Bullshit.
March.
Write (or buy) your congresscritter.
Push the media to portray your cause accurately.
Boycott companies that cower in fear of those who oppose equal rights; make them fear you equally.
Do what you need to do to get your message across.
You can demand to your heart’s content. Nothing posted here suggests otherwise.
My only comment is that if you insist on deliberately insulting people who could be persuaded to join your cause, you are acting foolishly.
This is an egregiously insulting mischaracterization of what I’ve said, and it’s beneath what I used to think of as your dignity. THis thread has been quite an eye opener for me.
Again, how dare you continue to suggest that I “lash out” only when people disagree with me? When I have said that, insofar as I am “lashing out,” it is only for their expressions of prejudice against gays?
Why don’t you just call me a liar and have done with it? I ask this in all seriousness. I tell you again that you are quite simply wrong in your assumption that my reason for “lashing out” is that I don’t like being disagreed with, but because I don’t like having my dignity and humanity denigrated. Period.
Now, either call me a liar, or quit repeating that what I’m reacting to is the disagreement, and not the dehumanization.
In any case, you still fail to understand. I gain no satisfaction in what you call “lasing out” (but what is, in fact, no such thing). I don’t invest it with that kind of emotional effort. I simply turn away. For me, “homophobe” is a word of dismissal, not of self-righteous attack. I am not trying to bully anyone into changing their mind. I am simply giving up on them. I am only exercising my right to apathy, not to some kind of vengeful satisfaction. I don’t relish the fact that homophobes are insulted by the word homophobe. I just don’t *care *that they do.
And anyone who blames me, personally, for their homophobia, is not worth dealing with, and is not being honest anyway. Think about it; do the math. If I’m the only exposure they have to the “gay agenda,” then they have bigger problems than their homophobia. And if they extrapolate, from me and my behavior, to the “universal gay,” then they’re a stone bigot anyway, and I had nothing to do with it.
[list=A]
[li]So what?[/li][li]I don’t think you can prove that. I also believe that sticks are as necessary as carrots in such a situation. I worked for a couple decades as a carrot, now I’m happy to be a stick, when called into duty. Mostly I’m a person who doesn’t give a fuck about closet-building homophobes.[/li][/list]
Well I’m sure that’s a reassuring little nugget of fantasy you’ve fashioned for yourself, but it reflects nothing but your own subjective wishes. You would really set yourself up to speak for individual members of the doper community? In any case, I happen to know that it’s not true. Keep in mind that I’ve been posting in this manner, on this subject, for almost exactly six years now. I totally understand that you’re less likely to accurately track explicitly expressed reactions to my contributions than I am, so I don’t blame you for getting this one wrong. But I’m surprised that you’d stoop that low (suggesting that everybody else probably secretly agrees with you; pretty shameful) to “support” your own argument.
And this is OK, continuing to put words in my mouth? This is OK with you?
Yes, an eye opener indeed.
Sigh.
THe assumptions you make, while not reading my posts. How is doing all those things (thanks for assuming that I haven’t) antithetical to also using language accurately and effectively?
In any case, you continue to miss the point. To suggest that the burden is on ME to be polite, or else I risk making homophobes uncomfortable, is to prioritize their complacency over my dignity. To suggest that it’s perfectly fine with you that my dignity be held hostage by homophobes, and the only ransom they’ll accept is obsequiousness, is naive (oy! is it naive!), and insulting.
If you still don’t get it, then you won’t.
Based on the amount of anger you display, (go back and read the first page of this thread), I think “lashing out” is a perfectly adequate description of your posting.
As for calling you a liar, I see no reason to do that. However, I certainly will point out that I have never made the claim of which you are now accusing me and I have no idea why you are bringing up that topic again this late in the thread, particularly to falsely attribute it to me. I have not claimed that your anger is based on people disagreeing with you. I have said that the effect of you claiming different things in different posts, appearing to shift your stance as your anger leads you, made it appear that your definition of a homophobe was anyone who disagreed with you.
