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New York City Schools recognize 2 Muslim holidays
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Swartz

Joined: 19 Dec 2014

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 12:32 am Post subject:

Chain of fools. You attempt to examine the significance of a modern doctrinal term, yet have no understanding of who imposed it upon you, and defend it blindly to the benefit of your overlords, instead of teaching yourselves about how it destroys your own kind. The West burns before you, yet you comfort your invaders with dialectical prattle they will never hearken to. A Chosen member like Fox continually informs you of your folly, but you still refuse to listen. Whiteman be doomed.

Enrico Palazzo
Mod Team

Joined: 11 Mar 2008

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 3:24 am Post subject:

Swartz wrote:

Chain of fools. You attempt to examine the significance of a modern doctrinal term, yet have no understanding of who imposed it upon you, and defend it blindly to the benefit of your overlords, instead of teaching yourselves about how it destroys your own kind. The West burns before you, yet you comfort your invaders with dialectical prattle they will never hearken to. A Chosen member like Fox continually informs you of your folly, but you still refuse to listen. Whiteman be doomed.

A Chosen member? What are you referring to? Is this another anti-Semitic trope? I hope not. I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Please clarify what you mean by your writing above, and what's this talk of "whiteman". That sounds like a very racially charged paragraph above. I want to be understanding, so can you clarify what you're getting at.

Thank you, and have a good day.

Steelrails

Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 5:23 am Post subject:

This is either a religious fanatic with a few screws loose or The Great Toad having a big laugh at all of us.

northway

Joined: 05 Jul 2010

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 5:38 am Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Plain Meaning wrote:

Fox wrote:

I still don't see how any clear-thinking individual can read what Cave Dweller wrote and conclude either that he was trying to be rude or that he had any kind of "negative ethnic connotations" in mind. Did he suddenly decide he wanted to disparage the Jews in a thread about Muslim holidays in New York City, yet simultaneously feel too timid to use a word which would express that disparagement in unambiguous fashion? Does anyone really believe that? Maybe so, but if so, I think it reflects more on such a person than it would on our Cave Dweller here.

Are you capable of writing a post that is not dripping with condescension?

The hypocrisy as well; you are defending the benefit of the doubt of Cave Dweller's intentions but saying that anyone who understands that the use of 'Jew' as an adjective (i.e. Jew holiday as opposed to Jewish holiday) might be offensive has clear intentions.

Oh Kuros, Kuros, Kuros. Cave Dweller's "offense" occurred on March 8th. I saw it and the criticism it prompted the same day (after all, I did post something in the thread that same day), but instead of immediately speaking up and lecturing, I held my tongue. Why? Precisely to give the mob the benefit of the doubt, of course; to give them the opportunity to realize their over-zealousness and self-correct if they were of a mind to do so. And four days later, when that zealousness had increased rather than subsided, I did interject, but with a gentle hand and no condescension at all; with just enough for a clever person to extrapolate out my entire case on their own. And only five days after that, when the mob was still rabble rousing, did I feel their intentions were sufficiently undeniable that it was worth a lecture. And even then, even then, I phrased my inferences regarding intentions as questions, inviting people to explain how such a misinterpretation could have occurred in the face of the "obvious" (not my word choice!).

At this point, despite not having been given the benefit of the doubt by his critics, everyone seems to agree that Cave Dweller had no "racist" or "bigoted" intentions. By contrast, despite having been given the benefit of the doubt, we're now to the point where Northway is imperiously declaring what words and phrases are "acceptable" or "unacceptable," speaking virtually in terms of moral law. And I'm the one condescending, am I? Well, maybe a bit at this point, but there's no hypocrisy here: I've been more than fair, and very much adhered to my own stated principles here.

Imperiously? Rolling Eyes

Last I checked, there isn't much debate on anything I covered. Cave Dweller made the claim that his usage of the term "jew" was not racially charged, and essentially stated that everyone else here was clueless. If the usage was a faux pas on his end that he doesn't want to own up to, that's fine, but claiming that there's no truth to the term being offensive is deliberately ignorant.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 5:55 pm Post subject:

northway wrote:

Last I checked, there isn't much debate on anything I covered.

Of course there's not much public debate on anything you covered: anyone who actually dissents in public is vigorously, angrily shouted down. Our public discourse is an endless "two minutes hate" campaign against anyone who violates the orthodoxy. The common man has a lot to lose by being targeted in such a fashion, so they don't risk it and just fall silent, because the "compassionate," "tolerant" people so concerned about "offensiveness" are literally willing to destroy people's lives in service of that ideological cause. For example, the two computer programmers who got fired some time back for making a couple quiet jokes between themselves at a conference which a feminist overheard and "took offense" regarding. Real harm was done in the service of campaining against "offensive language." Of course that's going to scare a lot of people into compliance, no matter how absurd the terms of compliance may be. And then their silence is interpreted as consent, empowering people to suggest, "Last I checked, there isn't much debate on anything I covered." And Hell, in this thread alone at least six people expressed some skepticism regarding the ideas you've been pushing, which is a sizeable percentage of the conversation's participants. It looks like there's plenty of debate in places where honest men can gather and speak their minds frankly.

northway wrote:

the term being offensive is deliberately ignorant.

"Ignorant." There's another one of those borderline-meaningless buzz words which people love to throw around in order to condemn violators of their political ideology. "Never use language which I or my fellows deem unacceptable, or you are ignorant." So in this thread we've been told that one must not use the word "Jew" adjectivally because it's "unacceptable," and if one does not comply, one is "ignorant." Persuasive.

northway

Joined: 05 Jul 2010

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 6:59 pm Post subject:

Fox wrote:

northway wrote:

the term being offensive is deliberately ignorant.

