Philosophy Now Forum

It is an 'issue' when you fling the word around as an insult. You could at least define what you mean by it. And you don't surprise me. I only asked knowing what the response would be. Now run along and make a complaint about how 'bullied' you are.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:It is an 'issue' when you fling the word around as an insult. You could at least define what you mean by it. And you don't surprise me. I only asked knowing what the response would be. Now run along and make a complaint about how 'bullied' you are.

Ahhhhh so that's why you are really here, to drag up a point from another thread, shut down because it got so out of hand, on to this thread. Is it your intention to get this one shut down, too?

If you "only asked knowing what the response would be" then why waste everyone's time asking it?

I clearly defined why I thought your thinking racist on that last thread, it does not need to be repeated here. Go back and read it, if you wish to relive it, but don't try to recreate that thread here. It was shut down for a reason.

Have a bit more respect for the forum and the other users here before you start frothing at the mouth, with angry indignation, at the fact that someone finds what you have to say, and the way you say it, too personal and pugnacious for a forum like PN. Stalking me, to humiliate me, serves what philosophical purpose?

Take your agenda elsewhere, or talk to me in private, but don't keep hijacking threads I start, or post to, because you have a personal beef with me. What happened to your high regard for critical thinking? Is this how it expresses itself?

You need a warning, I will complain, if it will stop you behaving like the philosophical equivalent of Mike Tyson (in his later punch drunk years).

ForCruxSake wrote:

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:It is an 'issue' when you fling the word around as an insult. You could at least define what you mean by it. And you don't surprise me. I only asked knowing what the response would be. Now run along and make a complaint about how 'bullied' you are.

Ahhhhh so that's why you are really here, to drag up a point from another thread, shut down because it got so out of hand, on to this thread. Is it your intention to get this one shut down, too?

If you "only asked knowing what the response would be" then why waste everyone's time asking it?

I clearly defined why I thought your thinking racist on that last thread, it does not need to be repeated here. Go back and read it, if you wish to relive it, but don't try to recreate that thread here. It was shut down for a reason.

Have a bit more respect for the forum and the other users here before you start frothing at the mouth, with angry indignation, at the fact that someone finds what you have to say, and the way you say it, too personal and pugnacious for a forum like PN. Stalking me, to humiliate me, serves what philosophical purpose?

Take your agenda elsewhere, or talk to me in private, but don't keep hijacking threads I start, or post to, because you have a personal beef with me. What happened to your high regard for critical thinking? Is this how it expresses itself?

You need a warning, I will complain, if it will stop you behaving like the philosophical equivalent of Mike Tyson (in his later punch drunk years).

Talk about diversion tactics. You just can't bear to have anyone disagree with you, or point out the nonsense you sometimes come out with. You never answer ANYTHING. There is no frothing on my part. Just simple requests to have simple questions answered. The only one 'frothing' is you. 'Stalking' you. Haha. Another over-used word that now has no meaning. If responding to someone's thread is 'stalking' then don't post threads.
Misuse of language for political gain is something I feel strongly about. It's not as if I've only thought of it today. This is an obvious thread for me to respond to. You are the one who's always ordering people off the forum. If you can't handle dissenting opinion or being presented with facts that don't gel with your ideology then perhaps this forum isn't for you.
By constantly complaining, you are abusing the site. Heck, there have been posters on here who threatened to kill, posted the name, phone number and home address of other users, posted other members' photos, thought Mein Kampf was the greatest piece of literature ever written, paedophiles promoting their depravity.......Many arguments that have been on here make ours look like a love-fest. If you can't have a robust argument on here where can you have one?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Talk about diversion tactics. You just can't bear to have anyone disagree with you, or point out the nonsense you spew. You never answer ANYTHING. There is no frothing on my part. Just simple requests to have simple questions answered. The only one 'frothing' is you. 'Stalking' you. Haha. Another over-used word that now has no meaning. If responding to someone's thread is 'stalking' then don't post threads.
Misuse of language for personal gain is something I feel strongly about. It's not as if I've only thought of it today. This is an obvious thread for me to respond to. You are the one who's always ordering people off the forum. If you can't handle dissenting opinion or being presented with facts that don't gel with your ideology then perhaps this forum isn't for you.

