Again, as an Australian looking in, I’ll bet you “London to a Brick” that I wouldn’t know even 10% of what the dishes are in an American Outback Restaurant without looking into the fine print to see what they “really” are. Of course, if I stood my ground and demanded a dish of “Moreton Bay Bugs” I might get some funny looks.
Wow. Are you slow? Seriously. Or are you just being an ass? Which is it?
Let’s break it down.
See, this means that I am about to restate the same thing that I have several times. Notice the caps to express exasperation.
This means that you cannot find a single characteristic about the given ethnicity, other than the thought of ethnicity itself, that gives you reason to prefer it.
What happens when society is harmed? There are problems, right? What are some of society’s problems? Racism? Ageism? Sexism? Nah, couldn’t be.
I would say that your grandmother is a closed-minded provincialist. Not to mention, I am sure I could make some Italian tomato sauce that she wouldn’t like. 
Is there a word for someone who asks, “Is there a word for people who go into a six-page thread that has died out, after a long, bloody battle, and stir shit again?”
It was something I wanted to talk about. Is there a problem?
Dudley, just a suggestion: Next time, start a separate thread. Ask your question and provide a link to the thread that inspired it.
Thanks.
See, Dud, the question Contrapuntal is trying to get at is, how, specifically, is society harmed by your grandmother’s choice in baseball players? Saying, “Bigotry harms society,” is begging the question, because what he’s trying to illustrate is the difference between genuine bigotry, such as “seperate but equal,” which consigned a significant portion of the population to underclass status, made it almost impossible to advance socially, and left them with little to no investment in the society in which they lived; and your grandmother liking Ichiro Suzuki more than Barry Bonds, which as near as anyone can tell, does no harm to anyone anywhere.
Which is what I pointed out to the OP, this trivialization of the very real problem of racism (or sexism) into an exercise of oversensitivity. Dud, your grandmother was a bore, and like many if not most grandmothers, deserves rolled eyes, but this is not a truly harmful racism. Locking people out of jobs, refusing service or a host of other discriminative practices is racism, but a blinded devotion to sports figures from your home country fails to make the cut. OTOH, if said grandmother were to leave her money only to her descendants which looked more Japanese, then I’d agree with the charge of bigotry.
As for the shock on your part that she still prefers her home country over her adapted one, I suggest that is mere naivety on your part. While I’ve only lived in Japan for 20 years, I can see I’ll never lose my American bias. Mind you, it’s not as obvious as your grandmother, but it’s there. It’s more common than not for this.
Another* non sequitur*. This response has fuck all to do with what I said. You claimed that bigotry originated when society was harmed. If your convoluted syntax is the cause of my confusion, why don’t you try to unwind it a bit?
Oddly enough, provincialism is *the very word *I used to describe Mariko’s behavior, in response to your request for such a description. Now, if you can explain why the statement “Japanese are the best baseball players” is bigotry, while “Italians are the best tomato sauce makers” is merely provincialism, I would be grateful.
It has everything to do with that you said. You asked, “Who gets harmed?”
I said “society.” Does “society” really need clarification by defining it? As in a body of individuals living as members of a community; community.
Do you really not see how victims of bigotry are held back based only on their ethnicity? Or are you saying all of that is okay, Mr. Duke?
You persist in saying that’s a non sequitur. It is not. It certainly follows logically. It’s also not begging the question as someone else mentioned, because its conclusion doesn’t install its premise.
The only reason I can think of why is because you just cannot accept the answer, because the truth is, you’re not going to change your views. Fine – fucked up and dumb, but fine. You know everything, dontcha?
I think the fact that you haven’t answered me in regards to what baseball-related characteristic objectively separates a Japanese baseball player from a baseball player from another country settles the argument. You can’t, hence you’re unable to admit that there’s any bigotry at work. You’d rather just argue.
The funny thing is that this debate has taken a turn from “is it bigotry?” to “who does it hurt?”