Except you're twisting my words. In a world where this is generally a pejorative usage, I'm not using "ignorant" as the lefty insult that it's become, I'm saying that it's literally ignorant to claim that the term couldn't be perceived as offensive when used in that context. Perhaps you haven't rubbed shoulders with too many Jewish individuals, hailing from the Midwest as I believe you do, but it's simply offensive language in the heavily Jewish Northeast. I don't think anyone should be fired over using such a term, but I also think that they should acknowledge the language they're using.

Plain Meaning

Joined: 18 Oct 2014

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 7:22 pm Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Real harm was done in the service of campaining against "offensive language."

No harm came to Cave Dweller.

You're being a drama queen in this thread. At least its entertaining.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 7:38 pm Post subject:

Plain Meaning wrote:

No harm came to Cave Dweller.

You're being a drama queen in this thread. At least its entertaining.

If the underlying principle here is, "If no harm is done by X, complaining about X makes one a drama queen," then the people complaining about Cave Dweller and what he said are drama queens, because he did no harm to anyone.

Glad you are enjoying yourself.

The Cosmic Hum

Joined: 09 May 2003
Location: Sonic Space

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 7:50 pm Post subject:

northway wrote:

Except you're twisting my words. In a world where this is generally a pejorative usage, I'm not using "ignorant" as the lefty insult that it's become,

Quote:

I'm saying that it's literally ignorant to claim that the term couldn't be perceived as offensive when used in that context.

Perhaps you haven't rubbed shoulders with too many Jewish individuals, hailing from the Midwest as I believe you do, but it's simply offensive language in the heavily Jewish Northeast. I don't think anyone should be fired over using such a term, but I also think that they should acknowledge the language they're using.

Fox is Jewish...or something along that line...so maybe he has some perspective on it.

And if you are going to play with the semantics and pragmatics of 'ignorant', then at least admit that if it is ok for you to do, then it 'should' have been ok for CD, too. Yes?

And on the topic of semantics

Quote:

I'm saying that it's literally ignorant to claim that the term couldn't be perceived as offensive when used in that context.

Of course it 'could' be..but why is it, that in this context it sounds much more like...

Quote:

I'm saying that it's literally ignorant to claim that the term shouldn't be perceived as offensive when used in that context.

Odd how the language gets twisted.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 8:34 pm Post subject:

northway wrote:

Okay, I'm sorry if I misunderstood your meaning. It's just that from my perspective, he's not ignorant of that at this point. He seems to realize very well now that some may perceive what he said as offensive (after all, a number of people in this thread have made that clear enough), yet refuses to allow their preferences to guide his action, or to admit that those subjective perceptions render his usage objectively problematic. He might have been factually ignorant of the respond he'd get before he said what he said, but how could he be now? If a man says to himself, "Some might be offended by this, but I think their offense is a petty, illegitimate thing, so I won't allow their feelings to guide my conduct," I don't see how he's being ignorant. To some extent you could say he's not being agreeable, but neither are those who start a quarrel over his word choice, are they? Sure, sometimes one might say something with the sole, specific intention to upset someone or to start a fight, and in such a case their intention itself might be worth lamenting, but such a person also can't be called ignorant, since it's precisely his lack of ignorance which would allow him to say something that others found upsetting. This is why I assumed what I did about your usage: a literal application of the term "ignorant" does not seem to apply at this point to Cave Dweller, whether one accepts that he had no ill intentions or not.

northway wrote:

Perhaps you haven't rubbed shoulders with too many Jewish individuals, hailing from the Midwest as I believe you do, but it's simply offensive language in the heavily Jewish Northeast.

I think it's this phrasing right here that holds the crux of the matter. What you call "offensive language," could just as easily (and probably more correctly in semantic terms) be called "language which offends some people." But when phrased that way, it seems an awful lot less striking; an awful lot less universal; an awful lot less important. "Acceptable" and "unacceptable" instead reduce to "acceptable to <person or group X>" and "unacceptable to <person or group X>," which might still be worth considering in any given situation, but is not the stuff of ethical obligation, just as you have no ethical obligation to avoid using intentionally-insulting phrases like "antagonistically stupid." You probably wouldn't say something like that to your boss, for example, because you don't want to upset your boss. By contrast, you're comfortable enough saying it here, and if someone said your language was "unacceptable," I'd disagree with them.

northway wrote:

I don't think anyone should be fired over using such a term...

Okay, I'm glad to hear that.

Bongotruck

Joined: 19 Mar 2015

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 6:05 pm Post subject:

Why not get back to the main topic? It seems unfair to keep bringing up Cave dweller, as he seems to have been banned and can not defend himself. I also find it hypocritical that everyone jumped on this racism against Jewish people when so much blatant racism is tolerated if it is towards Koreans.

Enrico Palazzo
Mod Team

Joined: 11 Mar 2008

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2015 4:13 pm Post subject:

Bongotruck wrote:

Why not get back to the main topic? It seems unfair to keep bringing up Cave dweller, as he seems to have been banned and can not defend himself.

I also find it hypocritical that everyone jumped on this racism against Jewish people when so much blatant racism is tolerated if it is towards Koreans.

We go after a lot of racism against people of all backgrounds including Koreans, and have been accused of even being apologists for South Koreans. We have gone after anti-American posts. Many users do, actually, send reports about racism against Koreans, Middle Eastern people, Americans, black people etc... Give more of them (the users) the benefit of the doubt.

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