Someone help me out here - which fallacies are these? College debate was so long ago and 19 year-olds rarely use these rhetorical devices in adulthood.
You are still spending far more effort making excuses than it would take you to just st
I never said that you have to try and avoid offending everyone. But, if you don’t intend to offend, then you do have to actually fucking listen when they tell you that things offend them. The entire argument in this thread is that none of these people intended to offend women. So then, when they tell them they are offended, they should listen, so they won’t accidentally offend them again.
That is different from when someone is insulting someone else. And it is different when the person has already said that it doesn’t matter if you offend people. The Trump supporters you are talking about are the ones who call people snowflakes for being offended. They argue that social justice is a bad thing. They defend a guy whose only real platform was “I can be an asshole to the people you hate.” So they lose any right to complain when people take them up on that and treat them the same way.
And I’m speaking from experience here. I grew up in an all-white town. But I have spent very little effort on not being a bigot. All I did was listen to people when they told me what I was saying was offensive due to bigotry. I didn’t make excuses for why I get to be a bigot, I listened.
You are bringing up issues to try and make it hard, so then you have an excuse for why you don’t try. When, in reality, the steps are extremely simple. If you unintentionally offend someone, apologize, then listen to what they have to say, and then, in the future, don’t do those things again.
Sure, if you want to offend them, go ahead. But then they have no reason to not offend you.
And I will once again point out that bigotry is wrong. It’s not a pet issue. It is wrong. Claiming otherwise will not change this. And bringing up other wrong things that none of us do will not make it not wrong for you to choose to be a bigot.
You have ignorance as an excuse for only so long.
In those comments, Richard Parker is engaging in the Fallacy of Accurate Analysis.
You must struggle with coping issues if this particular joke bothered you so much. You are not a balanced, well-functioning adult in real life. You impose your petty offenses on those around you and can only hold meaningful relationships with people who conform to your Catholic sensibilities. You will not find a rewarding long-term relationship with a man because you have isolated yourself to a world of such rigid boundaries no man will ever suffice. I seriously hope you can accept that a joke does not a monster make, and that if you learn to laugh once in a while you become much more appealing to the opposite sex because they don’t want to date their Sunday School teacher.
Good luck, OP.
More sexist, mansplaining satire, how droll.
Not to mention a couple days late. 
To summarize, only uptight women without men are bothered by being casually objectified because they have no sense of humor?
I have no fucks to give for your opinion on this or any topic.
In your case, I’d call it an appeal to the stone: you refute him thus.
The responses to Richard Parker in this thread are an embarrassment. I’d be willing to bet he’s done more to actually thoughtfully advance the cause of social justice this week than the combined efforts of his detractors in this thread have this year.
I don’t expect anyone to give a shit what I think about it, and like Richard said no one should have to demonstrate their bona fides to observe a flaw when they see it, but I am seriously disheartened to see this kind of stuff coming from “my” side, towards “my” side. The “allies” who are attacking people with Richard Parker’s point of view on patriarchy, misogyny and racism (to the extent they understand it) should seriously consider whether they’d be willing to stop helping.
Do you think your “insightful” analysis tells us more about the OP, or more about you?
I tried to follow, but lost it where he said Merneith believes bigots to be non-human.
Of course I am. Specifically, I’m mocking the idea in post #61 that any time someone is or claims to be offended, they’re in the right, and everyone should modify their speech and behavior to suit them. Different situations are different. Sometimes it’s completely reasonable to be offended, other times it’s appropriate for others to suggest that maybe they shouldn’t be offended. That’s instead of turning the sentence “I find that offensive” into some sort of incantation that can be recited to prevent someone from ever using a word or phrase again.
What I didn’t expect when I posted that was for anyone to be completely perplexed as to why I might find a gendered insult offensive even if it wasn’t directed at me. You wouldn’t say to a black person, “Well, I wasn’t calling you a nigger”. And yes, the word “bro-flake” (or “bro-magnum”), is very different from the word nigger for a lot of reasons. But that’s exactly my point. Different situations are different.
[QUOTE=Tee]
I tried to follow, but lost it where he said Merneith believes bigots to be non-human.
[/QUOTE]
The original premise was that every person – every person, as a definitional truth – who makes a sexist joke necessarily is doing so because they are going out of their way to reinforce patriarchy. I think it’s important to acknowledge how extreme that is, because that’s what I read the response as a reaction to.
Because I am pretty sure I fall on a much more radical point on the spectrum than Richard Parker on this particular point. I don’t agree with him entirely. But it’s just outside of the bounds of reasonable discourse if objecting to that extreme original premise is “carrying water” for bigots.
