Brian Peacock wrote:Seth wrote:Brian Peacock wrote:Intellectually honesty discourse on this matter or any other does not require one accepts and adheres to only a single personal preference as far as word meaning and usage is concerned, though it does rather depend on accepting points made charitably and in their own terms and addressing them as such.
Then argue intellectually as to why the terms "racist" and "racism" should be redefined as you suggest.
Please point out exactly where I put forward the proposition that '..the terms "racist" and "racism" should be redefined...' to mean whatever it is your think I've suggested they mean.
Obviously I'm making a general reference with respect to the thrust of the debate at this point, which is that I claim that attempts at political redefinition of the terms is taking place.
Seth wrote:Brian Peacock wrote:So when people are giving a word like 'racism' broader scope than you'd personally prefer how about engaging with what they're communicating rather than foreclosing on expressions made in their own terms while simultaneously dismissing points made on the basis of a fundamentalistic and fallacious appeal?
The problem is that it is they who are making fallacious appeals to authority that are not actually authorities, they are merely opinions. The authority is the dictionary. If they want to argue that the terms have a broader meaning it's up to them to make that argument and state a case as to why they think the term means something other than what the dictionary says it means.
No, intellectually honest discourse does not depend on you authorising, as correct or otherwise, the terms in which others communicate their ideas. You are merely declaring yourself the ultimate arbiter - "Grande Validador de Significado e Uso" - and invoking arbitrary conditions which others must meet in order to, apparently, validate their participation. I do not recognise your self-declared supreme authority here even if I do recognise your lack of intellectual honesty.
No, I'm making rebuttal arguments based on recognized authorities as to the meaning of the terms under examination. You are free to rebut my rebuttals with arguments based on whatever authorities you think support such a rebuttal. What you're doing here is evading the actual debate by trying to derail it into an ad hominem fallacy.
Seth wrote:It's insufficient to simply state that some concocted politically-motivated "sociological" redefinition of the terms "racist" and "racism" is a proper usage when that usage completely defies and reverses the dictionary meaning of the terms.
The dictionary is a reference source - not The Law. A word means what it means to those who use it,
Froot dumbass marvel gorp added parsnip loquitur carp gabble.
What does that mean to you?
What it means to me is "Your argument is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen put down in writing because words mean what they are commonly defined and understood to mean, otherwise it is impossible for two persons to communicate at all because they have different understandings of the meanings of the words used."
and where it fails is where those they are communicating with do not understand its implications. The word 'bad', for example underwent a reversal in meaning among the hep-cats and beatnicks of the 1990s, nonetheless you'll understand that when I say something like 'your comments are like pretty bad shit boy' I am not using it in that manner even if I am employing a ribaldistic colloquialism.
Um, that's why we have dictionaries. If you choose to use a colloquialism then it's up to you to make it manifest it's a colloquialism so that the reader will understand it.
Absent context indicating this fact, it's just poor use of language. "You're bad" provides no context indicating it's a colloquialism. "You're a bad dude" is more clear in that it has two potential meanings depending on the context.
It's hard to see how this particular debate about the meaning of "racism" and "racist" falls into the category of colloquialisms.
colloquialism play
noun col·lo·qui·al·ism \-ˈlō-kwē-ə-ˌli-zəm\
: a word or phrase that is used mostly in informal speech : a colloquial expression
A debate, particularly a debate about the meaning of words or phrases, is hardly "informal speech." It's very formal speech in which the use of colloquialisms is completely inappropriate and, if done deliberately in order to confuse and obfuscate qualifies as mendacious pseudo-intellectualism.
[/quote]
Seth wrote:This is not a small matter of semantics, it's a bald attempt to REDEFINE the terms, not merely an attempt to clarify or interpret the terms in proper context and meaning.
The purpose of this attempt at redefinition is to render the actual dictionary meanings of the term obsolete and to turn the meanings on their heads so that racist acts and racism aren't racist acts or racism depending only on who is committing the acts. This is moral relativism at its finest. It's not just that it's a fallacious appeal to (nonexistent) authority, it's also a prime example of the fallacy of special pleading. "What applies to thee does not apply to me because I don't want it to."
I heartily and sincerely recommend you get your hand on a copy of "Language Change: Progress or Decay?" by Prof Jean Aitchison (Cambridge University Press), an excellent and eminently rational and readable overview of the influences on the process of language change - which also notes in passing that "The Dictionary" resides at the trailing edge of word meaning and usage and not the leading edge - by probably the worlds leading liguist. It'll certainly cure you of your embittered Fundamentalistic Dictionarism and put a break on your fallacious appeals to dictionary definition in lieu of reasonable arguments grounded on discursive charitability.
Sorry, but liberal propaganda allowing mendacious meaning obfuscation is of no interest to me. The book may be a fine one, but it is inapplicable to this debate.
In the meantime, this whole quibble about what terms really do, should, or must mean is a monumental distraction from the issue at hand.
Thing is, it's not a quibble, it's an essential and fundamental part of the issue at hand.
Is it right for the Academy to use structural mechanisms to broaden their membership base and better reflect the composition of the society in which they operate?
Who cares?
I reckon it probably is. Have they set about it the right way? Probably not, but it's a start.
Why is it? The Academy is a meritocracy. If you have the chops and demonstrate it on screen, you get an award. If you don't, you don't. Race has nothing whatever to do with it nor does the "composition of the society in which they operate" because the ethnic composition of the Academy has nothing whatever to do with the quality of the work it assesses and rewards.
Now might it be true that Hollywood screenwriters and producers are less likely to produce ethnically-oriented movies? Very likely this is so. But they have a perfectly good reason for doing so: They are in the business of making money by entertaining the masses and it's pretty damned obvious from the box-office receipts of films featuring minority themes and casts that they are not the big money-makers, so fewer of them get made and they generally don't get the kinds of budgets that attract highly-skilled black actors, although this is not universally true by any stretch of the imagination. There's plenty of black-oriented films that have been made, no few with almost exclusively black casts and very ethnically focused scripts. These films appeal to blacks and blacks go and see them. Some of them do well, some of them don't. But it's hardly the fault of the Academy if white audiences don't go to black-themed movies in the same numbers that they go to other types of movies.
One of the movies with a black leading actor, Samuel Jackson, is "Black Snake Moan," which I consider to be a tour-de-force performance by Jackson. But I'm not a member of the Academy. On the other hand I have no interest at all in seeing any movie starring Tyler Perry, and that has nothing to do with his being black, it has to do with his (in my opinion) complete lack of substantive acting skills.
Then again there's Halle Berry, who has the chops in spades.
Or Eddie Murphy.
Or a whole bunch of other supremely talented black actors and actors of non-white ethnicity.
Suggesting that ethnicity be a factor in Oscar nominations is just pandering to cultural marxism and ethnic populism.
When was the last time you saw a disabled actor getting a best actor Oscar btw?
When was the last time you saw a disabled actor giving an Oscar-worthy performance?
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
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How many black people do you think there are in China?? 
