey, girlfriend!" in a joking manner, I am utilizing the term "girlfriend" to refer to a person who is not, in fact, a girl.
This is relying on the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Shame on you Quid.
Painting nazi slogans on a synagogue isn't "offensive" in the sense that jewish people see it and go "well, I sure am offended now". Its offensive in that people see it and think "fuck fuck fuck the neo nazis are here and we are not welcome".
A politician thinking its ok to use black stereotypes isn't just "offensive" in that black people will hear it and go "I don't even like watermelon, that's silly, whats he talking about" its offensive in that black people hear it and think "well, I guess thats how the people in power see us I guess, just like the last 200 fucking years."
Now you can debate whether or not "girlfriend mode" even approaches that level of harm (personally I'm sick of talking about it) but to act like "offense" is something that you just choose to feel or not doesent make any sense.