Moderator Note
Posts in ATMB are expected to be polite and civil.
MrDibble and DrDeth, this isn’t the Pit. Stop being snippy. If you have a point to make, make it politely.
Noted.
That’s very much a value statement, and one that is heavily influenced by your own culture and background.
I suspect many scholars of various identity-studies disciplines would assert that various kinds of hair/skin/etc. are indeed “fundamental to our human identities.”
Certainly I would say there are many, many non-physical traits that I personally regard as carrying more moral worth than than IQ. Frankly, I find the idea that IQ is the most valuable and worthy human trait to be little different than the idea that blonde hair is.
But then a lot of intellectuals seem to think otherwise…
It’s not about inherent value - is about what value has been used to justify oppression and brutality in human history. And claims about intelligence have been used for this probably more than any other.
I do not come from a background or culture that dismisses physical expressions of phenotype. Quite the contrary.
Then cite them. Me, I’m giving my opinion, not citing authority - you want to claim the weight of “many scholars”, name them.
And note - I said nothing about “IQ” - I consider the whole field of IQ studies to be not too far removed from psychoanalysis as far as woo goes. I said “intelligence”, not the same thing at all. And yes, intelligence is more fundamental to our human identity - it is, after all, what makes us* H. sapiens*. And the reason for this is because our self-identity is almost entirely a mental construct (with some hormonal & peripheral input). You could take any human and change the colour of their skin, or hair, and they would not, fundamentally and immediately, be any different a human being. If you did it in a dark room, they wouldn’t even know. They may not like it when they found out, they may question their continued identity, especially in terms of social links, but they won’t be a different person. Mess with their mind enough, though, and they will be.
What non-physical traits are there, besides the mind?
That wasn’t what you said. You said “Intelligence … is fundamental to our human identities in a way physical phenotypes aren’t.” if you belong to a culture that thinks differently, name it.
You didn’t say “the mind,” you said “intelligence.” I value compassion, diligence, generosity, and others as carrying more moral worth than intelligence.
Err, no. I never claimed cultural backing at all, you brought that up.
It’s got fuck-all to do with culture and everything to do with my own personal beliefs. My birth culture did value physical traits. I don’t.
Synonyms for mind
noun intelligence
Those are all a function of intelligence.
You said “Intelligence … is fundamental to our human identities in a way physical phenotypes aren’t.” Pretty much every developed country on earth believes this. You aren’t breaking free from your culture, you’re agreeing with it.
You can always tell someone is moving the goalposts when they have to dig down into the thesaurus of a different word, instead of using the dictionary definition of the word in question:
Intelligence:capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.
Intelligence: the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : reason; also : the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)
Intelligence refers to intellectual functioning.
Compassion, diligence, generosity, etc. are not included in “intelligence” as most people use the word.
Moderator Note
This is just a friendly reminder that this is not GD.
If you want to debate the topic of hate speech in general, it’s probably best to move to GD for that.
If you want to continue in this thread, you need to make it a little more clear about exactly how this relates to the rules and moderation on the SDMB. The ATMB issue is getting lost in the more generic debate.
Yeah, I see where you’re making the mistake, there…not that I agree that you’re correct about “developed” countries, anyway.
Er, no. Or are you calling me a liar? Or claiming you know my own skin-colour-obsessed culture better than I do?
Geez, excuse me for thinking you’d know how synonyms work - if “intelligence” is a synonym for “mind”, then [“mind” is a synonym for “intelligence” Synonymy is reciprocal.
From your own link:
**"Synonyms
- See mind. "**
I said they were* a function of* it, not included in it, so this is just a strawman argument, but still: *none of those things *exist without intelligence - rocks are not compassionate, insects aren’t dilligent, trees are not generous…all the things you say have a higher moral worth are dependent on, and arise out of, the characteristic you say is of lesser worth.
All of which is irrelevant, anyway, since we were discussing** phenotypic expressions** and none of those are phenotypes like skin colour, height or (some aspects of ) intelligence are.
The ATMB issue here is whether fraudulently insulting the intelligence of a whole group of people is a particularly vile sort of insult worthy of moderation, as intelligence is more fundamental to human identity than, say, ability to run real fast.
Or to put it another way: basing your arguments on long-discredited research that alludes to continent-wide clinically-retarded levels of intellect for Africans is just a polite phrasing of “Africans are subhuman” hate speech.
Do we have a consensus on this issue? Is the point of view that MrDibble is defending going to become policy?
No. See post #2, which gives our position on the issue.