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» Hatrack River Forum » Active Forums » Books, Films, Food and Culture » Ann Coulter is Keeping Her Mouth Shut for Awhile (Page 4)

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Author Topic: Ann Coulter is Keeping Her Mouth Shut for Awhile
Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwea:
No, it's isn't. I am NOT a racist ...

Ok, the only reason I noted that phrase was to point out an example that has been proven to be deeply offensive to many but is not obvious using the dictionary. I appreciate your eagerness to point out that you're not a racist, but its not actually relevant to the point.

quote:
It is far more obvious when a person says Jesus' name (or any deity, substitute that at will, it doesn't matter to the point I am making) as an exclamation...because the entire POINT of using it exclamatory is to startle and get a reaction.
Really? The entire POINT, you say. Of course the liberal use of capitalized words in your posts is terribly convincing, but I must disagree.

Consider the whole reason for our discussion. Samprimary from context said something like "haha holy Yehsou* dude. like it's impossible that we're both night owls with a lot of overlap in forum browsing time"

* Cantonese word for Christ, if we must censor ourselves

Was Samprimary using it to startle and to get a reaction, or simply to express his own exasperation? It is not clear to me. Especially since he noted that he would be fine with "holy Xenu" which seems to indicate that the deity is arbitrary.

Also consider someone that stubs their toe, "Jesus Christ!" to themselves or someone that finds out they failed a test, "For Heaven's sake...", or a medical doctor that gets an unreasonable request, "God damnit Jim! I'm a doctor, not a..."

Exasperation not intended to startle is a clear alternative to any intended "shock value".

quote:
... yet you are so highly offended by the use of another word which IS correct, factual, and holds no derogatory connotations to 99.9% of people who use it.
Ah numbers. So a word that holds no derogatory connotations to 99.9% of English speakers but is derogatory to 0.1% is acceptable. Ok, what about a 90% to 10% split? What about a 50.1% to 49.9% split?

What is your cut-off for the proportion of English speakers that have to find it offensive in order for it to be banned?

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James Tiberius Kirk
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quote:
Originally posted by Elmer's Glue:
Why is it a logical fallacy to say that if I have a friend who is black I can't be a racist?

Not disagreeing, I just can't think of good reasons.

Because friendship is based on observations about an individual, whereas racism is based on generalizations about an entire group.

A person can hold prejudices toward a group which have nothing to do with whether or not he will befriend individual members of the group.

--j_k

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Kwea
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Yes...shock is why exclamations are used, for emphasis. People DON'T use their own name in than manner because it doesn't have any impact.

As far as the racism pint..I know, I was just refuting the point you made specifically using the same example. similar logic can be used in similar situations.


One of the points i feel has been overlooked is the mechanism that this site uses to let someone know iif something is considered profane by them, and therefore a violation of the TOC.

They tell us, then expect us to believe them and act accordingly.


No one is banned, no scarlet letter is placed next to their name. No one ignores then solely based on that because the forum mod tells them too.


They tell us.


I don't have to agree with everything, but I do try and follow most of the rules most of the time. I think I have gotten ONE email in 8 years asking me to tone it down...and the letter mad it clear that while I was not in the wrong, it would be better to back the situation down than escalate it. [Big Grin]


In a normal conversatio with you, if you told me you had a problem wiht that word, I'd probably use anohter. But we were in a discussion about WHY words offend, and I was talking inn context wiht that, which is why I pointed out a few things I noticed. I don;t care about being PC, per se. I don't ALWAYS even care about being polite, if I feel teh other person isn't extending em the same courtesy. [Big Grin]


But IRL I would have disagreed with your interpretation, and explained what i MEANT by using it. If you decided to continue to be offended, I'd be fine with it. If we were extending each other consideration (and I bet we would) we'd both move on to other topics....maybe even the history of the word and the historical facts behind why it means different things to you than to me.


There isn't a specific number or percent that makes the determination, at least for me. However, there IS the fact that common usage usually prevails in common conversation.


You can't please everyone...but when simply refraining from a specific word makes conversation more pleasant, I usually go with it. [Big Grin]

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Orincoro
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I'd only quibble with that to say that I grew up with a father who used the word "Christ," as an exclamation, and at least in that context, not a public one, the intention was not to be offensive or evocative of anything, because the family did not have a particularly religious or Jesus-centered life. What other meanings could be attached to it in other circumstances were not meaningful to me as a child, and to a certain extent, though I appreciate the meaning of the word to others *intellectually* it doesn't register to me, and so I still use it casually amongst my family, or people I know. I've never given much thought to it.