I can handle facts. What I don't like is being bullied into a response, I don't wish to make. Nor do I like being followed from one thread to another so that you can satisfy some personal agenda.

I answered your posts. I said I would sit back until I had something to add. You had to continue pushing for a response. not to anything that pertains to advancing this thread particularly, but the thread that was shut down.

This forum is very much for me, but your trolling of me isn't.

ForCruxSake wrote:

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Talk about diversion tactics. You just can't bear to have anyone disagree with you, or point out the nonsense you spew. You never answer ANYTHING. There is no frothing on my part. Just simple requests to have simple questions answered. The only one 'frothing' is you. 'Stalking' you. Haha. Another over-used word that now has no meaning. If responding to someone's thread is 'stalking' then don't post threads.
Misuse of language for personal gain is something I feel strongly about. It's not as if I've only thought of it today. This is an obvious thread for me to respond to. You are the one who's always ordering people off the forum. If you can't handle dissenting opinion or being presented with facts that don't gel with your ideology then perhaps this forum isn't for you.

I can handle facts. What I don't like is being bullied into a response, I don't wish to make. Nor do I like being followed from one thread to another so that you can satisfy some personal agenda.

I answered your posts. I said I would sit back until I had something to add. You had to continue pushing for a response. not to anything that pertains to advancing this thread particularly, but the thread that was shut down.

This forum is very much for me, but your trolling of me isn't.

Nope. You've never answered anything. That's not a debate. And more name-calling doesn't help your case. Calling someone a 'troll' doesn't make it so.
It wasn't me who shut down that thread. It was you. I don't know why you don't just block me. I never block anyone, but if my responses upset you so much then it would seem to be the logical way to go. There are plenty of people on here who can't stand me (probably most ), but if they write something I like, or agree with, I will tell them that. I'll do the same with you. There's no 'targeting'. That's just silly paranoia. I wouldn't tell you to leave, the way you keep doing to me and others. It's the differences that liven the place up. Who would want to be on a forum where everyone agreed?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:

uwot wrote: That's how language works, if it didn't, bigot would still be 'Bi God'.

Not exactly. It's a bit more complicated than that...

Ultimately any language is two or more people using some agreed method of communicating. Generally, this is some version of a more broadly used language, such as English, but it may well be so specific to, or mangled by a group of users that it is unintelligible to other users of the parent language.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:...and it's not particularly helpful when a useful word is rendered meaningless through misuse or overuse (or worse, when it's used with a 'meaning' that is the exact opposite of its true meaning, especially when there is nothing to replace it).

That's why context is essential. The fact that a word is not used as you would use it doesn't make it meaningless.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:We might as well not have language at all if that's the case.

You mean if people don't use language in a way you find acceptable.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Calling someone a 'bigot' or a 'racist' doesn't end an argument.

No. But some people are racists and bigots; at least as I use the terms.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:You might as well say 'you're fat' or 'your eyes are too close together'. Personal insults can be part of an argument, but they don't constitute one.

Being fat, or, particularly, having eyes which are too close together, are not the sort of things that are amenable to argument; I don't see that they are equivalent to bigotry or racism.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:They make an argument neither stronger nor weaker (contrary to the myth). Words like 'bigot' and 'racist' get thrown around in arguments like confetti (and often by those with something to hide and has a need to convince others that they are 'good people'). Genuine rabid racists don't take it as an insult anyway. In fact they are usually proud to call themselves that. What distinguishes them to a person is their irrationality and complete lack of scientific understanding. No doubt you will come back and say 'what's a 'rabid racist? There are 'degrees' of 'racism'.' Don't ask me. I'm not the one who watered the wine down to the point where it's just water. Ask the ones who use the word all the time. I'm forced to add the word 'rabid' because the word on it's own doesn't mean anything, similar to the way you now have to say 'University student' instead of just 'student', because it's now politically correct to call every child from kindergarten upwards a 'student'.

I can't really comment on your personal experiences, but there is no need to add 'rabid' to 'racist' on my behalf. Again, in a given context, I can usually work out what is meant by 'racist'.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Is someone a 'racist' because they work till late at night and have to get a work-provided taxi home but is scared to, because of the prevalence of sex attacks on young female passengers by creepy male muslims?

No, not if you have sufficient "scientific understanding" that your fear is proportionate to the risk.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Now you will say 'that's just a minority'.

