Who are you to dictate to others what opinions they may hold, express, or listen to? An organized and increasingly shrill campaign to extort the mods probably won’t have the results you desire.
An “organized campaign”, you say? Why, *whatever *can you mean by that?
The situation here are informed speakers who have experienced the situation at hand trying to explain things to those who have not.
If you know enough to make an informed disagreement, then you weren’t there to learn from them. You already knew the information they gave, along with enough about the subject to make a counterargument.
If you are uninformed and disagree, then it is most likely your lack of knowledge that is at issue. Either something they’ve said was misunderstood, or you just don’t have enough information. Thus, instead of telling them they are wrong, the correct course of action is to ask them questions to figure out what is impeding your understanding.
What is not conducive to learning is having the uninformed elevate their opinion to the same level as informed. What is not conducive to learning is when you specifically say that the expert opinions matter no more to you than your own, as Bone did.
If Bone wants to take this into the field of beliefs, rather than logic, then we get to point out that not all beliefs are equal. Some are informed, and some aren’t.
I’d rather stick with the logic of explaining why these things are problematic, but such arguments have been dismissed as simply “different beliefs,” so here we are.
Thank you BigT.
That doesn’t work. If I were to tell you that what you said was offensive, but then refused to tell you what part of it was offensive, let along why, then I would expect you to conclude that nothing was actually offensive.
I mean, the point of pointing out that something is offensive is to get people to stop doing it. If you don’t tell them exactly what it is that was offensive, and don’t explain why it is offensive, then how in the world can they stop doing it?
How is it different than just saying “that’s racist” and refusing to explain? Even I agree with conservatives who say that is unhelpful.
I think the name-calling directed towards Republicans on these boards is mean-spirited and nasty. It offends me. Is everyone that is now aware of my feelings on the matter “being a jerk at best” if they persist in mean-spirited and nasty name-calling towards Republicans?
Or is the appropriate response to tell me to get over it because the board doesn’t exist to cater to my feels?
Are you a Republican because it is a characteristic inherent to you? Or did you choose to be a Republican because the Republican platform aligns with your views?
DSeid’s post, to which I was responding, said nothing about innate characteristics vs chosen alignments. It was simply about persistently communicating things that one knows will cause offense. Should that be acceptable, or not?
That’s why we have protected classes, yes. Offense due to an innate characteristic like gender, race, sexuality, or even religion (while religion can change, it’s generally considered pretty fundamental to who you are) is not the same as offense due to your actions.
I understand the legal framework and reasoning behind protected classes. I don’t think those govern SDMB moderation (there’s a shitload of offensive things said about religious groups & folks, for example, even though they’re legally a protected class). I was asking DSeid if s/he thought that SDMB moderators ought to intervene and sanction posters who post things that they’re aware someone takes offense at. Is that a violation of the “don’t be a jerk” rule, as s/he seems to be hinting at.
Being skeptical of myself (and others) in general, I am not so vain as to make a drive-by post in ATMB without listening to the responses. You know, in case it turns out that I am uninformed or misunderstood something. I can always be wrong or overlook something, especially when we talk about something like misogyny which I have the privilege of never experiencing.
So, I don’t know whether I am fully informed or not, certainly not before reading the thread. That’s keeping an open mind. What do I do now? Do I continue to participate in the thread? Do I admit that I’m wrong even though I don’t think I am? Do I say, I think you’re wrong because X Y and Z? In general.
I think it is impossible for me to debate, much less learn, unless I first assume a contrary position. I won’t usually adopt positions I sincerely disagree with, but neither do I necessarily stay out of a debate just because I disagree with the majority view. Otherwise, how could I ever learn?
Or perhaps you would have me say, I want to defer to your judgement because I am ignorant of these matters, please excuse my bigoted opinion, but why do you say X when Y indicates otherwise? Is that level of supplication really necessary? Not to mention that I would be lying to deprecate myself in such a way.
No, instead I elevate my own opinion. I’ll admit when I have been convinced that I am wrong, but I go on the assumption that I am right, and that my opinion matters more to me than anybody else’s. I put my argument against the experts, side by side, and I learn when my arguments crumble.
~Max
Organized! How dare you say that I’m 0rGan1zed! I’m a proud member of the disheveled community.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Go up to a group of African-Americans and tell them that they don’t have a better understanding of systemic racism than you do as a white-skinned person and aren’t better at spotting instances of it. (Please do so when I can watch.)
Here’s another. Go up to a group of gays and tell them that they don’t have a better understanding of systemic homophobia than you do as a straight person and aren’t better at spotting instances of it.
Maybe this would go better. Go up to a group of deaf or blind people and tell them that they don’t have a better understanding of systemic discrimination against those with disabilities than you do as a able-bodied person and aren’t better at spotting instances of it.
I doubt that any of these encounters would go well. Nor should they. Those straight, white, able-bodied Americans just don’t have the experience or knowledge to discuss systemic discrimination. They don’t feel it. They don’t swim in that ocean. Making the claim that their opinions are equal isn’t just sheer nonsense, it’s a basic part of the systemic dismissal of their concerns that the victimized groups feel on a daily basis. It isn’t easy to do something worse than that but claiming that you are a victim because you have conservative beliefs achieves that nigh-impossible feat.
I don’t want the Dope to be a safe space. I want it to be a neutral place. I seem to do a pretty good job of riling up people without, I sincerely hope, comments that are intolerant. I attack people based on their, IMO, ridiculous beliefs and ignorance, not on immutable facts about their bodies. Attack the post rather the poster had always been the standard here. Sexism, misogyny, homophobia, racism, and all the other isms are attacks on the poster. Attacks on freely chosen and easily changeable positions like political stances should be encouraged, just as if you’ve chosen to advocate a conspiracy theory.