Now here, I might have used it once or twice, I can't be sure, but I have probably adapted to the comfort of others in this forum, and adopted an attitude to the word similar to that of others for the sake of communication. I think we as a group (and especially long-term regulars) fall into a pattern of communication that is, in its way, unique to this community; and in doing so, we adopt certain conventions of language that are not dependent upon the significance of the words, but rather on the need to communicate. That is why, I think, we can know the "line" when we cross it, and so we can use that line as effectively as we use less aggressive aspects of our common communicative tools. Now, I don't expect anyone here to follow an arbitrary and prohibitive set of rules, simply because I don't think we have such a working system (although we do have a TOS). Though the TOS is there, I think the "rules" we follow are naturally developed patterns that work for us (and sometimes don't work). As such, I don't say the same things here that I say in other circumstances, and I expect that others will follow these same conventions, because that has been my experience.

In all of that, I still have no deep respect for the power of the words or their meanings, but I do have respect for the communicative conventions of the forum, my awareness of which has grown over time. If any of us could look back on the way we posted when we first started posting, I think we'd see a marked difference in not only our language, but our ability to communicate. I find this particularly true in my case, and I think Blayne is an even more obvious example.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
So, no, Rabbit, I wasn't just being excessively hyperbolic. What I am doing is a very common argument in philosophy - push a rule or belief to its limit, and see if it results in an absurd conclusion. The idea that any "profane" statement is not to be allowed, when pushed to its limit, results an absurd conclusion.
There are at least two serious logical fallacies in your arguments. The reductio ad absurdum is only valid as a logical test is if the reduction does not significantly alter the intent of the original statement. What you have done is to build a strawman argument and show that it leads to irrational conclusions.

quote:
To address your first point, my argument is completely based on the dictionary definition that Rabbit pulled out to get people to stop oppressing her.
My intent in posting a dictionary definition of "profane" was only to show that "the taking of God's name in vane" (as emphasized by the esp. in that definition) was in fact commonly understood to be "profane" and not some extremist notion that I had just introduced. I was not introducing a definition to be used as the starting point for a logical debate nor did I imply such a thing. My argument is quite simple. 1. The TOS specifically prohibits the use of profane language and 2. In the English language, using the name of Christ as an expletive is commonly understood to be profane.

And I never claimed any one was "oppressing" me. Offending, yes. In using the word "oppressing" you are building another strawman, exaggerating both my words and my intent in order to make them easier to criticize.

quote:
Based on a dictionary definition, I'm led to the conclusion I discussed above. Of course, I doubt that the dictionary definition of profane is the one the TOS references - I doubt the TOS rule means, in essence, much more than "don't say shitty things to each other."
Once again you are building a strawman. I never claimed that the TOS was using this specific definition of profane, in fact I said that explicitly in my post. I produced it as an example which among other things says that profane is especially used in later times to refer to taking of God's name in vain. In other words, the phrase contained in Sam's post is commonly understood and profane in the English language. I never intended more than that when I posted the dictionary definition.

quote:
But Rabbit threw the terms of the argument into dictionary definitions, which is where I get my absurd conclusion. Basically, I'm just calling her argument stupid. Like someone (Sam?) said, she should have just appealed to common curtsy, rather than trying to throw a rule book around by brute force. Sucks to her assmar.
No, basically, you are making up an argument that I never posted, assigning it to me so that you can justify the boorishness of those who insulted me and add a few more insults of your own. As Papa confirmed, I was not incorrect in my assumption that this violated the TOS.

I didn't try to "throw a rule book around" nor could anything I've said or done be considered "brute force". I politely pointed out that what he said was in violation of the rules. I was correct, it is in violation of the rules. When that comment was met with mockery, I politely pointed out that Sam was showing disrespect for something I personal consider to be sacred. Several members of this forum have agreed that my posts were polite.

Finally I will add that in your original argument, you are presenting a false dicotomy. You have implied that the site's rule prohibiting "profanity" is either "a specific Christian prohibition" or it must prohibit all things that might be viewed as offensive to any religious person. There is a reasonable middle ground interpretation of this rule and no reason to conclude that it has a specific Christian bias.

If members of the forum have expressed contempt for things that non-Christian members of this forum hold sacred, I hope that they would also be chastised for breaking the forum rules. I can't see that as unduly restrictive on civil discourse.

[ December 01, 2008, 02:32 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]

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Kwea
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And Rabbit, I can name several specific instances when someone DID step in from this site to defend a non-christian's right to post where under the same type of protection.

I agree with you, even though the words used like that don;t offend me personally. [Big Grin]

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Samprimary
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quote:
I didn't try to "throw a rule book around"
You kind of did exactly that. You even told me a mod was going to change my post if I didn't, immediately afterward.
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katharina
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Sam,

Be polite and curb your words. It's the grown up thing to do.

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