Problematic Stuff

[Forty Two]

Bitchmedia is claiming the word bitch, and their use of it is a marginalized group empowering itself by taking ownership of the word, instead of it being used towards them by the oppressor group.

If they are attempting to emulate the civic rights movement who fought derogatory associations that came with the word "black", they ought to connect "bitch" with something positive.



Maybe "Bitch is Wow"?

Well, in the US, there was never any derogatory association with the word black.

Yes, there was. Once you have established the stereotypical African American, "black" became inevitably associated with derogatory characteristics every time someone referred to someone else as a black person. At its crudest it took the form of society as a whole having had a negative perception of the African American body, labelled "black" on account of skin colour, as suitable only for slave status. Black also became synonymous with being lazy, stupid and untrustworthy when applied to such a person.

You certainly know the USA much better than I, but we had a USAF pilot renting an apartment on the floor above us in the late 60s, and he had dozens of soldiers visit him in that time, all WASPs. I had just read Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (both translated into German), and was keen to improve on my school English, so I thought those books were a good topic to converse with them about. Oh boy. It was the blacks this and the blacks that without end. My parents naturally got wind of it, because I told them all about the new things I had discovered from day to day. At one stage my mother sat me down in the lounge room and explained to me at length that the blacks are human beings like I her, dad, my sisters, my brother, neighbours, friends... My father walked in somewhere behind me and muttered: "But he knows all that." My mother looked over the top of my head and replied: "Just in case." Reading the books, getting the reaction from the pilot's visitors and my mother's precautionary lecture was quite an eye-opener. A few weeks later there was a bigger one. We began seeing white policemen setting German shepherd dogs on black people on the streets in US cities on the evening news.

There was certainly a stereotype of black people as lazy, etc. and certainly the State sponsored discrimination involving police dogs and firehoses, and segregation all occurred. However, the word "black" has never been a slur against black people, like the term nigger, negro, colored, spearchucker, hankerchief head, or whatever. It was always "ok" to refer to an African-American as "black."

[pErvinalia]

What if you referred to the 'race' as "blacks"?

[Forty Two]

I don't think so. Coloreds, yes. Blacks? No. http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/201 ... ack-160773

There are style differences, with Bloomberg distinguishing between someone who is from or whose parents are from a place, vs just having distant ancestry. For example, a black person is black, but he's only African American if he or his parent(s) were born there. Obama is African American, but a black Jamaican is not African-American, and he doesn't become African American by moving to the US.

There is some distinction in style books about using black as an adjective vs a noun, but the distinction is not based on one being a derogatory slur against the race.

The race is black, not African American, and not necessarily African either. Just as there are whites who live in Africa, and have for millennia.

[Animavore]

Professors heckled off stage by students. Oops! I meant grown Trump supporters.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/10/16/whitt ... p-shutdown

[Forty Two]

boyfriends, girlfriends, and significant others - problematic - https://bigthink.com/the-proverbial-ske ... le-phrases

[Forty Two]

Professors heckled off stage by students. Oops! I meant grown Trump supporters.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/10/16/whitt ... p-shutdown

And, this is where the phrase "be careful what you wish for" comes in. When the "shouting down" is done by some on the left, some of them claim that the hecklers have the right to do it.http://www.dailywire.com/news/21293/end ... en-shapiro (51% of college students say it's fine to shout down offensive speakers), and some leftists shout down speakers they disagree with - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/vol ... professor/ However, those folks fail to recognize or don't adequately consider that the strategy may become commonplace among their opponents. Then it all becomes just a question of whose activists are the loudest and most motivated.

These asshole hecklers needed to be escorted out, and if they persisted, they should be arrested.

[pErvinalia]

Professors heckled off stage by students. Oops! I meant grown Trump supporters.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/10/16/whitt ... p-shutdown

And, this is where the phrase "be careful what you wish for" comes in. When the "shouting down" is done by some on the left, some of them claim that the hecklers have the right to do it. However, those folks fail to recognize or don't adequately consider that the strategy may become commonplace among their opponents.

What folks? You keep acting like there are people who think this. Is there actually anyone you can point to who says/thinks this?

