posted
Oh, good point, kmb. I did the door-to-door thing for about a week for CalPIRG about 15 years ago. And certainly I was frustrated when someone chose not to answer the door (and in one neighborhood I think someone actually was calling around and letting the neighbors know we were in the area), but I didn't think it was in any way unreasonable. (I just wished I hadn't had to climb all the stairs to their front door to find that out. They had me working in a very hilly part of Studio City.)
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Why isn't an explicit sign saying, "I do not want any solicitors or proseltizers calling on my home, please," any different at all from a spoken, "No, thank you," gnixing?
They're exactly the same message.
Because in the first case they're prejudging a large group of people in which you might or might not belong (depending on definitions of solicitation or proselytesation) and in the second they are postjudging you specifically.
In the first case they are basing their potential (you have to infer what they mean) rejection of you on very little information. In the second they are basing their more explicit rejection on significanlty more information.
In truth the problem persists further. Consider the sad case of Mr. Collins and Elizabeth Bennett. The challenge of communication is we always have to infer the other person's intent via indirect observations. However, the more direct the observation (posted sign vs. verbal lashing) the more easy the inferrence is to make.
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: In the first case they are basing their potential (you have to infer what they mean) rejection of you on very little information. In the second they are basing their more explicit rejection on significanlty more information.
The "significantly more information" being what, exactly? Your shining face?
Is this sometimes/often predicated on the belief that if someone can see your face or hear the sincerity in your voice, God will be able to work through it to soften their hearts? (honst question -- I can't make sense of it, but I am trying. )
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Edited to add: I write the above because it suddenly occurs to me that there might be a religiously based level of reasoning here to which I'd never been exposed, and that might explain why it doesn't make sense to me.
For context: I was raised Roman Catholic, a non-prostylizing faith for the most part (at least, not in the US, as opposed to charity and missionary work in other countries, which did go on but at a sort of remove from everyday RC life -- at least in my experience). There was a stronger sense of shame in religion for me, which may or may not have been institutionally-driven. But certainly I expected that if others were brought to Catholicism, it would be unlikely to be through my shining holiness -- rather, it would more likely be in spite of my rather grave sinliness.
That is, we tried to live our lives in Christ-like ways in my family, but there was always this strong awareness of how difficult it was not to fall into (or be tainted by) the world. It would have never occurred to me that someone might be inspired to God by seeing my face (if that is part of what is going on here, that is).
posted
Now I'm really worried about coming off as mouthy or disrespectful. Upon rereading the above (which I will gladly edit if asked [or -- of course! -- defer to Papa Moose's wise editing], but I don't want to duck responsibility for writing), I see it could come off that way.
Honestly, though, this was a light-bulb moment for me (even if it turns out not to be a true assessment). I think my underlying and unexamined assumptions about organized religion in general were highly limiting with regards to many other people's possible perspectives.
I can see where, if one were to believe that one might serve as God's tool only if one were to have direct face-to-face contact, then ignoring a sign (no matter how explicit) might be a requirement of one's faith. I still don't see why that would be the line of demarcation, though (i.e., maybe God would need the person to hear you not just for an introductory 30 seconds, but for a longer period of time? Five, ten minutes?), but I think I can understand a bit of where my blanket confusion came from.
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Of course, one could just defer to the policies of the LDS Church and/or a General Authority: i.e., if there was a policy of "introduce yourselves and make the offer, but if turned down to your face, move on." But that isn't what was confusing me -- it was confusing when someone would say something like "but I feel the need to do this, just because it might eventually make some person look back and be grateful for being saved." If that's the reason for pushing on, how do you know when to stop? What isn't justified, and why at that point instead of some other? Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
(By the way, I whistled on myself above, just to let PJ know he might need to get janitorial. I only write this to prevent him from getting a slew of "whistle post" messages to deal with. )
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No, I wasn't even being specifically religious. I just meant, when I come to the door, I don't know if that person would consider me to be included in the group of people they don't want knocking on his/her door. Say I'm a girl scout selling cookies; does this person consider me a solicitor? It's hard for me to know (I have to infer what this person meant when they posted this sign). Once I knock on the door and they see who I am (by my uniform, by my demeanor, by whatever means is available) they can more explicitly tell me whether I belong in the group they don't want knocking. (Of course, by then it's too late; the rudeness has either occured or it hasn't).
