ON ISMISMISM

[Juana]

I'm not ignoring the argument. I read it and have been thinking about it since last night. I WILL pick it up when I have time.

Also, I acknowledged that it's my opinion that it's wrong. But like half my arguments are perpetually ignored, so whatever. I'm not surprised. Frustrated, but not surprised. It was the same in the feminism thread about half the time.

I pretty much agree with Nigel.

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm honestly not saying this to pick on you, but you tend to come off as "I'm telling you what's right, why aren't you simpletons agreeing with me?!?" about some of this stuff. Alot of people, especially people here at PD, will respond negatively or not at all if that's the tone they're getting out of someone. That you get ignored in those situations is probably a mark of respect since otherwise there would be hostile responses.

I could be way off base, but I have the same problem when I'm talking to people in real life and I think I recognize the same thing going on here.

[Juana]

I can see how I might come off that way. I'm not meaning to, though, and I'll try to pay more attention to how I sound.

[P3nT4gR4m]

IT IS SAID THAT AN ISM IS JUST A UNIFORM BUT I WOULD ARGUE THAT ISMISM IS ALSO A UNIFORM, A QUICK FIX, A PIGEONHOLE, A BOX, A WAY TO AVOID THINKING BY PUTTING EVERYTHING IN A CERTAIN CATEGORY LABELED "I AM BETTER THAN THAT". IT IS LAZY AND STUPID.

THAT IS ALL.

Lazy? Guilty. Stupid? Probably (how would I know?)

Thing is - I don't have the time or the patience to wonder if the asshole who's annoying the piss out of me has a really great reason for being a piss annoying asshole. Could be he was dropped on his head as a baby, could be his mother never breastfed him. Fuck do I care? All I want to do is get him out of my way so's I can get on with getting the other 10,000 assholes standing behind him out of my way, so's I can go about my business.

I use shorthand. I use pigeonholes. It's the scattergun approach and I'm sure that some of the 10,000 assholes might actually not be assholes and I'm dismissing them unfairly. I'm comfortable with that. So I dismiss isms out of hand can't be fucked to think. I'm sure there's some good ones out there, buried under a mountain of assholes. I genuinely can't bring myself to care.

WTG - looks like you understood my post

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I believe in evolution.

WHAT DO, NIGEL?





LMNO
-The walrus was Paul, for fuck's sake.

EVOLUTIONIST! BURN THE WITCH!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also, I am gonna start responding twice in a row, even if nobody else has answered yet, like Nigel. 

I have additional thoughts and YOU WILL READ THEM SEPARATELY!

Just letting everyone know.

That's cool. I find it way easier to follow a thread that way. Some people stack a whole bunch of quotes into one response and I find that difficult to parse for some reason.

Also I never know whether I'm going to have a chance to finish a thread or if I'm going to get called away, so I reply one post at a time just in case.

I was just messing with ya, Nigel.   

<3

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I would like to politely point out that Ferris Bueller made this point twenty-five years ago.  When will people start listening to Ferris?

Actually, he made the exact opposite point than the one I am making, and it was A STUPID FUCKING POINT.

You are right, I mistook your caps-lock irony for genuine outrage.  Hard to tell sometimes.  My fault for not reading on.

I agree with your point, actually, though is this really something people get in a bunch over?  I mean c'mon people, there is important shit like Chris Brown deleting his Twitter account we could be discussing.

What? There was no irony, the outrage was genuine... maybe a reread of my OP from that perspective would clarify my intention. I genuinely and authentically think that ismism is stupid as fuck; dismissing something because it's suffixed with -ism is a lazy way to avoid thinking and feel smug doing it.

You are right again, I missed the ismism part and took it as irony, though I believe I still did get your general point the second time. 

I dunno, doesn't seem like a big deal to me, but I guess if you run into it often enough it could become grating.  I'm not sure why people get so hung up on the intricasies of the language, rather than thinking about the ideas behind the language.  I get that language is important, since we need to understand one another to communicate, but why people get worked up in minutiae, while either ignoring the ideas therein, or even contradicting the intended meaning... I have no idea.

I'm having a hard time collecting my thoughts today, and am no help to this thread - my apologies for mucking it up.

I think I agree with you Nigel?

The bolded part. This a million billion times.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Well, there's a simple way to prove OP.

1.  If an ism can be found that isn't a collection of lemmings, then the OP is correct in saying that dismissing something as an "ism" is just another way of not thinking.

2.  If an ism that isn't a collection of lemmings can't be found, then the OP is unproven (but not DISPROVEN, as absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence).

[Juana]

Uh, you're always gonna get a mix of lemmings and non-lemmings. In damn near every group, no matter what. The larger the group, the more lemmings, but there will always be a significant portion that isn't lemmings.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Uh, you're always gonna get a mix of lemmings and non-lemmings. In damn near every group, no matter what. The larger the group, the more lemmings, but there will always be a significant portion that isn't lemmings.

No argument.  I don't hold the majority accountable for the morons, and neither does any other reasonable person.  So we just need an example.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Well, there's a simple way to prove OP.

1.  If an ism can be found that isn't a collection of lemmings, then the OP is correct in saying that dismissing something as an "ism" is just another way of not thinking.

I'm the only one here that doesn't have a problem with not thinking about it? I don't do causes. Plain and simple. I act the way I act. I don't do  a whole bunch of stuff that causes want me to "fight" for other people to stop doing. Congratulations. If it makes it better for ya, I don't mind if you pretend I used to do the shit but stopped on account of a "message" getting through to me. There you go - now I'm a positive result.

I steer clear of "isms" on purpose. A large part of steering clear involves not thinking about them. Including ones where I agree with what they want to happen I just don't want it as bad, or maybe I already have it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm the only one here that doesn't have a problem with not thinking about it? I don't do causes.

Well, after today, I think I have to concur.

[MMIX]

Uh, you're always gonna get a mix of lemmings and non-lemmings. In damn near every group, no matter what. The larger the group, the more lemmings, but there will always be a significant portion that isn't lemmings.

No argument.  I don't hold the majority accountable for the morons, and neither does any other reasonable person.  So we just need an example.

Heroism; skepticism; astigmatism

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Uh, you're always gonna get a mix of lemmings and non-lemmings. In damn near every group, no matter what. The larger the group, the more lemmings, but there will always be a significant portion that isn't lemmings.

No argument.  I don't hold the majority accountable for the morons, and neither does any other reasonable person.  So we just need an example.

Heroism; skepticism; astigmatism

See?  BAM!  Nigel's case proven.

How hard was that?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's just a suffix.