[Hermit]

Professors heckled off stage by students. Oops! I meant grown Trump supporters.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/10/16/whitt ... p-shutdown

And, this is where the phrase "be careful what you wish for" comes in. When the "shouting down" is done by some on the left, some of them claim that the hecklers have the right to do it. However, those folks fail to recognize or don't adequately consider that the strategy may become commonplace among their opponents.

What folks? You keep acting like there are people who think this. Is there actually anyone you can point to who says/thinks this?

The link Forty Two provided eventually leads to this survey. Weirdly, while more Republicans surveyed (22%) regard violence in the face of objectionable speech acceptable than Democrats (20%), fewer Republicans (39%) than Democrats (62%) regard verbal disruption of an objectionable speaker acceptable.

[pErvinalia]

I couldn't find a link to the survey there, but is it specifically saying "unacceptable"? If so, that's not equivalent I don't think to saying someone shouldn't have the right to do it.

[Forty Two]

Plainly, Hermit, there are some people who think shouting down objectionable speakers is a great idea, because there are people who shout down objectionable speakers, and there are groups who go so far as to say it's a moral imperative to do so in an effort to deplatform them. Those people, hermit, are not thinking it through, because once a tactic is appropriate for one side, say to shout down what they say is "hate speech" or "bigotry," then another faction can come along and say that what they object to is just as objectionable, and use the same tactic. There simply is no way, in a free society, to allow some people to do the shouting down, and prohibit others from doing the same. The only way to achieve that is through unequal or unfair application of law in a selective fashion.

[pErvinalia]

Who's saying that some should be allowed to do it while others should be prohibited??

[Hermit]

I couldn't find a link to the survey there, but is it specifically saying "unacceptable"? If so, that's not equivalent I don't think to saying someone shouldn't have the right to do it.

Sorry. I forgot to tag "this survey" with the relevant url.

The questions asked were:

• A student group opposed to the speaker uses violence to prevent the speaker from speaking. Do you agree or disagree that the student group’s actions are acceptable?

and

• A student group opposed to the speaker disrupts the speech by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker. Do you agree or disagree that the student group’s actions are acceptable?

[Forty Two]

The fact that 39% of Republicans and 62% of Democrats think it's acceptable to "shout loudly and repeatedly so that the audience cannot hear the speaker" is rather disturbing.

However, the 22% and 20% who answered that using violence to prevent a speaker from speaking is puzzling to me. I am surprised at how high that rate is.

I'm not surprised at the 39/62% figures, given how many people in the US are of the mistaken impression that "hate speech" and speech which "offends" other people is somehow illegal or impermissible. But that kind of thing has always, it seems to me, been the case -- when I was a kid, there was a question posed to illustrate free speech. The first question was "does everyone have the right to free speech in public?" And, almost everyone answered that "yes." And, then the followup was "should a Communist be allowed to promote communism in public?" And, back then, in the late 70s, there was a majority of people who answered that second question "no" -- even after just having been asked the first question.

[Hermit]

...in a free society...

That made me laugh. Sure, given the choice between living in the USA or North Korea it would take me about a split second to decide where I'd go, but your view of just how free you are is downright comical. Read this.

I guess you'll hold forth about Free Will next.

[Forty Two]

...in a free society...

That made me laugh. Sure, given the choice between living in the USA or North Korea it would take me about a split second to decide where I'd go, but your view of just how free you are is downright comical. Read this.

I guess you'll hold forth about Free Will next.

We're about as free, plus or minus, depending on the aspect of society one is discussing, as any other western, first world country. However, since I did not express a view as to "just how free" we are, I'm not sure how you conclude it's comical. My view is that we're about as free, give or take, as Australia, for example. Is that really comical?

Free will is an interesting topic. My view on that is that it "feels" or "seems" as if we have free will, since I seem to have some sort of volition or ability to make choices. Whether we actually have free will, or whether our actions are determined already and everything we think and do is a fait accomplis, well, I don't know. But, the way I think free will might exist in us is through the uncertainty of quantum theory. Under quantum theory, for example, different things can happen under the same exact circumstances and there is an element of randomness to the universe, suggesting that matter and energy behave in unpredictable ways. If our thoughts are made up of interactions of quantum level material, then our thoughts, which direct our actions, have something less than a determinist aspect to them. This uncertainty and indeterminate feature may be what produces independent thought which allows us to make a choice.

Or, free will is an illusion.