I could persist though; I can infer (as does Mr. Collins in P&P) that the things they say don't indicate their true intent (either because they are dissembling, or because they don't have sufficient information). So I press on. I give more information. "Oh, I didn't realize you were actually my long-lost neice dressed up in her girl scout uniform. I thought you were a cookie seller and hence someone I didn't want to talk to. Now that I know, why don't you come right in." However, as I expose more and more information about myself it because more and more difficult to infer intent incorrectly (as Eliza eventually demonstrates to Mr. Collins chagrin). The question of tact is really one of how well you are able to infer someone's true intent from limited information.
This is why the fact that there is (at least in gnixing's mission) no correlation between "No soliciting" signs and rejection of missionaries is significant. If the information that this person posted a sign saying "No Solicitors" truly has no correlation with their intended actions towards missionaries, than missionaries should knock those doors.*
*Note, I find the assertion that there really is no correlation difficult to swallow; when I was a missionary I would respect any such sign I came across. I would also, when tracting a large apartment building, only go to those apartments that buzzed me in. I would go to that specific apartment, knock, and if they turned me away, return to the buzzers and continue down the list until someone else let me in.
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quote:Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese: If that's the reason for pushing on, how do you know when to stop? What isn't justified, and why at that point instead of some other?
And I think that's the central conundrum. I met missionaries all over the map; some who infered someone wasn't interested because of their dress or their zip code. Others who would persist through multiple rejections. Some, like gnixing, who believe a good missionary never gives up. I don't know that there is an answer; it has to do with, individually, how well do you think you can infer a person's true intentions from what you know and what they've said.
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quote:(By the way, I whistled on myself above, just to let PJ know he might need to get janitorial. I only write this to prevent him from getting a slew of "whistle post" messages to deal with. .
That will definitely win the lifetime achievement award for 'least offensive post to ever be whistled'.
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quote:Because in the first case they're prejudging a large group of people in which you might or might not belong (depending on definitions of solicitation or proselytesation) and in the second they are postjudging you specifically.
In the first case they are basing their potential (you have to infer what they mean) rejection of you on very little information. In the second they are basing their more explicit rejection on significanlty more information.
I don't see how there needs to be any judging at all. If a person doesn't want strangers coming to the door trying to sell him something, it can totally be about them and not about you. It's like a "Do not disturb" sign on a hotel room. It's all about the people inside.
Knocking on someone's door, interupting whatever it is they are doing is an intrusion. Not wanting strangers to intrude on their lives in this manner or bother them unexpectedly does not neccessarily mean that they are judging the strangers in any way. There's not some base state where anyone has the right to intrude on people whenever they want that them putting up signs is deviating from.
I don't want to be disturbed by people selling Amway. That doesn't mean that I think that they are bad people, or neccesarily that I even don't want to buy what they are selling, but rather that I don't feel that the opportunity they are offerring is worth the cost of them bothering me.
Currently, I'm being pestered by a pair of JWs who show up about once of twice a month. Now I don't have a problem talking to missionaries - I like people even if I'm not interested in what they are selling - but I work one the second floor of my house till about 5 or 6 pm. Running downstairs to answer the door is a significant distraction and I generally work best when I can tunnel into it. I don't have a problem with this if the payoff is worth it. Say, I'm getting a package delivered that I ordered or a friend who I want to see is stopping by. But, people wanting to sell me something isn't worth it. So, I tell them each time that I work from these hours but that I'd be happy to talk to them afterwards. But they keep coming back around 2 or 3 pm. And, when I tell them that I'm in the middle of work, the one keeps trying to engage me in conversation so that I have to close the door on him in mid-sentence (which, incidentally, is another imposition by him).
If I put up a sign saying that I don't want to be disturbed during those hours, I'm not prejudging the people who show up then. I'm saying I don't want to be disturbed during those hours. I'm putting up a stronger ward on my privacy and right not to be intruded on than the social convention already exists. And I'd do it because of me, because of what I want, because I have an existence separate from that of the strangers who come to my door.
