? Which verb? Were you referring to this sentence in my post immediately above yours?
You can’t be suggesting that replacing “having” by “had” in that sentence would be grammatically correct, so I have no idea what you were trying to say there.
Nonsense. Universities and colleges (not to mention major corporations) have expensive legal counsel and consultants on their payroll to advise them on the legality of their actions. They don’t pay all that money so they can simply ignore the lawyers’ advice and thereby expose themselves to charges of knowingly violating the law.
AFAICT the reality is just what the ACLU says it is, as opposed to the octopus fantasyland version: namely, that universities and colleges care about both social justice and complying with legal and constitutional requirements, and many of their policies involve both of those considerations in complicated ways that have to be scrutinized individually.
“Universities don’t care what the law is” is just another conservative variant on “Biden stole the election” and similar whines. All they really mean is “Something didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to so I’m going to pout and say it’s not fair and the other side must have cheated.”
That labor is still employed. It’s just employed in China and we buy the goods. So we feel good voting virtuously. However, our behavior contradicts our virtue signaling. So, yeah, perhaps I am a religious zealot when it comes to not letting feelings override rational incentives. What does it say about the rest of you folks who say one thing and then act diametrically differently? Hypocrites?
And Groper and Blackface have a job not because I expected the markets to say anything but because they understand mob dynamics better than others. They know the low IQ internet mob will lose focus on an issue awfully quick when a different target arises.
So, my issue isn’t one of corporate behavior. My issue is about power dynamics. At the moment, crazy wokesters have far too much power over the direction of fundamental liberties and rights. They claim to be motivated by so-called social justice but that’s nothing more than an ideological Trojan Horse being exploited by sociopathic folks.
Care to explain how there isn’t an intellectual inconsistency in a movement such as Wokeism that employs bigotry, racism, sexism, etc in a nominal attempt to fight said traits?
I don’t have any argument with that, actually. Personally, I try to buy less and better, meaning – of the three R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), the only one that I believe is actually ‘green’ is reduce: consume less.
And I’ll pay for better quality where I can find it in order not to participate in the throwaway consumer culture.
But it isn’t easy, and that’s not my fault. I’m not clamoring for shit goods made by people who live in mud huts and barely have enough money for rice and the occasional fish.
I just looked outside. The sky is not, in fact, falling.
Jesus, Man ! Be careful with that question. It’s loaded and likely to go off !
It has nothing to do with picking up the banner of so-called racism or an abstract principle that all books should be published forever. It does have to do with the concept of appeasement. Especially appeasement in the face of puritanical would be tyrants.
That’s the whole reason why not an inch should ever be given to those who threaten or act lawlessly. It only incentivizes that behavior. And the thing is you folks KNOW that it only incentivizes the behavior which is why when that is pointed out as problematic the tactic shifts to constructing strawmen.
And all of this was and is predictable. When first it was just Confederate Flags, then Confederate Statues, then random statues, now it’s Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Surprised MLK isn’t on the cancel list. The slippery slope ‘fallacy’ needs to be renamed the slippery slope law when it comes to so-called progressiveness.
Your complete inability to distinguish between public conversation and violence, between critics and tyrants, between trending hashtags and pitchforks, makes everything you say on the subject of free speech, liberty, and oppression hilariously inapt. If you were able to show any nuance–to recognize that by conflating the two, you’re the one who hates free speech–maybe people would give a shit what you say.
I’m glad you agree that every single person who acted lawlessly on Jan. 6 ought to be executed for Sedition/Treason, or at the very least locked up for Life for threatening to assassinate the VP among others. Same same for every militia, 3% and the people who aid and abet these actions (ie virtually every elected Republican.)
That’s criminal behavior I don’t condone for sure. I’m fine with statues being removed when they glorify a system that fought to maintain slavery, but you don’t do it with an unruly mob of people. That being said, that is a whole other level than people trying to storm the capitol to murder people and overthrow the government.
