Christ, you can’t be serious, can you?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8954683&postcount=168
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8954514&postcount=165
Your hijack about excuses and explanations has taken over a thread with an OP about Whoopi Goldberg’s comments on dogfighting. It’s a hijack, and it’s monotonous.
Have you ever HEARD of the words YES and NO? What the fuck is the problem with them? Not subtle enough for your nuance?
It’s not a hijack. Clearly whether Whoopi was defending Vick by explaining his actions is relevant. But it is monotonous. Quick, say something interesting.
What my position is, is that these two statements mean the exact same thing:
- Explanations for bad behavior are excuses.
- All explanations for bad behavior are excuses.
Are we in disagreement on this?
I have answered the question, directly to you, not three hours ago. I cited it, not five minutes ago.
How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you? How many times do I have to answer it to satisfy you?
Why the fuck do you keep asking? Is your memory failing? Can you you not access the whole thread?
My hijack? I did this alone?
Your comment was on point again why, exactly? It said what about Whoopie’s comments?
Yes. That is your position. If you say so. Do you? You may have to look upthread to be sure.
I’d just like to say that it’s posts like this that make semantic arguments so ultra-annoying, IMHO. I consider myself fairly intelligent, but this sentence doesn’t make any freakin sense to me. Even reading it a bunch of times doesn’t help.
I’ve searched the thread for some greater context that would make it less nonsensical, but everything I’ve found just makes me more confused.
This whole thread reminds me of those nightmares I have when I’m going to be sick in the morning.
Yes, I do say so.
Since I seem to have a great deal of trouble of understanding you, please clarify which interpretation I should place on this statement:
- Yes – you agree that my statement is my claim.
- Yes – we are in disagreement on the validity of my claim.
- Yes, that is my claim AND we are in disagreement about its validity.
I really have tried. Let me do it another way.
What I said : And yes, explanations for bad behavior are excuses. By definition.
What it is claimed I said : An explanation, by definition, is an excuse.
The second statement would only be a fair representation of what I actually said if, and only if, all explanations were explanations for bad behavior. I never said anything at all about the set of [explanations that do not reference bad behavior]. Obviously, explanations exist that make no reference to bad behavior. I have provided examples of them. In this thread. The examples have gone unacknowledged.
At no time have I said that all explanations are excuses. I have never said that an explanation, by definition, is an excuse. I have challenged anyone to show where I did. Again, unacknowledged.
If I said that all airplanes with faulty engines are dangerous, am I saying that all airplanes are dangerous? “Faulty engines” qualifies the statement. Similarly, “bad behavior” qualifies my statement about explanations.
Number 1.
I am really trying too.
Here is what you just said, and that you are apparently standing by:
What I contend is this: Your statement means the same thing as
The two sentences mean the same thing with or without the all.
All is a qualifier. Without a qualifier like some or many or few, that would be an unqualifed claim – in that case the all is understood.
We get that. That’s not in dispute. You are fixated on something that is besides the point of the thread. Miller pointed this out to you back on page 3.
If you take away only one thing from this thread, and only one thing, please let it be this:
**Everybody in this thread that is arguing with you disagrees with this position. They aren’t concerned with anything else. Only this statement. Not any other thing. This is the crux. **
That is all.
This is probably more accurate. It did have a valid basis in the thread, but it’s now gone on and on and on. And no, Contrapunctual, it’s not ‘your’(singular you) wandering. I used ‘your’ in the plural sense, as it is correct to do so. You then proceeded to jump down my throat in a very hypersensitive manner.
I don’t plan on coming back to this thread because it’s driving me insane so if anyone thinks I’ve been a jackass they’ll have to PM me.
-Lil
At the risk of prolonging this horrible trainwreck, I’m going to say that “explanations for bad behavior are excuses” is not any less wrong than “all explanations are excuses”.
If I slam you with my car and run away, and you with the face shows up and says, “monstro did that because she’s always been an irresponsible, no-account fool”, that’s not an excuse at all. It’s the opposite of an excuse.
If I say that Michael Vick was involved with this dog-killing business because he hates dogs, that’s also not in any way defending him. And it’s just as much as an explanation as what Goldberg said.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to stop with the absolute definitions and just say “Often people come up with explanations that serve to excuse the guilty”? Because this is certainly true. All the other quotables have been just wordy bullshit.
Moving back to the OP, I don’t understand why it’s so taboo to offer an excuse in the first place. Every act has an explanation beyond “that person is fucked up”. And things can have multiple, simultenously operating explanations. A person can have a car accident not only because they’re drunk, but because they were speeding. A person can be a murderer not only because they were abused as a young child, but because they wanted to get the victim’s money. I fail to see how it improves anything by pretending moral depravity exists in a vacuum.
It also seems that if Whoopie had brought up “thug” or Hip Hop culture, no one would be talking about this. In fact, I can imagine she’d be receiving applause.
I agree with this, because as an unqualified claim it means all explanations.
If you said some explantions, no one would have have hammered a keystroke against you.
But you seem to insist your statement means the same thing as some explanations. It doesn’t – it means the same thing as all explanations.
And we have brought up innumerable examples of explanations that are not excuses, and you have completely ignored these examples.
Such as monstro’s last example:
We would all contend that this is an explanation, not an excuse. If you disagree, then just say so flat out.
BTW monstro, I never figured you for a girly type. 
I am amazed that the discussion continued after this very straightforward summation.
Personally, I think that Goldberg’s statement falls into the “excuse” end of the spectrum, due to the dubious facts (is dog fighting really accepted by those backwards Southerners?) and calling him a “kid” (a term that seems more designed to excuse him than to accurately reflect his age).
I saw Whoopi when she said what she said about Vick, dogfighting and the South. I have TIVO and played it several times. I am certified to teach communication courses among others – including the subject of media and propaganda. Maybe I can struggle through.
You are not qualified to judge my emotions or my motives and whether or not they are appropriate. You may see me as “media’s puppet,” but you are a little vague about whom you are speaking for besides yourself. That still does not make you or anyone else accurate about how I “should” feel or not feel. Feelings are not a matter up for factual debate. They just are.
You are so intuitive. How else could you find out about this conspiracy of the media concerning Whoopi, the View, Vick, dogfighting and the South?
Do you think cruelty is relevant in the 21st Century? Do you think animal rights are relevant in the 21st Century? Is suffering relevant? Are role models relevant? Standards of basic human decency? Bigotry against Blacks? Rape? The justice system? Statistics? Bigotry against any other group of people? Sociopathology?
I now return you to “talking about something important and relevant” apparently: the difference between excuse and explanation and who said what in this thread.
Boyo Jim, Monstro is a very girlie type. Her photo is somewhere around here. You’d never dream that she used to spit in the eye of alligators. But it’s her doctorate that impresses me.
Ivorybill, you can come sit on my front porch anytime you are in Nashville. I hope that your life is getting back to normal in that wonderful city you live in. I played a song called “New Orleans Knows” on CD a lot through September of 2005. Sat on the porch in the dark and listened. PM me if you need or want to.
We have a winner.
I would have stopped there, except I read what what appeared to me to be a contradiction of this summary in post #177. So I asked again. Contrapuntal could save every one a great deal of posting time by learning the proper use of the terms YES and NO.
wow I haven’t checked this since last night before dinner and I really expected this to be back on topic. I tried writing something on topic earlier but boyo jim and contra have insisted on being the two most obnoxious people ever allowed to use the interweb.