Here is what I see here – and of course, for you “WAHHH, I didn’t SAY THAT!” morons, I am paraphrasing.
- Black man likes only black players
Adversarial dopers in this thread: “But, but, but I bet there’s a reason why that makes sense. They are the best! Look at Michael Jordan! What about Kareem?”
- Japanese woman likes only Japanese players
Adversarial dopers in this thread: “Your grandmother’s outlook is not bigotry-laden. Who does it hurt?” (she’s not MY grandmother by the way, as previously stated)
- White guy likes only white players
Adversarial dopers in this thread: “Bigot.”
I am glad, for society’s sake, that white guys stopped liking only white players.
Because sauce ain’t people. Hypostatization.
Also, because you initially said “provincialism,” it doesn’t automatically make it so. You were wrong.
And baseball *is *people? Read it this way. “Japanese play baseball the best.” Italians make sauce the best." One is bigotry, the other mere provincialism? Bah. You have been caught in a net of your own manufacture. The best thing for you to do is acknowledge it, and swim on out.
As for the rest of your incoherent screed, inasmuch as you are capable of reading, you are reading way to much into folks’ complaints about your apparently fluid grasp of ordinary discourse, not to mention more structured debate. Here’s a clue for ya – people who disagree on your definition of bigotry are not bigots by default.
You also might to learn what a term means before you go flinging it about will-nilly.
I agree with most everything you said, TokyoPlauer, with the exception of scale. In this particular instance, I usually did just like you said – rolled my eyes and let it pass.
Castigating an old Japanese lady because she only liked Japanese players would certainly seem foolish, wouldn’t it? Who, in that instance, would change their outlook? With 100% certainty, no one. It would just cause undue tension between two people who other than this enjoyed each other’s company.
I try to be reasonable and well-read enough to reach a cogent conclusion; I try not to be hasty. But, I think Mariko’s thinking is lazy. That bothers me. On a bigger scale, it can dangerous and lead to many people feeling excluded (and sometimes persecuted).
No. Baseball players are people, are they not? Where did I say “baseball is people?”
Again, putting words in my mouth. Where did I even assert that? I asked you some very pointed questions that you just simply avoided.
Where did I use a term incorrectly, oh logic professor?
One last chance before you forfeit:
What baseball-related characteristic objectively separates a Japanese baseball player from a baseball player from another country?
Is there a word for someone who asks: ‘Is there a word for someone who asks, “Is there a word for people who go into a six-page thread that has died out, after a long, bloody battle, and stir shit again?” ?’ ?
You said 'sauce ain’t people" in response to my question. I was asking why preferring Japanese baseball players was bigotry, but preferring Italian sauce makers was not. Sauce makers are people, are they not?
You referred to me as “Mr. Duke,” which I took to be a reference to David Duke, a man notorious for his bigotry. Was your reference to some other Mr. Duke?
Hypostatization. There was no false equivalence, no reification. The comparison was people to people; or, if you will, the work product of people to the work product of people. Defining people by what they do. Play ball/make sauce. Same same. If anyone is dissembling, it is you, with your “sauce ain’t people” comment. Who said it was?
You’ve changed the question. Here it is in it’s original form.
“Tell me what specific characteristic a Japanese baseball player has that a Dominican baseball player does not.”
Please, please tell me you see the difference.
I answered the original question. Don’t blame me if you framed it poorly.
Why is preferring Japanese baseball players bigotry, while preferring Italian sauce makers merely provincialism?
At the risk of taking any of this seriously:
If you must have a single word to describe the phenomemon covered by waiter-baiting, Ichiro-lovin’, sauce-picky little old ladies (man, those little old ladies!), that word is probably chauvinism. But the important question is not “what is the most loaded word we can use to characterize this quirk?” Rather, it’s “how can we tell the difference between exhibitions of chauvinism that are benign and tolerable, and those which exhibit a mindset inimical to the healthy development of the species as a whole?”