You once claimed, IIRC, that a small-potatoes politician who wore, as a joke, a pair of pants with a picture of Lenin on them, was like the spear-tip of the violent Communist overthrow of our country. Now you claim that tearing down a statue is violence. You don’t understand what violence is, and you get made fun of for it.
I don’t think this is correct. “Good” cancellations can still happen when needed. I just think we need to be more circumspect about who gets cancelled and why. Social ostracism is a powerful weapon, and with great power comes great responsibility and all that.
By way of analogy, consider the phenomenon of “Doing X while black”. There have, in recent months, been quite a few instances of white people calling the police on black people for trivial reasons. Recently, after a white woman in Central Park called the police because she (allegedly) felt threatened by a black bird watcher (even though he wasn’t doing anything wrong), New York State proposed a law to categorize such frivolous emergency calls as a hate crime.
Now, what’s the difference between a “good” police emergency call and a “bad” one? In both instances, the exact same processes are involved. It’s still people saying “I feel threatened”, saying the person threatening them should face consequences, and those in charge of the consequences coming to the rescue. The difference, therefore, between a “good” emergency call and a “bad” emergency call doesn’t lie in the processes involved, but in the perceptions of the caller, and the validity of the threat.
In my view, the same is true of “bad” cancellations. The mob are using valid processes to achieve a bad goal (i.e. the cancellation of someone who doesn’t deserve it) because their perception of what their target has done is uncharitable or otherwise incorrect.
Does New York State’s proposed new law mean that white people can’t call the police if a black person is genuinely threatening them? Of course not. It just means white people need to be more circumspect and exercise a little common sense before getting the cops involved. I’m simply asking that internet mobs exercise the same caution and common sense before trying to cancel someone. If someone is being unambiguously racist (and calling Michelle Obama an “ape in heels” definitely qualifies in my book) then the mob can still respond, just like the police can still respond to genuine emergency calls.
I think I need to make a brief clarification. When I said Never attribute to malice what can equally be explained by stupidity, I probably should’ve highlighted that the key word in that sentence was equally. The idea of bending over backwards to be charitable and giving people infinite latitude to be bigots isn’t something I endorse, and wasn’t an argument I intended to advance.
Given an overabundance of charity, it’s possible to excuse anything. When deciding whether to be charitable we must, again, exercise common sense. To clarify my position, if a mob is trying to cancel someone for something they’ve said online, and there’s a charitable interpretation of their actions and an uncharitable interpretation, and both are roughly equally plausible, the sensible (and, I believe, the morally correct) thing to do is go with the charitable interpretation. If, however, the uncharitable interpretation is plausible but the charitable interpretation is far-fetched and doesn’t stand up to basic scrutiny, going with the charitable interpretation is probably a bad move.
For example, in the case that Kimstu cited earlier, the uncharitable interpretation is that the mayor and her associate are both racists. The evidence for this is that the mayor’s associate called Michelle Obama an “Ape in heels” on Facebook and the mayor then vocally endorsed that post. Given that the racist ‘black people are apes’ trope is extremely well known, this evidence is, to me, quite persuasive.
By contrast, to accept the charitable interpretation requires us to believe that these two professional, educated, middle-aged women had gone their entire lives without coming across this all too prevalent stereotype. It would also require us to believe that, even if they hadn’t come across it, neither had the native intelligence to figure out at the time that comparing a black woman to an ape was an invidious comparison based on skin color, and was therefore prima facie racially bigoted. In my view, both of these would require considerable suspension of disbelief. Therefore, the charitable and uncharitable interpretations are not equal, they don’t have the same explanatory power, and therefore rejecting the charitable interpretation is fair.
Contrast this with the example I cited. A white woman turns up to a Halloween party in blackface wearing a sticker saying “Hi! I’m Megyn Kelly” only a week after Kelly made an ass of herself on national TV by asking why blackface was racist. Here, the charitable interpretation - that the woman was wearing blackface satirically to make fun of Kelly - is a lot more believable. The entire joke relies on people understanding that asking why blackface is racist is very stupid (to put it mildly). This woman’s mistake was in not realizing that wearing blackface is unacceptable, even if one is doing so satirically to make fun of someone perceived as racist (or, at least, racially clueless). In other words, this woman assumed her intention was obvious (because of the sticker) and that people would understand that Kelly was the target of the joke, not black people.
