As Dopers our mission statement, if you will, is to fight ignorance.
As such, I feel it is essential that we refine our usage of language to give it greater resonance with reality.
Statements such as “The Republicans blah blah blah…” “The Liberals blah blah blah…” serve no real purpose. I have news for y’all, The Republicans do not exist. They just don’t. Neither do The Democrats.
There are people, messy, chaotic, organic people who happen to belong to political camps. But there is certainly no uniformity in their beliefs, attitudes, actions, etc… Any attempt to make groups fungible does a fundamental disservice to the cause of fighting ignorance.
Categories are linguistic fictions.
The degree to which we act as if they are real is the degree to which we divorce ourselves from reality.
It is a sloppy and lazy tactic to describe all of your ‘opposition’ with one-word-generalizations. Instead of discussing what certain people who happen to be republicans think/feel/do, it’s easier to say “The Republicans are…”
But it’s also totally false to facts, and ends up painting your fellow Dopers with a brush that they may or may not deserve.
This goes double for oh-so-cute phrases like “The Repugs.”
Can we just drop this shit?
Even in terms of our politicians there is debate and disagreement.
There is individuality, growth, change, uniqueness.
Let’s play straight here.
Please.
P.S. As a caveat, I am sure that I’m guilty of this to a certain degree. And yes, I would appreciate being called on it when and if I screw up.
P.P.S. No, I don’t have any cites, but any casual browsing of recent threads should turn up enough example to kill a horse.