Can we just stick to what I do say?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:That may be so. But it's difficult to tell who the 'minority' is when you are stuck in a taxi with them, on your own. Is it 'sexist' to request a female driver (not an option btw). Of course, she isn't allowed to ask for a driver of her own culture (if they exist now), because that would be 'racist'. Better suck it up and hope for the best.

She needs to speak to her boss. It isn't racist or sexist to want to feel comfortable on the way home.

uwot wrote:

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:

uwot wrote: That's how language works, if it didn't, bigot would still be 'Bi God'.

Not exactly. It's a bit more complicated than that...

Ultimately any language is two or more people using some agreed method of communicating. Generally, this is some version of a more broadly used language, such as English, but it may well be so specific to, or mangled by a group of users that it is unintelligible to other users of the parent language.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:...and it's not particularly helpful when a useful word is rendered meaningless through misuse or overuse (or worse, when it's used with a 'meaning' that is the exact opposite of its true meaning, especially when there is nothing to replace it).

That's why context is essential. The fact that a word is not used as you would use it doesn't make it meaningless.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:We might as well not have language at all if that's the case.

You mean if people don't use language in a way you find acceptable.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Calling someone a 'bigot' or a 'racist' doesn't end an argument.

No. But some people are racists and bigots; at least as I use the terms.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:You might as well say 'you're fat' or 'your eyes are too close together'. Personal insults can be part of an argument, but they don't constitute one.

Being fat, or, particularly, having eyes which are too close together, are not the sort of things that are amenable to argument; I don't see that they are equivalent to bigotry or racism.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:They make an argument neither stronger nor weaker (contrary to the myth). Words like 'bigot' and 'racist' get thrown around in arguments like confetti (and often by those with something to hide and has a need to convince others that they are 'good people'). Genuine rabid racists don't take it as an insult anyway. In fact they are usually proud to call themselves that. What distinguishes them to a person is their irrationality and complete lack of scientific understanding. No doubt you will come back and say 'what's a 'rabid racist? There are 'degrees' of 'racism'.' Don't ask me. I'm not the one who watered the wine down to the point where it's just water. Ask the ones who use the word all the time. I'm forced to add the word 'rabid' because the word on it's own doesn't mean anything, similar to the way you now have to say 'University student' instead of just 'student', because it's now politically correct to call every child from kindergarten upwards a 'student'.

I can't really comment on your personal experiences, but there is no need to add 'rabid' to 'racist' on my behalf. Again, in a given context, I can usually work out what is meant by 'racist'.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Is someone a 'racist' because they work till late at night and have to get a work-provided taxi home but is scared to, because of the prevalence of sex attacks on young female passengers by creepy male muslims?

No, not if you have sufficient "scientific understanding" that your fear is proportionate to the risk.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Now you will say 'that's just a minority'.

Can we just stick to what I do say?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:That may be so. But it's difficult to tell who the 'minority' is when you are stuck in a taxi with them, on your own. Is it 'sexist' to request a female driver (not an option btw). Of course, she isn't allowed to ask for a driver of her own culture (if they exist now), because that would be 'racist'. Better suck it up and hope for the best.

She needs to speak to her boss. It isn't racist or sexist to want to feel comfortable on the way home.

Then people could at least define the meaning (as they see it) of a word they are using if the 'meaning' is so 'flexible'. Yes words evolve over time, but basic illiteracy is no excuse, especially when there is no replacement, and a gap is left in the language. Just look at what has happened to the word 'liberal'.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Then people could at least define the meaning (as they see it) of a word they are using if the 'meaning' is so 'flexible'.

It's not really practical. We either learn the 'language' of people we wish to associate with, or we seek out others that already speak our language. In either case, language is a bonding device, but it is never a perfect medium.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Yes words evolve over time, but basic illiteracy is no excuse, especially when there is no replacement, and a gap is left in the language.

What exactly is it that you cannot convey, because of a lack of words? People either find words, or they make them up.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Just look at what has happened to the word 'liberal'.

Show me.

uwot wrote:

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Then people could at least define the meaning (as they see it) of a word they are using if the 'meaning' is so 'flexible'.

It's not really practical. We either learn the 'language' of people we wish to associate with, or we seek out others that already speak our language. In either case, language is a bonding device, but it is never a perfect medium.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Yes words evolve over time, but basic illiteracy is no excuse, especially when there is no replacement, and a gap is left in the language.