We’ve long since moved beyond that discussion and are now dealing with the issue that your anger leads you to insist that you have a need to insult people, even when such actions will hamper your ultimate goals. (We also now have the side issue that you seem to ignore actual posts and invent positions for other people to hold. You have certainly misstated my positions thoughout your two last posts.)
For example, I have certainly not assumed that you have never actively worked for your civil rights. You continue to whine that I am demanding you “plead.” I pointed out things that I would expect you to do that would not be “pleading” by any normal definition. You used that to falsely claim that I accused you of doing nothing. If you are going to infer things that are not even on the page, you are going to spend your life arguing at cross purposes with other people.
Is “lashing out” your characterization of my posting, or of my use of the word “homophobe”? It certainly seemed it was the latter, but now you say it was the former. I won’t deny that bad-faith word-twisters like some of the participants have made me angry; but my “lashing out” takes the form of pointing out that they are bad-faith word-twisters, not calling them homophobes. You seem to be conflating the two, and then, further, suggesting that I conflate the two. I do not.
Well, indignantly cutting and pasting to rub your nose in it, I find that I must instead apologize. I misread *“people who might have been receptive to your actual arguments” *as “people who might [not] have been receptive to your actual arguments”–i.e., “people who disagree with you.” I apologize for the misreading of that passage.
I still can’t see how I’ve been unclear, but I have not shifted my stance in six years of posting on this subject, let alone within this thread. I can proudly say that I have been called a one trick pony on this subject even. So any shifting of stance you read is simply not there. I must take responsibility for my ill communication, but many others have read my position this subject over the years, and I have NEVER been accused of inconsistency. Everything that I have said has been intended to elucidate, clarify, amplify, or emphasize a single position. Where I have implied that prejudice is irrational, for example, is not to say on the one hand that homophobia is prejudice, and on the other that it is irrational, as you seem to suggest. It is both. To say that someone is racist, and to further say that they are prejudiced against blacks, and to suggest that their prejudice is rooted in fear, which fear is fundamentally irrational–those statements are not contradictory.
The disagreement has been so tenacious (well, only among a couple of individuals) that as this thread continues I have been trying to triangulate some understading by approaching the same point from different angles. But that point itself hase never changed.
Sigh. Please reread. I have no “need” to insult people. I have a “need” to be accurate in my language. I have a “need” to call a spade a spade, the spade’s feelings be damned. If that accuracy insults people who question my humanity, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t “need” to insult them, I just don’t care.
Well, we’ll disagree there. We have a different view of strategy. I happen to believe that my strategy will be more effective in the long run, taking into account the larger context that there ARE still people out there willing to coddle and educate. If nothing else, I’m happy to be a living example of the myth of the monolothic “gay culture.” We don’t all act and think the same way, just like . . . hey . . . just like real people!
I apologize for that one misreading, but I’m not aware of any other misstatements.
No. I suppose I should apologize for that too, although it isn’t precisely what I meant. Rereading, I’m not sure what I did mean, so I remove the qualification from my apology.
I might better have pointed out that my demanding dignity of each individual I interact with–which is what I feel like I’m doing–is well in keeping with your suggestions. Demand of your congressman, but be obsequious to the homophobe standing right in front of you? I don’t see that as a valid strategy, overall.
And you continue to try to minimize the validity of what I have to say by couching it in belittling language, like “lashing out” and “whining.”
Trust me, I’m not whining.
And I continue to point out that you don’t understand. If the status quo position is that YOU hold the power, and can give me a thumbs up or thumbs down based on your prejudicial whim, then there is no exchange possible that is outside the paradigm of “pleading,” except demanding. The language does not have to be the language of pleading. It’s a politics of pleading. Merely accepting the terms is an act of pleading; merely accepting YOUR right to state the terms is an abdication of dignity, and is an act of pleading. You don’t understand that when you’re kneeling in audience, it doesn’t matter how dignified you pretend to be, you’re still pleading. By framing my demands as requests for special privileges is to put me in a position of pleading, no matter the language.