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I don't see how missionaries are any different from any other sort of solicitor. They're all trying to sell you something, be it a vaccuum or a knife set or a religion. And while I realize that missionaries do think that people probably want to hear their message deep down, or that they NEED to hear the message...a lot of people really don't want to be bothered. I mean, would you buy a vaccuum from a vaccuum salesman who wouldn't go away? I wouldn't.
posted
Dag, The problem with your analogy is that your invalidly inserting your cultural context.
You played the analogy as being just about the words: The _______ are coming. And then, to argue that the person uttering this statement is a bigot, you filled in a bigotted context.
But, as I pointed out, there are tons on things that can be put in there in which there is no bigotry.
The Girl Scouts are coming. The annoying, door-to-door salesmen are coming. The people we've all been waiting for are coming. The KKK are coming. The British are coming.
These convey a whole range of meaning and expectation, but none of them necessarily rely on bigotry. You argued your conclusion by your choice of context. It's only if you start out assuming that the old woman was a bigot that drawing an analogy to another bigot as opposed to any of the types of statements I mentioned above makes sense.
And then you try to apply your context only two examples from living in a society with a confirmed anti-LDS bigotry to a completely different cultural setting that didn't have much experience with the LDS. That sounds almost like prejudice to me.
You don't know this woman. You don't even know the surrounding culture. And one thing we do know is that from BB's own posts (and BB I didn't interpret "I didn't like breaking into apartment complexes." as saying you didn't do it, so sorry about that, but then again, you don't really seem to have a problem with your fellows doing it), that the LDS missionaries were sneaking into apartment complexes. If I didn't know that much about a group but did know that they did things like that, I'd be wary when they came to my door and try to get them to leave immediately and I would call around to my neighbors to let them know that they were around and possibly about how I knew they have a tendency to sneak and possibly break into places.
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Errr...I'm an old woman who lives in Taiwan and doesn't know that much about this group of foreigners, but I do know that they do jump over walls, sneak pass security guards, and use other tricks to get past security. How do I know that they don't also pick locks?
For that matter, translate what BB did into a different religious context and he basically used a voodoo doll against the guard.
If you do bad things, you can't be too suprised when people are afraid you might do even worse things.
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edit: Not really attached to the whole "breaking in" thing, but I was thinking, when you engage someone in conversation in our culture, there are certain assumed obligations. I touched on this above when I mentioned that I have to close the door on the one JW missionary to escape from conversation even after I've made it clear that I wanted it to end. He's making an imposition on me by setting up a situation where I need to break social convention to return to work and I feel an attendent twinge on my conscience.
Now, I don't know much at all about Taiwanese culture, but I do know enough about about Chinese and Japanese culture to know that in many instances they have stronger social conventions and obligations. I would not be suprised if in Taiwanese culture strangers going from door to door selling things is not regarded in the same way as it is here and that there is significantly more involved, cultural conscience-wise in engaging them in conversation and in breaking off that conversation.
posted
Voodoo doll? Is that your way of invoking prejudice against Carribean religions to bolster your point?
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Are you contending someone would get dressed and proceed to walk around the neighborhood to warn neighbors that the Girl Scouts are coming?
It's the act taken together: she was annoyed w/ BB and she then seriously inconvenienced herself to warn people about him.
This was a warning. Warning implies negative thoughts in general. If she were merely worried about people being disturbed, which is the non-content-based interpretation of her actions, she wouldn't have disturbed people.
Do I know for sure? No. But I do know that a group that is maligned (and in the society in question, not just ours) by bigoted beliefs motivated a woman to go warn her neighbors.
It still strikes me as likely motivated by bigotry.
I've essentially said so twice prior to this in the thread. The second was in response to an assertion that this was clearly about being annoyed by solicitors. I couched my response to this certainty in opinion and conditional language.
The first time, I also couched it in terms of my opinion and as a conditional.
If you don't buy the analogy, that's fine. But try to use it to understand, based on MY experiences, why it would strike ME in that fashion and why I don't accept unconditional statements declaring that there was definitely no bad motive there.