What exactly is it that you cannot convey, because of a lack of words? People either find words, or they make them up.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Just look at what has happened to the word 'liberal'.

Show me.

You must have been living under a rock. You don't even have to look any further than this site to see it misused over and over again. I've asked bob to define what he means by it on umpteen occasions, which he flatly refuses to do. If anything he should love liberals, since he's always rabbiting on about freedom. And nothing is EVER going to change the true meaning of the word. (The rest doesn't make any sense and bears little or no relevance to what I have written).

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:You must have been living under a rock. You don't even have to look any further than this site to see it misused over and over again.

So what does it mean, and how is it being misused?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:I've asked bob to define what he means by it on umpteen occasions, which he flatly refuses to do.

Are you seriously expecting to get sense out of Reverend Bob?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:(The rest doesn't make any sense and bears little or no relevance to what I have written).

Well, that or you don't understand.

uwot wrote:

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:You must have been living under a rock. You don't even have to look any further than this site to see it misused over and over again.

So what does it mean, and how is it being misused?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:I've asked bob to define what he means by it on umpteen occasions, which he flatly refuses to do.

Are you seriously expecting to get sense out of Reverend Bob?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:(The rest doesn't make any sense and bears little or no relevance to what I have written).

Well, that or you don't understand.

Look it up. I'm not your mother. And no. I don't except to get sense from anyone who doesn't know what liberal means.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Look it up.

You're missing the point. People don't use the definitions in dictionaries; dictionaries give the definitions people use. Treating any book as authoritative is typical of people who either didn't get, or wasted their education. That or it's pathological; right wing control freaks and religious nuts being common examples.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:I'm not your mother.

You don't need to tell me.

uwot wrote:

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Look it up.

You're missing the point. People don't use the definitions in dictionaries; dictionaries give the definitions people use. Treating any book as authoritative is typical of people who either didn't get, or wasted their education. That or it's pathological; right wing control freaks and religious nuts being common examples.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:I'm not your mother.

You don't need to tell me.

I'm not talking about dictionaries. The word means 'free man'. Free of speech and free of movement. So obviously if you are liberal then you believe in free speech. That's pretty non-negotiable. What could be simpler than that? What next? Make 'slave' mean 'self-employed person'? Or 'hypocrite' to mean 'a trustworthy person of great integrity'? Why do you answer my posts if I could be saying anything, since words have no meaning? I could be talking about the weather for all you know.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:I'm not talking about dictionaries. The word means 'free man'.

Says who?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Free of speech and free of movement. So obviously if you are liberal then you believe in free speech. That's pretty non-negotiable. What could be simpler than that?

Given your literal mindedness, should I believe that a liberal is a man who can move as he wishes, speak as he wishes and extends that second freedom to others? Is it really as simple as that?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:What next? Make 'slave' mean 'self-employed person'? Or 'hypocrite' to mean 'a trustworthy person of great integrity'?

I do wish you wouldn't put words in my mouth.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Why do you answer my posts if I could be saying anything, since words have no meaning?

I can't remember. Who started this? Anyway, we're here now. So; how do you get from meaning being contextual, which is what I have argued, to words having no meaning?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:I could be talking about the weather for all you know.

And you know that isn't true.

uwot wrote:

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:I'm not talking about dictionaries. The word means 'free man'.

Says who?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Free of speech and free of movement. So obviously if you are liberal then you believe in free speech. That's pretty non-negotiable. What could be simpler than that?

Given your literal mindedness, should I believe that a liberal is a man who can move as he wishes, speak as he wishes and extends that second freedom to others? Is it really as simple as that?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:What next? Make 'slave' mean 'self-employed person'? Or 'hypocrite' to mean 'a trustworthy person of great integrity'?

I do wish you wouldn't put words in my mouth.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:Why do you answer my posts if I could be saying anything, since words have no meaning?

I can't remember. Who started this? Anyway, we're here now. So; how do you get from meaning being contextual, which is what I have argued, to words having no meaning?

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:I could be talking about the weather for all you know.

And you know that isn't true.

Liberty? Liberate? Liberation? Mean anything?
How do you know I'm not talking about the weather? How do you know what the 'context' is?