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Bit more comprehensively:
You're fixated on words, John. You talk about language, semantics, nuances of words, people being vociferous.
I don't agree with this, I'm afraid. Firstly, I haven't moaned about 'semantics' since the last time I was pulled up on it and unlike yourself, I try not to pull apart other posters based just on the words they choose to use (the Ganesh thing yesterday being an exception, that I'll try to get to in a minute). I only become fixated on words when my words are picked apart and used to say something that I didn't mean. But, I do understand that the interpretation comes from the reader and not the writer and I admit that yes, sometimes my use of language can be lazy/ill-informed and perhaps my thinking about it a little more carefully would be a bit of a help for me.
Fair enough - I didn't realise that the absence of accusations of "semantics" and "nuances" was a conscious decision. We'll come back to that later, though.
If I come across as a little fixated by words (which I don't think I am), it's because they're the only tool I have to communicate in a text form. Without words, what have I got? The gist of it? That doesn't fly much around here either.
Hmmm. I think part of the problem is that you believe that you are communicating the gist - that people get what you mean, and that if they do not follow your line of reasoning they are just being difficult. However, let's leave that aside for the moment.
Also, vociferous is a good word, and I think it sums up a lot of posters here. They post often and a lot, and make sure their opinions are listened to and taken on board. What other words should I use?
It is a good word, but it leads neatly into:
What you don't seem to grasp is that the words might actually underpin thoughts. You're not entertaining the idea that people might _sound_ like they have thought about something because they have actually thought about it.
I'm not quite sure what your point is with this. Are you saying that I don't think people mean what they write? That I think people haven't properly considered what they write?
Closer... I mean that you seem to assume that people being erudite and vociferous, say, is unconnected to them having thought a lot about issues, possibly discussed them - basically that they are essentialist qualities. However, I could be wrong, if you have genuinely dropped the semantics/nuance stuff. Except that you haven't. You're simultaneously telling me that words are all you have to coommunicate (true) and that I am dedicating too much attention to your words (false, at least in one sense):
Haus - what, boring like your constant atom-slicing of language is boring
Regarding slags ...
This is where it gets tricky, and where I feel you are setting yourself up as some kind of thought police (!!!1!!!!1 etc). Firstly, I said that speil ages (well, months) ago. Is it not possible that I've changed my opinions, been swayed by the arguements I've read here?
Yes, it's possible. However, here we appear to have a fundamental differencein how we perceive character. Let's say you meet a man at a party. He tells you that he is a lifelong Conservative voter, that he supports London's 2012 Olympic project and that his passion is for birdwatching.
You encounter each other intermittently over the next few months. One day, you find yourself once again talking to him. Do you assume that his personality has been in a state of constant flux since your first meeting, and that it would be wrong and stupid of you to base any assumptions on what he told you - in fact, you should assume specifically that he is a Labour voter, hates the Olympics and eats owls. I am assuming probably not. As such, would it be responsible of me to assume that your identity was thus Protean?
I fully admit that I sounded like a right tool there and I would like to disown my words. I don't think I have used the word since IRL actually (like you give a shit), and this piece that you keep dragging up was pre Feminism 101. I read the entire thread as it was running (but refrained from posting in for fear of... this, actually) and it put my in my place. What else can I say?
Well, you can say "since I gave no indication that I had experienced this change of heart, it is obviously ridiculous to suggest that by assuming that I still held the views that I espoused and have at no point recanted until now, you are in some way being T3H THOUGHT POLIS!!11!!". Regrettably, what you do say is:
If you continue to keep bringing up things that I've said in the past but don't any more, then you are being very thought-police-y (and I don't give a shit if saying that is a Barbe-no-no). You're saying that even though there is no evidence to say this is what I think any more, that is what I'm really thinking.
That's a shame, because it makes you look like you expect people to be able to ascertain your damascene moments by telepathy, and your apparent hurt that people do not do so underpins the next stages of your argument, which i think robs them of a fair chunk of credibility.
Honestly, I'm a bit worried that in each of our encounters since the Apprentice thread, you've had it in the back of your mind that this is who I am and what I stand for, having no new evidence to back it up, despite my keeping my head down and trying to be a nice, aimiable addition to the community.
You told us that you were not going to call women slags on Barbelith because we were all sensitive, and then you didn't call women slags on Barbelith. At what point should I have concluded that your reasons for not doing so had transformed? A hint: If you do something regrettable, then it takes quite a long time of not doing anything regrettable for it to be forgotten.
I think, reading back on my quote you've dragged up, my intention was to come across with indignation, but obviously, I just came across as a defensive loudmouth, and I am sorry for that.
Well, there we are. If you'd said that before, this argument would have a leg to stand on.
Like everybody else, my opinions are not concrete, they shift and change and adapt.
And like everybody else, I'm reliant on you to give indications of when they have.
There doesn't seem to be much room for that in the way you treat me, and it's frustrating, and just makes me more indignant. Not that that's a very good excuse, but there you are.
Well, I hope I've addressed why I think your expectation of people to understand your motives is unfair, and thus why your tone in this thread appears needlessly aggressive and insulting - because you were working from the assumption that I was deliberately and perversely not reading your mind and discovering that when you said that you were not going to call women slags on Barbelith because we were oversensitive, not like in the real world, what you meant was that you were not going to call women slags on barbelith because it was disrespectful. I'm very glad that it's the case, but I don't feel a huge amount of guilt for not recognising it.
As such, I'm not going to respond to any more inferences about things I've said months ago, because it gets me nowhere.
It appears to have gotten you somewhere - I now understand better why you have been being careful about calling women slags. That's useful, I think.
If you'd rather, we could look instead at Ganesh's response to your rather sensitive reaction to (gay) people "harping on" about sexuality - here. In fact, your demands that he "knock it on the head" strike me as precisely policing, by your definition.
Now you're putting words in my mouth.
No, I'm drawing conclusions based on the words I found there.
I never ever even insinuated that Ganesh's sexuality was the reason I took issue with what he said. If you think that "harping on" is a reference to his sexuality, then you're just wrong. otherwise, I don't know why you put (gay) in there, and I don't know how to defend myself against your inferences there.
Personally, as a Welshman I find "harping on" profoundly offensive. However, my thesis was primarily informed by the fact that Cherielabombe also used the term and you ignored her, but of course you may simply not have seen her post. Otherwise, I think Ganesh has addressed this issue perfectly well in the linked passage - it comes across as a straight person reacting aggressively to having their (default and normative) sexuality investigated in an unfamiliar way.
I have since PM'd G to apologise and try to make good. I hope he accepted, because I was too agressive in my critisism, I admit, and I respect him very much, although I disagree with some of the things he might say.
I think that's a very progressive step, though. Well done you!
So, I think the issue here is basically a philosophical one. You and I differ on whether or not it is acceptable to refer back to unwithdrawn or uncontradicted statements or behaviours from a few months previously when analysing a person's behaviour. If you believe that it is not, your points are good. If you think that it is, they don't.
However, in neither case do I think that the term "thought police" is anything other than misleading hyperbole. What you describe seems far more like the actions of a thought parole board. In fact, since it has been made clear that I am not privy to your thoughts, it would have to just be a parole board. Or possibly a parole officer. Or a jury that was aware of a previous conviction and was failing to cast it from their minds when considering their verdict. Almost any element of the process of law enforcement apart from the police. |
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