Edit: Replying to @AcerPlatanoides, post 74, but somehow the reply tag got eaten. Oh, it’s back!
Having just read a few pages of your comment history, I’m happy to acknowledge that you personally do not engage in direct character assassination, and only very rarely do you indulge in ad hominem argument (such as the ‘turd in the punchbowl’ line you directed at me, when I did not throw such an item myself but rather objected to the dismissal of the earlier poster’s point due to said fecal matter).
I hope that my own comment history can withstand such scrutiny, and I admire your restraint.
Also, I apologize for misremembering who used the genetic fallacy to deride stoicism during the same pile-on - it was not you, and your comment was far more reasonable. I wish I’d responded to that, it would have bearing now. I got trolled hard in there, and I suppose I have only myself to blame.
But I disagree that “self-appointed guardian of racialist political correctness” is a caricature. I really meant that as an thoroughly objective evaluation of displayed behavior by several people. Can you explain why it is incorrect in context? What am I missing?
I was talking about situations like… um… how about this one? This isn’t racialist, it’s gendered, but nonetheless this kind of target-seeking is a standard behavior here now. And in fact this person is actually one of the more reasonable ones, I could placate her fairly easily by explaining that I only meant precisely what I actually said. Which is a strange thing, isn’t it? That I have to tell people my quotes are actually quotes, and not special purpose “scare quotes”, and that we have to include disclaimers if we use words that have more than one possible interpretation, making sure that we leave no surface area available for attack, and that people have to say, “no, I didn’t mean what you’d really like me to mean, I actually meant what I actually said” if they don’t want to end up as conversational piñatas.
Sure, no problem. You are often more informed and frequently better spoken than I am. And I’d be lying if I said I’ve never been publicly wrong. I respect people who show me that I have a wrong idea, because then I can fix it. They did me a huge favor!
I hate that kind of conversation. I would prefer to be illuminated, enlightened - not chastised, held up as an object of scorn, purposely denigrated - if I have a choice. I like to learn new things, which is why I should probably stop reading everything but Mark’s “maker*” posts and Xeni’s space posts, I guess.
*not scare quotes. Mark uses that word, I do not, I am quoting him, thus quotes.