There aren’t two equal sides to every issue. Very often one side has what I’ve been calling the knowledge of and experience with the issue that the other side is basically ignorant of. When you’re ignorant you ask questions of the wise and listen carefully to the answers. You’re free to ask others equally knowledgeable and see how the answers compare. You should not start with the assumption that your opinions are as good as theirs and that you can dismiss their experiences out of hand. Listen and learn. Otherwise you may as well be arguing for moon-hoaxing of 9/11 truthing or birtherism.
I’ve made no secret that I’m an old white man. Someday I’ll make me a t-shirt saying “We’re not all like that.” Stop making that shirt necessary.
Eh, I agree with you about politics but I’m not sure how you feel about whether religion is freely chosen and easily changeable. For someone deep into religion, especially those religions that discourage inter-religious relations and tolerance, divorcing one’s religion can be really, really, really hard.
I mean, a Jehova’s Witness or Hassidic Jew or Amish person that breaks off is virtually assured that they will instantly lose all friends, jobs, acquaintances, and even non-immediate family within a 10+ mile radius. Maybe even some Mormons, I’m not terribly familiar with that church nowadays but historically they were like that. Except for the whole state of Utah.
And religious beliefs can easily for the foundation for political beliefs, specifically all of the “isms” that you listed.
~Max
Is that the only way you can think of to say ‘Maybe I’m misunderstanding something here, because I’m not an expert in the subject. Can you explain to me what looks to me like a discrepancy between X and Y?’
I don’t think there’s anything self-deprecating about the statement in the way I phrased it. Nobody in all the world is an expert on all subjects. And, presuming that one isn’t an expert on the subject, it certainly isn’t lying.
(Whether it’s a suitable thing to interject into a given thread, or whether it’s a hijack, is a different question.)
Some clarification of my position is indeed justified.
First the obvious - I am not a mod and my standards are not operational guidelines for this board. While I am not annoyed by “Regards …” or the stupid “… quarry …” thang, the fact that the posters who do them continue them for NO REASON other than that they are allowed to and possibly precisely because they know they annoy some by doing it, is to me behavior that defines “jerk.” But I am not a mod …
That illustrates an important part of my personal thinking. Is there a broader discussion value served that outweighs the claimed insult or annoyance perceived by some few? Can similar points be made without the gratuitous insult?
In political discussions? Hard to make the points that some want to make without insulting Democrats as a party, centrists as a group, progressives as a cohort, Republicans, Trumpists … so on. Certainly people can be jerks in how they insult but limiting that jerkishness needs to balanced against how much it harms discussion. Protecting feelings cannot offset significant detriment of discussion.
It’s why I defend the mods’ very loose regulation of what many see as over the top jerkishness by you and a few of this board’s under-represented hard right conservatives: having your POV represented is to me of value even if you (IMHO, and sorry to be so blunt) represent the POV exceptionally poorly and needlessly jerkishly. Others feel differently, clearly, but I see a some provocation by the likes of you as a benefit.
The thread that spawned this op? I’ve not even read it. I was responding to the logic of the argument made in its abstract over who can claim expertise over what. If reasonable discussion points about the subject cannot be made without a few claiming insult then yeah, they’d need to put on their big girl pants and deal. IF however the things that were viewed as misogyny were gratuitous and/or of points that could have been made more carefully worded, and informed of that the posters kept at it? Jerks. Modded or not, jerks.
Thanks for your clarification.
You do realize that this is ignorant prejudice on your part, correct? What if I tell you that I spent years in my youth living in a place where white people are a minority, where being white meant being constantly teased, being attacked at times, where going to authorities meant you were ignored because they don’t believe what a white kid says? Where white kids would form gangs to protect themselves? That’s not a hypothetical situation, I experienced that.
I know my experience is unusual, but when you declare that no white person has experienced systemic prejudice you are literally judging a person for their skin color. This is why white privilege is a myth. There is no such thing. There is such a thing as privilege being given to the majority. And in places like the US, that means being white. But the US isn’t the world and not all Americans live their whole lives in the US.
Where exactly do whites have such a terrible history of discrimination, exactly?
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In fact, there have been times where I was one of the few white people in school and in a workplace. I worked at a social agency for the Puerto Rican community. And you know what I did there? I listened to what my colleagues told me about their culture and acted accordingly. You know what else? I wasn’t a woman and I wasn’t gay and I wasn’t disabled.
White privilege in the U.S. is not a myth. That is not an opinion. That is as much of a fact as human-caused climate change. White privilege exists many other places as well, including most of Europe. That covers the homelands of about 99% of Dopers and 99.9% of the Dopers who are problematic.
Straight able white men have ruled the U.S, from its founding. They considered themselves the default setting for all that was good and positive. Any deviation was inferior, weak, womanly, depraved, incapable of learning. Their opinions, by definition, therefore didn’t count.
Those days are over. Of course the oppressors hate that. Of course they’re going to stand on their supposed privilege and demonize their challengers. Of course they’re going to pretend that they don’t act on their supposed privilege and that they’re victims.
Their old victims aren’t standing for it. And I, along with millions of others who superficially resemble the straight able white men, aren’t standing for it either. We’re going to win. Just as with climate change, the time to start was thirty years ago. We’re in a crisis. Every moment counts. Every lack of action hurts. There was a lack of action here at the Dope. I - **we **- are making sure our complaints are so loud and forceful that they can’t be forgotten the next time.