Picture a plantation owner and his slave. The slave demands extra sugar for his sweet tooth. You and I would counsel politeness in such an exchange. Now, the slave demands the right to choose his mate, or some such fundamental human right.
By counseling politeness in the second instance, you condone the entire institution of slavery; you acknowledge the slaveowner’s position as the sole holder of rights; and you equate basic human rights with a sugar cube.
Now, obviously this is a hyperbolic hypothetical, but I have not otherwise been able to make you understand that pleading is the very paradigm within which you expect me to behave.
What’s wrong with pleading? What makes it a bad thing? It’s that it’s a demand that the applicant sacrifice his dignity in exchange for consideration. This is what you demand, whether you understand it or not. I will not acknowledge your (universal “you”) right to dictate the terms of how I will claim MY DIGNITY. I will not place your complacency over my dignity. I will not tailor my language to “let you down easy” into a world you should have let yourself down into a generation ago.
I will not allow you to hold my dignity hostage to your complacency. If that means that you feel slapped in the face, so fucking what. Guess what? Non-homophobes don’t feel slapped by the word. You feel slapped? Take that as your first clue.
It looked that way from here. You insisted in multiple posts that you were standing by the “dictionary” definition, yet what you really meant was that you considered any example of prejudice to be homophobia. In order to claim that all prejudice against homosexuals is dictionary-defined homophobia, you have to claim that anyone who holds an inherited, unthinking prejudice to be guilty of fear or hatred–a point you had not made clear until the last couple of posts (and one which I find misguided). Since you now openly declare your odd twisting of the language, I can see where it appeared consistent to you, but that is not how it appears to someone who comes to the discussion without those preconceptions.
You declare you have no need to insult people except that you find that people need to be insulted. Sorry. That is just self-justifying rationalization. You are saying that if you encounter a person who holds incorrect beliefs, who might be willing to change their mind if given facts or truth, you feel compelled to insult them because you lack the imagination to see that they may be a victim of ignorance rather than a wielder of fear or hatred. That simply shouts that you have a need to be insulting. I suppose that your “don’t care” claim is true–but the effect (on your psyche as well as on their response) is identical to having a need to insult.
Your armchair psychology is not very compelling. I have no problem insulting people who demean my humanity; but I honestly no longer feel a need to do so, like I may have in my 20s. I feel a need not to waste any emotional energy on them; I feel a need to make any concessions whatsoever to avoid insulting them. I may even take a little bit of glee in the fact that accurate use of language is insulting to them. But I honestly have no pre-existing “need” to insult them. I am about as far from perfect as you can get, but I have dabbled in enough therapy over the years that I have a pretty highly developed capacity to examine my emotional motivations, if I take the time to do so. And you’re simply not right here.
You know, on reflection, I have to say I’m a little ashamed that you succeeded in manipulating me into the defensive. I went along with you and magellan01 *et al. *while you made this thread about me and my personal issues, rather than about the stated agenda of the OP. I’m going to bookmark this thread as a perfect example of how an argument *ad hominem *can be used to divert a debate from the actual subject under discussion; a classical example of reframing the debate to be about the debaters, when one of the debaters feels like it’s not going his way.
I’d like to see how this kind of debate would play out if all of the participants were anonymous, so that each point had to stand or fall on its merits, rather than be judged according to prejudices about the debaters. Well, I suppose one way to achieve that is if the debaters were anonymous; another way would be if they were grownups.
I hit submit on the wrong window; I had corrected the last sentence to read “if [del]they[/del] we were grownups,” because I’m at least as responsible as anyone else for the direction this debate took.