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posted
There's also the little fact that Blackblade has shown himself to be a fairly rational person not prone to jumping to conclusions and, as he was there and saw the old woman's body language, etc, this predisposes me to believe him.
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quote:If she were merely worried about people being disturbed, which is the non-content-based interpretation of her actions, she wouldn't have disturbed people.
You don't know this. You have no basis of knowing this, not knowing the woman, her connection to the community, or the surrounding culture. And not only that, this is exactly the sort of thing you jump all over other people about when the situations are reversed. I don't accept that you can read this woman's mind.
You're the one who brought a woman one the phone talking about how blacks people are coming as a valid analogy, because, after all, all you added was the whisper. If I change what she says to "The Girl Scouts are coming." I haven't changed anything, according to your defense, but suddenly the analogy becomes invalid? That's why it's an invlaid analogy and an invlaid defense of the analogy.
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posted
Nor does saying that this situation is a good analogy to someone warning people that black people are coming because all Dag changed was adding a whisper. [edit]If I keep the same example, making only the same type of change Dag did, and it becomes a bad analogy, this defense doesn't hold up.
Additionally, what the heck does this mean:
quote:Is that your way of invoking prejudice against Carribean religions to bolster your point?
See, I drew an analogy to another religion where people call down divine power to control other people. I don't see how this is invoking prejudice at all.[/edit]
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posted
But, according to Dag's statements, I didn't change anything at all from his analogy. How could the defense of "I didn't change anything." be valid in his case if it's not valid in mine?
edit: My analogy isn't meant to make sense. It's to point out the flaws in Dag's analogy and defense by applying the same rules and not fitting. There's even a name for doing this.
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You don't know this woman. You don't even know the surrounding culture. And one thing we do know is that from BB's own posts (and BB I didn't interpret "I didn't like breaking into apartment complexes."
as saying you didn't do it, so sorry about that, but then again, you don't really seem to have a problem with your fellows doing it), that the LDS missionaries were sneaking into apartment complexes.
I can't find the comment I made for some reason but I agree it might have been ambiguous.
I never snuck into apartment complexes. I had companions that had done so and I refused to do so when they worked with me. I personally felt that the possibility of the security guard getting in trouble or even fired and therefore giving him a negative impression of the church was too large a price to pay for the CHANCE somebody in the complex would listen to us.
Chance dicated that I very likely could run into them while on the street.
I didn't say this before but I will now. I did argue with missionaries that bragged about sneaking into complexes and finding people interested in their messages. I explained why I didnt think it was a good idea. I certainly didnt condemn them for doing their work the way they elected to do so, that was not my role as a missionary.
Interestingly enough, there was one evening where I decided to tract the apartment complex that I lived in. I figured since I could call it visiting my neighbors it would be ok. I ran into a man who did not even turn around to face us from his chair he just waved his hand at us telling us to go away. By the time we reached the people next door he suddenly came out of his apartment VERY angry. He yelled at us while we were speaking to his neighbors and we had to politely end the conversation with his neighbors. He started screaming at us (I was more suprised that he was so aggressive now, but seemingly calm when he told us to go away at his own apt).
We explained that we lived here and were merely getting to know everybody in the complex and explaining alittle bit about ourselves. He didnt accept that and he said he was getting the security guard. We continued tracting while he got him and it took them sometime to locate exactly where we were. Eventually he found us and the man started yelling at us again. He marched up to us far ahead of the security guard and said "GET OUT!" I firmly explained to him that he had absolutely NO authority over this complex and that we did not answer to him.
I turned to the security guard and he calmly explained that he felt it was in the tenants best interests that we not proselyte there, he liked us alot. Management loves missionaries as they always pay their rent on time. Instead of being obnoxious and appealing to management I agreed with the security guard that it would be too difficult to find out from every land lord what their policy was on soliciting. So we dicontinued tracting, and did not tract there.
I recount the story merely to demonstrate that thats how I did business as a missionary. I had every respect for authority. It was a learning process for me sure, initially as a missionary sometimes I didnt know when to just stop and I offended people.
