ON ISMISMISM

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I just want to burn the whole thing with fire. All of it. Into a fiery lake.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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.

[LMNO]

I believe in evolution.

WHAT DO, NIGEL?





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

[hooplala]

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.

[hooplala]

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.

[LMNO]

Ok.


[edit: I was going to double post to be cute and annoying, but Nigel's quick response made that impossible. Which is probably a blessing, because it wouldn't have been very funny.]

[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.

[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.

[LMNO]

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.

This is true -- however, from a pragmatic point of view, would it be reasonable to say that it may be the majority of people associated with the ISM are dumbfucks to aren't thinking about the ISM, and you don't want to be associated with them?

So ISMISM could be a rejection of non-thinking, passive people, and not necessarily the concept that they're not thinking about?

[East Coast Hustle]

OF course you are technically correct, but I think the root of the issue is what happens to people who choose to identify themselves first and foremost with an -ism rather than just having it be one aspect of the whole of who they are.

AREN'T THERE ALREADY WORDS FOR THAT? LIKE SHALLOW, TWO-DIMENSIONAL, BORING, INFLEXIBLE, PEDANT GIT?

How I see the whole "ism" conversation usually going:

Ismist: "I SEE AN ISM AND I REJECT IT!"

Me: "Why?"

Ismist: "BECAUSE MENU TERRITORY UNIFORM KEYWORD JARGON"

Me: "Umm... OK".


STOP RUINING WORDS.

Well yeah, but onthe other hand when you come across one of the asstards that engenders that kind of knee-jerk hatred of -isms, it's a whole lot of fun to tell them they're wrong and have their head completely up their ass and when they ask why, rather than give them a well-reasoned argument that they'll just ignore, tell them it's because of a three letter suffix. I mean, I'm usually TRYING to make them lose their shit, so I'm gonna stick with it in that context. Which is really the only context I would ever say that in anyway outside of some PD.com mental masturbation thread.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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.

This is true -- however, from a pragmatic point of view, would it be reasonable to say that it may be the majority of people associated with the ISM are dumbfucks to aren't thinking about the ISM, and you don't want to be associated with them?

So ISMISM could be a rejection of non-thinking, passive people, and not necessarily the concept that they're not thinking about?

It could start out that way, but as soon as you make a box for it, it turns into, well, a box. It turns into it's own ism called I REJECT ISMS and becomes a replacement for actual analysis.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

OF course you are technically correct, but I think the root of the issue is what happens to people who choose to identify themselves first and foremost with an -ism rather than just having it be one aspect of the whole of who they are.

AREN'T THERE ALREADY WORDS FOR THAT? LIKE SHALLOW, TWO-DIMENSIONAL, BORING, INFLEXIBLE, PEDANT GIT?

How I see the whole "ism" conversation usually going:

Ismist: "I SEE AN ISM AND I REJECT IT!"

Me: "Why?"

Ismist: "BECAUSE MENU TERRITORY UNIFORM KEYWORD JARGON"

Me: "Umm... OK".


STOP RUINING WORDS.

Well yeah, but onthe other hand when you come across one of the asstards that engenders that kind of knee-jerk hatred of -isms, it's a whole lot of fun to tell them they're wrong and have their head completely up their ass and when they ask why, rather than give them a well-reasoned argument that they'll just ignore, tell them it's because of a three letter suffix. I mean, I'm usually TRYING to make them lose their shit, so I'm gonna stick with it in that context. Which is really the only context I would ever say that in anyway outside of some PD.com mental masturbation thread.

Maybe it's just the PD.com mental masturbation threads that are getting to me.

[East Coast Hustle]

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.

Absolutely this. I hate it when someone quotes and replies to multiple people in the same post.

[hooplala]

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?

[hooplala]

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.