Now, some people may find this unbelievable, but the notion that, when a person makes a statement, we need to take their intentions into account to fully grasp the meaning of that statement, isn’t a controversial one. It’s something we all do every day without even thinking about it. And because we’re so used to doing this, we sometimes assume that our own intentions are more obvious than they perhaps are. Therefore, in my view, the idea that this woman knew blackface was offensive but didn’t know that wearing it satirically was offensive isn’t implausible. It’s certainly more plausible than the West Virginia Mayor’s claim that she didn’t know comparing black people to apes was racist.
You’re correct that erring on the side of charitability will inevitably lead to some bad people taking advantage of our collective good will, and getting away with bigoted behavior as a result. That’s a regrettable, but inevitable consequence of my philosophy on these things. However, I think it’s a lesser evil than good people being bludgelled* over misunderstandings or honest-to-goodness cluelessness.
Furthermore, to paraphrase Harvey Dent “The good thing about racists is they keep giving you second chances”. Someone may get away with bigoted behavior once or twice, but they won’t get away with it forever.
You’re also correct that we shouldn’t look at things in isolation. This is a key difference between being charitable and being overly charitable. If someone keeps saying or doing racist things and then pleading ignorance, they might be believed the first couple of times but once the pattern becomes obvious then, for each subsequent offensive action/remark, the charitable interpretation becomes less plausible. Therefore, over time, this problem is largely self-correcting, even if we’re being charitable.
I think we may have a miscommunication here. I’ve not defended Kelly’s decision to ask why blackface is offensive. I’ve only defended the woman who went to the Halloween party in blackface to make fun of her.
That’s something that is, and can only be, decided on an individual basis.
If a bunch of individuals make the same decision, then that ends up being called a mob.
You speak of the “mob” as though it is an entity in and of itself. It is not. It is the decisions of individuals.
Not just white people. People should be in general.
All one can do is make decisions for themselves. If I see something offensive, then I have a right to say something about it. Sure, different individuals have different thresholds for when they want to say something, and social media makes it easier to raise one’s voice then back when we actually had to go march in the street.
The only thing that I take from that is that employers or other agencies with power over people should take what they hear on social media with a huge grain of salt.
Well, everyone should really, including those who form a literal mob to go break into the Capitol to try to overturn an election.
Oh, I get it. I’m sure everyone else got it as well. But it’s still completely inappropriate.
So, her way of making fun of Kelly for saying that there were times and places that blackface should be acceptable is by deciding on a time and place that she thought it was?
I mean, no malice, sure, but extreme stupidity.
Let me ask you this, would you repeat a racist joke in a group of mixed company to make fun of people who tell racist jokes? If so Stop It! If not, then why would you defend someone else for doing exactly that?
If your joke starts with, “Hey, you know what racists call black people?”… then you are just repeating the statement of a racist. Unless the racist is there to be chastised by the people hearing what it is that they have to say, the racist is in no way being harmed by this. The only ones being harmed are those who are the butt of the racist’s joke.
Well, no not really. There are more than enough racists that will support someone for their bigoted behavior. Please note that there were more than just a few people that turned out to support trump.
Her only defense is being extremely stupid. Stupid enough to try to make fun of someone (someone who wasn’t there, who never would have heard about this even) by doing exactly the thing that that someone is being made fun of for.
Like I said, if you repeat a racist joke, it is not the racists that you are harming.
If silence is violence and free speech is hate speech and he/him are now potato/turnip and theft is an unplanned donation and sexual assault is unplanned orgasm then you are correct. Mob violence that resulted in destruction of property is not violence. Doublespeak is by design incomprehensible. The ministry of truth and Humpty Dumpty would be proud,