Mormons still joke "The Lord MUST be guiding the church, otherwise the missionaries would have surely ruined it by now"
quote: If I didn't know that much about a group but did know that they did things like that, I'd be wary when they came to my door and try to get them to leave immediately and I would call around to my neighbors to let them know that they were around and possibly about how I knew they have a tendency to sneak and possibly break into places.
The average Taiwanese person when asked what they know about missionaries says the following,
"They wear white shirts and ties, they bike around everywhere all the time, and they are very hard workers"
I asked that question of MANY MANY people, not ONCE did they respond with "They illegally sneak into housing complexes and flout the law whenever they think they can make a convert!"
I'd pay money if you could come up with a Taiwanese person who would even mention missionaries as similar to thieves without being coached to do so.
I said this earlier and Ill say it again, property laws in Taiwans are NOT like the US. Most of it is played by ear.
There are gated communities, apt complexes, high rise apartments. Some of them have security guards some do not. Some have a security guard station but no guard employed.
It might sound like boasting but I feel like I played it by ear pretty well.
edit: Mr S: If you wish to know how the Taiwanese sell their wares door to door its done thusly:
A man/woman walks up and down the streets yelling out "BAKED BREAD! COME GET YOUR BAKED BREAD!" or "POTTERY REPAIR, I FIX POTTERY!" There are no noise ordinances.
For people running for election they hire trucks with loud speaker systems to go up and down the street blasting out campaign slogans as well as their name so people know who they are.
The garbage is not picked up at a set time on a set day. It goes down the street blasting a song that sounds more like what an ice cream truck would play when it advertises to children. Most new missionaries are always dissapointed when they hear the song, want to go outside to get some and have to be told its just the garbage.
You keep equating missionaries sneaking into a complex when the guard is in say the crapper, and kicking down somebodies door to proselyte with them.
Robbery and Theft are NOT at the levels in Taiwan that they are here. Violent theft is even lower. I have never heard of a missionary breaking into somebodies house to proselyte, not ever.
quote:You're the one who brought a woman one the phone talking about how blacks people are coming as a valid analogy, because, after all, all you added was the whisper. If I change what she says to "The Girl Scouts are coming." I haven't changed anything, according to your defense, but suddenly the analogy becomes invalid? That's why it's an invlaid analogy and an invlaid defense of the analogy.
quote:Nor does saying that this situation is a good analogy to someone warning people that black people are coming because all Dag changed was adding a whisper.
Squicky, do you honestly believe that my full and complete defense of this analogy is that I only added the whisper?
If you don't, cut the games and stop misrepresenting me.
If you do, this is almost pointless necause I despair of you ever reading anything I say and understanding what it means.
You complained that I had changed the cultural context with my analogy. You then said that substituting any of X nouns would be the exact same thing.
What you are ignoring - and this point I have no idea why - is that I selected the cultural context precisely because I saw it to be parallel.
Exact? No. Parallel. A - nal - a - gous.
The Girl Scouts are a bad analogy BECAUSE there isn't a consistent pattern of biogotry against them. I've listed lots of indications as to why I thought the cultural contexts were close enough to be analogous.
For you, at this stage in the thread, to be pretending - deliberately or otherwise, neither is very flattering - that my "defense" consists solely of having added the whisper and nothing else is, quite frankly, either a lie or an egregious misreading unworthy of your intellectual capacity.
Edit: The "whisper" comment was made in response to you saying "We've no evidence she made remarks at all analogous like what you suggested."
I thought you meant physically analogous. Had you mentioned the cultural context, I would have raised the cultural analogies.
quote:I personally felt that the possibility of the security guard getting in trouble or even fired and therefore giving him a negative impression of the church was too large a price to pay for the CHANCE somebody in the complex would listen to us.
I'm not sure you understand the entirety of the objection to sneaking into places that are set up with security to keep you out. It's not just that you (this you and the others are general and not specific) were breaking the law (which, you've said they were not) or that you might get someone in trouble. Think about why that person would have gotten in trouble. Would you pick a lock to get in somewhere if it probably wasn't breaking the law and wouldn't get someone in trouble? How is this bypassing of security different from that?
quote:I'd pay money if you could come up with a Taiwanese person who would even mention missionaries as similar to thieves without being coached to do so.