I introduced no personal issues to this thread. I merely responded to your posts in which you began dragging your personal feelings into the issue. Perhaps, rather than making up stories about others resorting to ad hominems, in the future you could discuss issues based on facts and logic, explaining what you meant, rather than playing coy games where you slam other posters for being unable to read your mind.
This guy has a big problem, but who can say if he’d know a gay if one bit him? Who knows if he ever met one?. Phobias don’t have to make sense. He and people like him mentioned in the article have a true phobia. There are people like that, and worse, there are people who will feed that fear for their own purposes - gays are gonna destroy your marriage, steal you children, and they even eat kittens. It is one of the driving forces behind the big anti-gay platforms - feed that fear, keep it going, make it worse. I don’t pit people with medical or psychological problems (they need help), but I would sure pit the people who cash in on it. It gets votes. It fills church coffers. Whatever the reason. We just don’t have a specific word for them. I would also pit those who do not have a “condition”, and are just bigoted, deliberately ignorant, or flat out haters, who picl out what they see as a “safe” target. We also don’t have a specific word for them. What would be a good word for anyone who attacks, demeans, insults, marginalizes, condemns, etc for a reason other than clinical phobia? “Asshole” isn’t specific enough.
I didn’t mean to suggest that you were the first person to take it personal. My personal feelings only became relevant when it was suggested that I was pushing “my own” definition, rather than discussing the dictionary definition. As I said, I’m ashamed I fell for that diversion. And while you, tomndebb, were certainly not the person who initiated that particular diversion, I have learned a great deal about diversionary tactics in general since you weighed in to this discussion. And if by “slamming other posters for being unable to read my mind,” you mean continually trying to elucidate and clarify where my meaning was not clear, then I plead guilty.
It seems, then, that what we need to do is modify the word “homophobe,” so that it no longer means “hatred or fear” and comes to mean “prejudice against.” We obviously need a word to describe these people, and they seem to vastly outnumber the people who genuinely fear or hate gays. I think it would be easier to effect a rather slight shift in the meaning of an established term, than it would be to coin an entirely new word and enter it into popular parlance.
Besides, it’s pretty much exactly how I’ve always used the term, and I always favor solutions that don’t require me to do anything different.
I agree. If we can set aside Tom’s and Lissener’s spat (which I confess I have no idea why it’s gone on so long, or what it’s about), does anyone object to the following definition of “homophobia”?
Homophobia:
If you object, why? What alternative definition would you offer that more accurately reflects how the word is used?
Daniel
As far as I can tell, it is because tom is a fan of the Pope, a guy who goes around saying “It’s ok to be gay, just not to commit homosexual acts.” That would be homophobia, under most definitions, and since homophobia is a bad thing, in the eyes of many, tom is trying to redefine it so that he isn’t a homophobe.
Actually, I should have added that I don’t know what it’s about, I don’t know why it’s gone on so long, I don’t care what it’s about, and I desperately hope one of them will let the other one have the last word so that we can get back to a discussion that I personally find interesting instead of a back-and-forth between the two of them.
Daniel
Gotcha’.
No, because Tom~ as a Catholic is honorbound to assent to the teachings of the Magisterium, with some of which he may not as a private individual totally agree. And because Benedict XVI, to give him credit, has tried to put some effort into studying the whole homosexuality issue and attempt to integrate the facts of homosexuality with traditional Catholic teaching. That I don’t agree with the Pope’s views on “intrinsic disorders” and the nature of sin, doesn’t mean that I cannot respect someone attempting to resolve a significant paradox in a moral way.
Not everyone has been given your deep insight into the depths of reality, Scott; be a little patient with them. :dubious:
So, Polycarp, Scott, what do you think about the definition that I propose, above? Does it adequately address the shortcomings of the dictionary definition, and does it correspond to how the word is used, do you think? If not, what changes would y’all suggest?
Tom, miller, lissener, and everyone else is invited to join in as well :).
Daniel
Ok then, I should have said “it is because tom is a fan of the Pope, as well as my experience with tom as a person.”
Happy now?