Well, you can explain what you meant by those four words as much as you like but I prefer to view them in their commonly understood sense. Whenever someone comes charging into a thread demanding to know ‘why the fuck’ somebody has used a certain word, castigates him for it and then decrees furthermore that no one has any reason to know the information the word imparts, then yes, he is attacking that poster and attempting to silence him through intimidation. I don’t understand how anyone can fail to see this. One thing I do know is that LHoD was damn well aware of it and his intent was to do exactly what I just described.
No–how on earth do you get that from what I wrote? We have a legal system so that we don’t have to rely on unreliable vigilantism for justice, that’s what I was saying.
I’m damn well aware of what I intended to do with my words, which was express bewilderment at folks’ use of a ridiculous word and impatient scorn for its use. Everything else you’re reading into it is a failure on your part.
Yes, I’d like for folks not to use it. But “attacking” people? “Intimidating” people? Nonsense. (And if you genuinely think I was attacking the poster, you know where the report button is.)
It’s pretty common in self defence cases for people to say that someone’s claim that they killed in self defence is not evidence. It’s not true then, either.
The difference is that self defence is legal (and moral), vigilante justice is not.
Obviously this is just a silly hijack, but stop and think about that exchange for a second…
Imagine this conversation:
A: Ooh, I think that Obama is a Flurbler!
B: Hmm, what makes you think that?
A: Well, I think to be a Flurbler, you have to be strong and silent
B: I’ve never seen evidence that Obama can bench press a lot, so he’s not very strong. And I’ve definitely heard him talk. He produces sounds. He’s clearly not silent. So he’s definitely not a Flurbler, by your definition
A: No, by “strong and silent” I mean strong-of-personality and rarely-speaking, not literally silent
B: You can explain what you mean by those two words as much as you like but I prefer to view them in their commonly understood sense
Do you see how silly that is? This is not the case where both A and B are being asked to evaluate a statement made by a third party. This is a case where person A has proposed a definition, or a set of qualifications, and where person B has the chance to ask for clarification and explanation, but instead just says “ok, well, you said those words, now I’m going to choose how to interpret them, and even though you later clarified and explained what you meant, I’m going to hold you to my first impression of the words you said and what they mean”.
Seriously, what communication will ever occur if everyone time someone says something, and you say “I interpret that to mean X”, and they say “no, I meant Y”, you just say “nope, too late, those words could mean X, I’m going to continue to assume forever that’s what you meant”. That’s not conversation. That’s just a desire to try to win cheap verbal points.
I’m not quite sure where you get “decrees”, but this second part of your paragraph is just LHOD restating the common argument against usage of these words in general. Why would you ever need to describe someone as an “aviatrix” instead of an “aviator”? The existence of two words, the “normal” one and the female one, just builds into our language the assumption that the norm is for men to do it, and it’s an unusual exception when a woman does it. I don’t think that this argument always applies in all situations, but it’s quite clear to me that LHOD was just quickly restating that argument here, rather than trying to make some weird point about the actual situation in this actual thread. And note that the thread title is “WOMAN sentenced for the murder of HER rapist”. If LHOD was trying to make some really far out there PC point in which we shouldn’t acknowledge the gender of any of the participants at all, he picked a pretty bad thread to do it in.
All you’re doing is crying wolf here. The next time you describe a situation on, say, a college campus, “they’re attempting to silence the conservative students through intimidation” I’ll think “OMG, they posted one sentence on a message board to the conservative students! And it had FUCK in it!!!”
And then gave up on his dastardly plan immediately, in that his next post he was very clearly saying that he just thought the word was silly? Isn’t the Occam’s Razor explanation that his intent was precisely what he said it was?
For opinions on the hijack, go here:
What this is all about is LHOD using an obscenity, which is generally considered a relatively strong method of expression, and then attempting to depict users of the term “murderess” as being focused on women’s vaginas specifically.
As LHOD is ever so fond of pointing out in ATMB threads, there are ways of conveying a message that serve to advance conversation and discussion, and ways of conveying the same message but while also needlessly antagonizing the recipient of that message. This instance definitely fell into the latter category.
Thanks for your input, F-P! I love your analysis of me as much as always!
Response to the idea in the IMHO thread, of course. Response to your psychoanalysis is limited to the above amusement.
I don’t know what psychoanalysis you refer to. The notion that you expressed yourself in a rather provocative way does not rely on any sort of psychoanalysis. You may be a bit sensitive here, despite your disclaimer.
In line with the above, the “idea” being discussed in the IMHO thread is independent of what’s being discussed here. In particular, I myself have no use for the word “murderess”, but don’t think it deserves to be characterized the way you did here.
Speaking purely for myself and how I read LHOD’s initial comment, since he’s already responded and can speak for himself, I thought his initial comment was a bit antagonistic and tone deaf. But that’s not what SA was accusing him of, and thus not what we were discussing.
:smack:
I think it’s pretty close to it.
There’s a lot of crossover between responding in an antagonistic manner and attempting to suppress whatever it is you’re being antagonistic to. You’re speculating that he was just being tone deaf, and that’s one possible basis, but regardless, that type of approach tends to have a suppressing result, so I don’t think SA is far off.
I disagree entirely. The problem on college campuses (to the extent that there is one) isn’t “oh, I’m a Republican, and one person was rude to me”. It’s “oh, I’m a Republican, and I got fired” or “oh, I’m a Republican, and a bunch of people protested and suddenly I got uninvited as commencement speaker”.
As I mentioned earlier, there’s some irony here, in that you and SA are effectively “playing the PC card”… pointing at a fairly innocuous example of harmless interaction and saying “PC! PC! PC! SJW!”, just like people “on your side” of the issue are always accusing people of playing the race card or the woman card, looking at a fairly innocuous example of harmless interaction and saying “sexism! racism!”.
No, no. FP and SA need a safe space where they don’t feel attacked by naughty words. I’m going to respect that. Slip on over to IMHO for a further discussion of this issue.
I don’t see these things as fundamentally different.
LHOD’s post cast aspersions - whether due to his being tone deaf or being politically correct - on people who use the term “murderess” as attempting “to point out her vagina”, and in a medium in which there’s some expectation that the crowd might join his side. It’s not on the same scale as firing people or the like - nothing on this MB is - but it’s the same general concept. Whether he was attempting to enforce a PC viewpoint is speculation and your guess is as good as mine - and vice versa.
FTR, I’ve not claimed that it’s PC or SJW, but I do think it’s “pretty close to” what he was being accused of.
I also suspect that “fairly innocuous” depends on whose ox is being gored.
Had LHoD merely said something like, “Murderess? Now there’s a term I haven’t heard in a hairball’s age. Feels like I’m reading a novel written a hundred years ago.” Then his comments would have implied curiosity and confoundment at the use of such an archaic word.
But when you say “What the fuck are you using this word for, we don’t need to know she has a vagina”, it’s perfectly obvious that there’s an agenda is behind it.
Then how does it matter whether or not I believe her about the rape?
I never intended to get involved in this thread but someone took exception to the notion that I understand the desire for revenge on a rapist. And proceeded to proclaim that the alleged rapist was innocent.
Ok. I generally agree. I also understand why someone might not trust the justice system
She’s not the victim. She’s one of the perpetrators.
Fucking autocorrect.
I meant:
you were talking about how she should go to jail for marrying the murderer so she wouldn’t have to testify.
The board you read always sounds so much more interesting than the board I read.
Oh, yeah, well, you should see it from in here. Due to time limitations I omit a ton of stuff. 