It sounds to me like you just told a story about the guy in your apartment that was a pretty good bet for this.
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posted
Now you're assuming you know what the man in the aparment was mad about? You're rejecting any chance that it was bigotry? Instead you're projecting. House of cards, Squicky. You're not making any sense. The only way what you say does make sense is if you deliberately blind yourself to what everyone else is saying.
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posted
"I don't see how missionaries are any different from any other sort of solicitor. They're all trying to sell you something, be it a vaccuum or a knife set or a religion."
No. That distorts the word "sell" out of all usefulness. It practically transforms it to a figure of speech. Missionaries are promoting something, but they do not want you to buy anything from them, unless you also want to distort the word "buy".
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posted
Dag, But you don't know anything about the culture there, correct? Maybe I'm wrong and you've got extensive experience with Taiwanese culture. If you're not, how can you say with any degree of accuracy whether the cultural context was parallel or not.
edit:
quote:The Girl Scouts are a bad analogy BECAUSE there isn't a consistent pattern of biogotry against them.
This is why your analogy is a poor one. You start out assuming bigotry to use the analogy to demonstrate that there was bigotry. It's circular reasoning.
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posted
"We explained that we lived here and were merely getting to know everybody in the complex and explaining alittle bit about ourselves."
Hows that?
edit: To avoid confusion I mean "knew" as in, by the end of the events that evening he KNEW we lived there. If you asked him about me NOW he would have to concede that he was advised that I lived at the complex.
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posted
Yeah, you told him that. If he didn't know that you lived there beforehand, why should he believe you at that point?
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edit in reponse to your edit: He knew after these events then, correct? Not before. And he tried to kick you out of he complex, very possibly because he thought you didn't belong there.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Yeah, you told him that. If he didn't know that you lived there beforehand, why should he believe you at that point?
Um the security guard conversed with us in his presence?
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quote:But you don't know anything about the culture there, correct? Maybe I'm wrong and you've got extensive experience with Taiwanese culture. If you're not, how can you say with any degree of accuracy whether the cultural context was parallel or not.
Yes, Squicky, you are wrong. Not that I have extensive experience, but I have some firsthand accounts. The only missionary I've met in real life and spoken to outside of this forum happened to serve his mission in Taiwan. Just like here, there's not anti-Mormon signs up on every street corner. Rather, there are a sizeable minority of Christians (about 5% of the population are Christians) who are very hostile and who express that hostility in common, bigoted ways. This attitude has been picked up by some non-Christians.
His specific comment related the types of bigotry to what he faces here in the states - not everyday, but virulent when it arises.
quote:This is why your analogy is a poor one. You start out assuming bigotry to use the analogy to demonstrate that there was bigotry. It's circular reasoning.
No it's not. I used the analogy to move from the general known fact ("Mormons are a group who face significant amounts of prejudice and bigotry") to a specific fact ("Therefore, it is likely that this act was motivated by bigotry.")
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quote:Originally posted by Silent E: "I don't see how missionaries are any different from any other sort of solicitor. They're all trying to sell you something, be it a vaccuum or a knife set or a religion."
No. That distorts the word "sell" out of all usefulness. It practically transforms it to a figure of speech. Missionaries are promoting something, but they do not want you to buy anything from them, unless you also want to distort the word "buy".
It doesn't distort the word "sell," at all. You're trying to sell an idea. People do that all the time. When you go to a job interview, you're trying to sell your skills and abilities.
You know the phrase, "I don't buy it?" In other words, someone didn't give you a good enough sales pitch for an idea, so you aren't willing to believe it or do whatever it was that they were trying to get you to do.
Selling and buying doesn't necessarily involve money.
posted
Yes, but unless the security guard was a time traveler, he didn't know you lived there when he initially had a problem with you being there, right?
edit: And in your story, the time when you were telling him that you lived in the complex was prior to you both going to the security guard?
