Restoring Discrimination

a reply to: Jamie1

Where is the line between intelligence and bigotry?

If martians land on earth and 90 out of 100 martians steal, would you be concerned to see a martian looking at your wallet?

It's science to acknowledge that if 90% of martians steal, then the likelihood of your stuff being stolen is higher if a martian is in the room, right?

If a martian is a species with a certain biological makeup, and 90% of them steal then yes, it is reasonable to be concerned. Their martian-hood (for lack of a better term) displays a tendency to steal. But a biological makeup is a valid unit of measure.

If there are more instances of spotted martians stealing than unspotted one, it would be unreasonable to conclude it was their spots that made them more prone to steal, especially when there were vast amounts of spotted martians not stealing. All spotted martians steal if and only when all spotted martians steal. If there are instances of spotted martians not stealing, there is a reasonable enough doubt to conclude that the spots have nothing to do with it, and a more concrete unit of measure is required to discern the facts.

a reply to: BigBrotherDarkness



Why?

When I write, I do not picture myself orating or preaching to a crowd of people. Trust me, if I did, I would make sure to water down my vocabulary and seduce with convenience. Know your audience, they say. But I am against crowds of people and what they do. I am against every guru and priest who exploits their flock. I'm not here to teach. No life can be compressed to an instruction manual and I refuse to write them. If you'll notice, in this and every polemic I put here, it is written to someone of my own discriminating tastes—in this case, my comrade, my friend, a fellow lover and defender of language. You've merely stumbled in on a conversation and decided to eavesdrop.

It's about art, dear sir. It's something other than the bric-a-brac to lay one's attention on if they so choose. There is a wide variety of other choices for your tastes. Yes; we could all paint the sun in a simple manner so that everyone can understand it, but what does this say about painting? That it is useful to those who don't paint? What does this say about the sun? That it should not be looked anew and fresh every single time? It is not she who merely looks at the painting who cannot put the brush down. It is not she who merely looks at the painting who seeks to view and capture the sun from another angle. So it is with words and writing. Infinite possibilities from finite means.

You've stumbled upon an artifact of mankind and decided to read. You found it too confusing and verbose, and you immediately stopped reading and walked away. I am not the voice for your ears. I am speaking to someone else.

There is much time to be silent after death, friend.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

so...you are talking to hipsters.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

...Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect....


Confucius - that just figures...

:-)

Language lives. It moves - it dances...things mean what they mean until they mean something else - and then they can mean more than one thing

Can't put words in a cage Les

The long, hard war for social justice will carry on regardless - no matter what we call it

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

Yes you don't care. I get it.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I'm not sure you do get it

Don't care about what?

:-)

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

I wrote in the OP:

"From one philologist and defender of words to the next, dear comrade, let's be careful to take an adversarial and consequently lonely position against the notion that discrimination is a form of human folly which leads to bigotry and stupidity, and rescue our precious commodity from those who simply do not care otherwise, but who no less shape our language and culture through their careless misuse. "

stainless steel fabrication It is human nature to discriminate others

You're just a bored, snooty, hipster troll aren't you, LesMis?

👣

a reply to: BlueMule

You're just a bored, snooty, hipster troll aren't you, LesMis?

That's a compliment coming from you.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: BlueMule

You're just a bored, snooty, hipster troll aren't you, LesMis?

That's a compliment coming from you.

That's a pretty mainstream response for a hipster. You can hear it on any playground anywhere. 😕

👣

a reply to: BlueMule

That's a pretty mainstream response for a hipster. You can hear it on any playground anywhere.

Is that where you've been spending your time as of late? Name calling rarely works anywhere else. What else have you got? Maybe use your psi abilities.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Spiramirabilis

I wrote in the OP:

"From one philologist and defender of words to the next, dear comrade, let's be careful to take an adversarial and consequently lonely position against the notion that discrimination is a form of human folly which leads to bigotry and stupidity, and rescue our precious commodity from those who simply do not care otherwise, but who no less shape our language and culture through their careless misuse. "

indeed, a noble quest. let semantic inproficiency not produce a drag net affect and keep us from vaulting into the cognitive nirvana we so desperately seek. although i feel it must be said that discrimination is more often a product of not being ignorant, but simply being an asshole. and no asshole will give merit to such well-constructed dissertations as you have gifted to us.

whatever the end result, you certainly pick your battles. let it not be said that you are an easy adversary.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

...and rescue our precious commodity from those who simply do not care otherwise, but who no less shape our language and culture through their careless misuse. "

France's Académie française battles to protect language from English

The Académie, a council of 40 writers and artists, is entrusted with protecting French from “Anglo-Saxon” attacks and writing an official dictionary, of which the latest unfinished version began in 1992...

...Criticised for being an elitist club for ageing linguistic reactionaries, the Académie last year decided to ban entry to anyone over the age of 75.

Maybe you wanna protect English from English?

:-)

Yes you don't care. I get it.

But I do care Les - you really don't get it. I love English - even when it's being abused. Tortured even. I love words, and can be just as pedantic as you

But, language still means what it means when we mean it:
Discrimination

(I'm a little bored too Les)

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: BlueMule

That's a pretty mainstream response for a hipster. You can hear it on any playground anywhere.

Is that where you've been spending your time as of late? Name calling rarely works anywhere else. What else have you got? Maybe use your psi abilities.

Yes I spend my time as of late at the 'playground'. In other words, in the material realm... the ultimate playground. Name calling rarely works anywhere else!

What else have I got? Well you could visit my church and find out. If you got the guts.

👣

a reply to: TzarChasm

A mind after my own heart. I've always adored your words—before and after Tzar Chasm. Despite our little fencing matches, and perhaps especially because of them, we're comrades.

a reply to: Spiramirabilis

But I do care Les - you really don't get it. I love English - even when it's being abused. Tortured even. I love words, and can be just as pedantic as you

But, language still means what it means when we mean it:
Discrimination

(I'm a little bored too Les)

Hear me out:

The dictionary works by defining word trends and subtle meaning changes. It tracks word usage. They track which words people commonly use and how they commonly use them. In other words, the dictionary appeals to the general populace, listens to the voices of crowds, who through the way they use certain word defines what a word means.

My disputation is that the general populace is wrong in how they use the word, and hence, that the definition you are holding up as the be all end all of this argument is dead wrong. To say that the negative definition of discrimination is correct because it is in the dictionary above the positive definition, and because most people use it this way, is an appeal to authority, appeal to the people and circular reasoning. I prefer to avoid these fallacies in my own thinking as best I can, so I refuse (pleasantly of course) this argument.

So instead, here is my argument for your consideration, which no one in this thread has even disputed. This is what I’d rather engage in thought about. To assume that all black people, white people, or Jews are the same due to some invalid unit of measure like skin-color, is to be indiscriminate rather than discriminate. Careless, indiscriminate generalizing—the exact opposite of discrimination—is the root of racism, xenophobia and bigotry.

a reply to: BlueMule

What else have I got? Well you could visit my church and find out. If you got the guts.

Churches have always smelled a little stale for my liking. Perhaps I'll take a rain check.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: BlueMule

What else have I got? Well you could visit my church and find out. If you got the guts.

Churches have always smelled a little stale for my liking. Perhaps I'll take a rain check.

😅

👣

originally posted by: BlueMule

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: BlueMule

What else have I got? Well you could visit my church and find out. If you got the guts.

Churches have always smelled a little stale for my liking. Perhaps I'll take a rain check.

😅

👣

what, that churches have always smelled a little stale?