A very mild Pitting, this is, but I wish to make a personal comment about another poster and where else is it gonna go?
In another thread of mine about a sexual harassment complaint which I think to be bullshit, Isamu writes:
When I asked just what that meant, s/he continues:
and two posts later adds
Isamu, I find it difficult to believe that the sentiments you express in these posts was in any way genuine. The incident I spoke of is just too small, too minor to elicit such a response from anyone who is not already disposed to irrationality. It seems more likely that you are attempting to elicit an outraged and irrational response from any American posters; in other words you seem to be trolling.
I could, of course, be wrong. But just in case, please be careful not to linger overlong out of doors in the pre-dawn hours. It is all too easy to miscalculate and find oneself petrified.
Isn’t that one of the first rebuttals they teach in Debate 101? Considered the ‘trump card’ of the debating community. Rarely used but highly effective. Not to be confused with the “I can’t hear you la la la” technique.
Is trolling something that has become acceptable on this board, because it seems to be happening a lot without a whole lot of response from mods. I only say this because when a poster comes in, hijacks a thread and in doing so inflames just about everyone in the thread, being called a troll repeatedly, you kind of expect authority to step in and say something. Even if that’s just cut it out.
I don’t know that anyone’s reported him. I certainly didn’t. On the off chance that he was being sincere, he might have gotten in trouble for hate speech, and I have some philosophical issues with that.
That is the traditional school of thought. There has been some debate in more scholarly forensic quarters, though, that both of these techniques are in turn trumped by the “I know you are, but what am I?” approach. Crude, provincial, you may decry, but effective in its own right and gaining acceptance among the intelligensia. It is related closely to yet another method, entitled “I"m rubber and you’re glue”.
Please make a note of it.
The comment was over the top, but there is a modicum of truth to it.
Something is fucked when “Men in speedos on a personal screen saver in a coffee shop” is taken seriously as a sexual harassment complaint. It is kind of like the guy who sued for $26 million dollars because the dry cleaner ruined his pants. You, me, and everybody else with brains knows that the complaint needs to be dismissed immediately and that everyone should point and laugh at the complainer. But something in our society (and I highly doubt it is just our country) has driven all sanity out the window and forced otherwise busy and important people to have to focus their valuable time on it.
I wouldn’t say “America is fucked” because of it, but something is wrong, and it isn’t just a single incident.
Not trolling Skald, that’s not what I do. Getting worked up about idiocy though, yes, I’m guilty. Sorry about the tone I used. But if I sounded dismissive in my few posts, it’s because, well, sometimes you either get it or you don’t. I don’t want to waste time being nitpicked by people who don’t get it.
For what it’s worth, and for the record, I don’t think that saying a country is fucked is the same as insulting all the inhabitants of that country. In fact I said something like “America is fucked”, not “Americans are fucked”. Still further (and I don’t want to press the issue but…) saying something is “fucked”, means, to me, that it’s in serious trouble. I certainly didn’t intend to insult the entire US population. I think most people know this.
With the preponderance of things that America gets right, the few things it gets so horribly wrong make me angrier than I otherwise would be. And this single incidence of complete workplace douchbaggery that you reported was a kind of straw that broke the camels back. Having lurked here for many years I’ve seen many similar accounts and I draw, what I think are, appropriate conclusions. As always, YMMV.
Here’s a study ranking 130 countries according to how well women are treated relative to men. The United States is 27th on the list. Japan is down at 99. That’s about as low as Kuwait.
If you’re a man living somewhere where misogyny is the norm, I can see how American sexual harassment laws might look bizarre … .