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posted
So when he did know, he had so much momentum he couldn't stop himself? Squicky, you have to know you're grasping at straws.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I don't see how there needs to be any judging at all. If a person doesn't want strangers coming to the door trying to sell him something, it can totally be about them and not about you. It's like a "Do not disturb" sign on a hotel room. It's all about the people inside.[/QB]
Since this was from my post, I'll answer it even though the discussion has moved on.
The fact that it's all about the people inside is exactly what makes it so difficult. Because that "Do Not Disturb" sign is a pretty thin point from which to infer their intent. Say I know the hotel building is about to get bombed; should I respect the hypothetical "Do Not Disturb" sign? or should I infer that it doesn't apply to me? I can't know exactly who and what they don't want to be disturbed by, and, more importantly, whether I belong in that group or not, until I knock and ask (and not even then, really, because our ability to communicate intent is limited, imperfect and time-consuming). Sure, I can infer that I'm included in the group, and the more explicit the sign the more likely I am to infer correctly (if it were to say, for instance, "Do Not Disturb even in the event of the building about to be bombed"), but our ability to infer another's desire and intent can never be perfect, meaning we will unavoidably be rude and tactless (because incorrect inference is rude, regardless of which way it goes. Let's say I think "Do Not Disturb" does apply, despite the bomb in the building. Really they would have liked to have been warned rather than being blown up. I'd say that's pretty rude, too.)
So (perhaps more concisely) "rude" means disregarding someone's wishes or intentions. However, ascertaining someone's wishes or intentions is an imperfect process. And saying, "just do what they say" is no defense, because what they say is necessarily a limited and imperfect representation of what they want. It's not enough to do what they say, you have to do what they want, which might not even be clear to them.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:The only missionary I've met in real life and spoken to outside of this forum happened to serve his mission in Taiwan. Just like here, there's not anti-Mormon signs up on every street corner. Rather, there are a sizeable minority of Christians (about 5% of the population are Christians) who are very hostile and who express that hostility in common, bigoted ways. This attitude has been picked up by some non-Christians.
His specific comment related the types of bigotry to what he faces here in the states - not everyday, but virulent when it arises.
Errr...5% are Christians? Are the entire 5% bigots? If I remember correctly, you estimate a low percentage of Christians here are bigots? Maybe 10%? 10% of 5% would be .5% of the population. Let's say they effect twice their number. 1% of the population.
Now, I haven't done a Baysian analysis is a couple of years, but even so, I'm thinking that given a 1% (heck, let's make it 5%) prior probability, saying that this woman was likely a bigot based on actions that have plenty of other possibilities (many of which you wouldn't even know about because of how little you know of the culture) is statistically unsound.
And that's assuming that the missionary you talked to was recalling things accurately. I think I could come up with at least a couple of instances where Christians in general and LDS specifically tend towards having a persecution complex.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Yes, but unless the security guard was a time traveler, he didn't know you lived there when he initially had a problem with you being there, right?
edit: And in your story, the time when you were telling him that you lived in the complex was prior to you both going to the security guard?
I made an edit a post or two ago addressing my use of the word "knew" in that mans regard.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:The only missionary I've met in real life and spoken to outside of this forum happened to serve his mission in Taiwan. Just like here, there's not anti-Mormon signs up on every street corner. Rather, there are a sizeable minority of Christians (about 5% of the population are Christians) who are very hostile and who express that hostility in common, bigoted ways. This attitude has been picked up by some non-Christians.
His specific comment related the types of bigotry to what he faces here in the states - not everyday, but virulent when it arises.
Errr...5% are Christians? Are the entire 5% bigots? If I remember correctly, you estimate a low percentage of Christians here are bigots? Maybe 10%? 10% of 5% would be .5% of the population. Let's say they effect twice their number. 1% of the population.
Now, I haven't done a Baysian analysis is a couple of years, but even so, I'm thinking that given a 1% (heck, let's make it 5%) prior probability, saying that this woman was likely a bigot based on actions that have plenty of other possibilities is statistically unsound.
And that's assuming that the missionary you talked to was recalling things accurately. I think I could come up with at least a couple of instances where Christians in general and LDS specifically tend towards having a persecution complex.