And the sad thing is, the answer depends entirely upon our own attitudes about how to identify ourselves and others, and in what circumstances we find ourselves like others and/or different from them. And it does depend on the circumstances and the scale of the perspective you’re contemplating at the moment. If you’re thinking of yourself as a Bugvillian, you may not think much of the Slugvillian a couple of miles down the pike. If you’re cognizant of your status as a resident of Vermin County, you’re thinking of your Slugville neighbor as your brother, at least compared to those heathens upstate. Of course, they and you two are Nature’s Noblemen compared to the jerks just over the state line. Which jerks get easily absorbed into your concept of “us” when your consciousness expand just a little further than that. Or maybe your perspective shifts and only some of those jerks make the cut, say, those who are coreligionists or a similar color or sex or age or tax bracket or-or-or-or… And so on.
Me, I’ve got my own attitudes to protect, and I hope I know where to stop. As far as I’m concerned, all the attitudes presented as possibly objectionable fall within the boundaries of civilized behavior. Now, if Mariko’s admiration for a certain player were to manifest itself into a hope that he would not contaminate himself or his descendants through contact with non-Japanese, or Grandma Contrapuntal refused to pass along her family recipe on the grounds that non-Italian hands would somehow spoil it, or Rigamarole’s customer decides to reinforce her point by lynching her insolent waiter after brunch, then I’ll be worried.
Here’s your problem. (I am being as detailed as possible, so that you are able to follow – don’t want you to get lost in my “syntax.” For clarification, I will use my examples in a hypothetical first person as you obviously took offense the last time I asked you, hypothetically)
Italian sauce makers make sauce.
Japanese baseball players play baseball.
Do we agree?
I choose Italian sauce makers over any other because in my experience Italian sauce makers have made the best sauce. Ergo, I believe Italian sauce makers make the best sauce. The characteristic here is the good sauce. I’ve pinpointed it.
I choose Japanese baseball players, but there is no equivalent to my Italian sauce. I can’t necessarily say that Japanese players have any characteristic that makes me choose them over any other player. As a whole, they do not play better baseball. So, baseball does not equate to sauce. As a whole they are not more athletic than any other group of baseball players. So, their athleticism does not equate to the sauce.
What equates to the sauce?
If you read the whole question, you’d see that you could have answered it two ways. If you chose the latter, you’d obviously be a bigot.
Fair enough. I’ll rescind my accusation that you used hypostatization.
I do, but the difference is negligible. You knew what I was asking.
See your answer above. That is what you call answer the question? Are you not aware of context? Seems like your answer was rather evasive…
See above. Where’s the Japanese “sauce?”
“You’re soaking in it!”
What you’re doing is taking an abstract ideal and blowing it up to an inhuman scale.
This tribalist tendency of human beings is what makes spectator sports possible. There’s no rational reason anyone should favour one team over another, or “Root, root root for the home team,” but we have this tendency to personalize things that are remote from us. This is how sports fans are engaged by the game. You can find all sorts of assertions along the lines of “The Canucks are the best!” which aren’t supported by statistics.
If everyone favoured teams or players that were objectively better than the rest, there would be no fans and no game. It’s inhuman.
Now, we all have these chauvinist, tribalist tendencies, because under the veneer of civilization we are still uppity primates. We can always apply reason and introspection to our behaviors, though.
When these tendencies can objectively be shown to be harmful, it’s sensible to condemn them.
“Society” is not a monolithic entity. We have many subcultures and subsets. In your baseball example, the irrational attitude of the woman is benign. Her Japanese players are an abstracted projection of a part of herself, something to identify with. This is a form of inclusivity for her. It’s not a rational process, but nothing about being a fan iof anything s rational - look it up sometime.
This sort of tendency becomes malign when it actually has a negative impact on real, live human beings - when it translates into institutionalized exclusive behavior, or when people express their favouritism by causing harm to people who our outside their favoured set.
Your absolutism is ridiculous.
Whoosh.
In other words, it is simply not possible that Mariko is a bigot.