His point wasn’t “that’s not accurate, and so don’t object to bigotry.” It wasn’t “that’s not accurate, and so those guys were right and you’re wrong.” It wasn’t even “that’s not accurate, and so it’s less of a big deal than you’re making out of it.” It was simply “that’s not accurate, so it isn’t helpful to believe that it is.”
And it isn’t accurate. Human experience makes it obvious that sometimes, you do something bad by accident, or recklessly. The fact that 18 year olds exist, and that we were all them at one point, is sufficient to make it clear that the original premise is inaccurate. There are people who do fucked up things for some reason other than being monsters who are intending the harm they cause. Those exist. It’s magical thinking to think otherwise: thinking that requires us to hold bigotry outside of the realm of human behavior, and put it in the realm of things that no human could ever do.
(In fact, if we are all as brushed up on the foundational theories of social justice as we’re all pretending to be in this thread, we should be acknowledging that we are always perpetuating this stuff to one degree or another, whether we call ourselves allies or not, and whether we intend it or not. Everyone’s been socialized to be racist, everyone’s been socialized to be sexist, because we all live on this planet. One of the first things you do if you want to do the work is accept that your own prejudices exist. So… where’s that leave us if we’ve decided we believe everyone with a prejudice is a piece of shit who isn’t worth even acknowledging?)
Not everyone. I didn’t even know you existed. Hope this helps.
…the original premise was this:
This is the fucking pit. People come here to rant, hyperbole is to be expected. If people are going to exhibit blatantly obvious sexist behaviour then why the fuck are we giving them the benefit of the doubt?
This is where Richard Parker has gone wrong.
[QUOTE=Richard Parker]
Your post before and this one are good examples of a conspicuous style of leftist discourse–mostly in academia though leaking out into social networks more and more–that I think is completely wrong-headed and counterproductive, which is why I have responded as I have.
[/QUOTE]
Merneith is not expressing leftist discourse, learnt through academia and then propagated through social media. Merneith is simply pissed off: and deservedly pissed off, and is using the pit as intended to rant. Richard Parker is lecturing Merneith for being angry. Thats tone policing (no matter how much Richard disagrees with that characterization) with a measure of mansplaining added in. I respect Richard Parker. But he is coming off as a condescending ass here.
The explanation was helpful, thank you. I missed that being accused carrying water for bigots was his main objection. I’m not a lefty nor a SJW, and I’m only months into being a Democrat, so take that into account.
I’m not sure. Upon review it’s good we have Stringbean’s post up there to reference. I read it and thought him either a sexist tool or talented satirist, but probably a tool, and moved on without questioning his humanity. I doubt I’m the only one who can do that. He’ll be fine.
What Merneith wrote about sexist bigots is totally comparable to when folks say rape is always about power and only about power, and if you aren’t 100% in agreement - even if you agree 99% but think there are other reasons or exceptions to the rule - you are making rationalizing excuses and ought to stop.
Maybe those critical theorists should communicate in underground pits where hyperbole is the norm and limit the dogma overriding scientific inquiry they bring into mainstream academia.
…we are in fucking pit. Hyperbole is the fucking norm here.
But no, lets all single out Merneith for individual treatment, because her hyperbole is different, because you hate “feminist theory”, and you are going to project your feelings about “feminist theory” onto Merneith’s posts. The pit is for ranting, but Merneith is not allowed to rant because something about rape and power and 100% agreement and you forgot to throw SJW in there just for good measure.
Fuck that shit.
Honestly, I could name one.
[/quote]
Sure, you’re right. Merneith was responding to something, there, though. It was the statement that men who make sexist jokes don’t “necessarily” know that they’re doing that.
I think it’s important that nobody defended these particular instances of sexist behavior or argued for the benefit of the doubt here. It was a disagreement over JackieLikesVariety’s statement that sometimes, sexist jokes are the result of ignorance, not bad faith. About whether that literally ever happens.
I’m aware that this has some similarity to a “not all men” argument. In those arguments, I’m on the other side. The difference here is that usually “not all” is bullshit, because nobody said “all.” This time somebody said “all.”
So, like, for instance:
[QUOTE=Tee]
I’m not sure. Upon review it’s good we have Stringbean’s post up there to reference. I read it and thought him either a sexist tool or talented satirist, but probably a tool, and moved on without questioning his humanity. I doubt I’m the only one who can do that. He’ll be fine.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah. Nothing that I’ve said up above, or anything that Richard Parker said (in my interpretation) calls for Stringbean to get the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think it’s fair to frame this as though that’s what he was claiming, because what he said was completely compatible with calling Stringbean in particular a deplorable, bad-faith waste of time. It’s just a question of whether sometimes, other people say offensive things without being a Stringbean-esque trainwreck.
This thread illustrates that side of the argument as well. People apologized, apologies were accepted, life moved on. In my OP I distinguished between the posters and the content. I certainly accept that a person can inadvertently offend without being a complete write off.