You are also discounting biggotry perpetuated by Buddhists and Taoists. They often accuse Mormons and other Christians (not Catholics) as being ancestor haters.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Senoj, You were saying that people who put up these signs were prejudging the people who were affected by them. I wrote my response primarily around that idea. Do you have anything to say on that?
quote:Because that "Do Not Disturb" sign is a pretty thin point from which to infer their intent. Say I know the hotel building is about to get bombed; should I respect the hypothetical "Do Not Disturb" sign? or should I infer that it doesn't apply to me?
Err...of course not. As I mentioned in my above post, I have no trouble being intruded on by people who have standing to intrude on me. A friend, a delivery man, someone who is saving my life, each of these has a clear reason to expect that I'm not going to have a problem with them disturbing me.
A complete stranger, on the other hand, who is trying to sell me something and knows from experience that most people have no interest in buying it has no such expectation. From your perspective, what you are doing is very important, but as we agreed, this isn't about you. It's about the people you are intruding on and people have already said they know that a very large percentage have no interest in what you are intruding into their lives for.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: edit in reponse to your edit: He knew after these events then, correct? Not before. And he tried to kick you out of he complex, very possibly because he thought you didn't belong there. [/QB]
Correct. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was not aware we lived there, though missionaries had lived there for years, it is still certainly plausable.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
At least you've now tacitly admitted in two posts that my defense was not solely the whisper comment.
That's all I really care about at this point. You said you didn't see why the analogy was relevant. I've tried to explain over two pages now why it was.
It might be a bad analogy, but it's clearly not irrelevant. But I don't even care if you think it's irrelevant at this point.
As I've already said, if you don't buy the analogy, then simply use it to understand why I think it likely there was a nasty motive here. I get that we disagree about whether her "actions ... have plenty of other possibilities."
If you don't care to do that, then I'll simply be grateful that you're not pretending that the whisper remark was my only defense of the analogy.
quote:And that's assuming that the missionary you talked to was recalling things accurately. I think I could come up with at least a couple of instances where Christians in general and LDS specifically tend towards having a persecution complex.
So we've gone from "you don't know anything about the culture there" (emphasis added) to something like "your source might be wrong."
Well, I have a source who encountered, what, a couple thousand? ten thousand? citizens of Taiwan. You have nothing except your tired assertions about persecution complexes.
This is an argument about the word "likely." Put whatever percent on that you feel comfortable with.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Right, and at the time when he was trying to kick you out of the complex, there is good reason to think that he might be thinking that you snuck in, correct? Which would establish that this is a belief that it is likely some Taiwanese hold?
edit: And I'll throw out again the idea that there are perfectly legitimate reasons, from their perspective, for people of different religions to dislike the LDS and warn less knowledgible people away from them.
posted
Dag, You're whisper remark was one of two defenses you offered. The second was your personal experiences in America, which I repeatedly said were not relevant in a Taiwanese context.
You just now offered up "I know a missionary who was in Taiwan.". Up to that point, I had no reason to believe you knew anything about it, instead of very little from a single, potentially biased source.
For pete's sake, you jump all over people for saying that people in their own culture are bigots by saying they don't understand these people. You attacked me for saying things about groups I used to belong to and still are pretty closely tied to because, in your words, I'm not a mind reader and I clearly don't understand these people. Why don't these standards apply to you talking about a person who don't know in a culture you know very little about?
I and several other people have offered explanations that make sense in our own cultural context, to say nothing of the unkown explanations that would result from the cultural differences you know nothing about. I don't think your statements about this woman's likely bigotry are reasonable or consistent with the standards you try to apply to other people.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:I think I could come up with at least a couple of instances where Christians in general and LDS specifically tend towards having a persecution complex.
Of course, sometimes that complex is a little more...complex. Like when there's actual evidence to the paranoia.
When I lived in Wisconsin, the Lutheran private school in our town had an assembly in which it was taught that Mormons had horns. Literal horns. It's hard to believe that such things are still taught; (well-- "still" meaning 12 years ago... )
Certainly, Mormons are sometimes prone to blowing these things out of proportion.
BUT-- and maybe you didn't mean to, Squicky-- it can't be said that we don't suffer ANY; there are lots of well meaning people out there that believe Mormons DO have horns.
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