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LABELS - The Thread!

Started by Juana, August 16, 2012, 10:42:50 PM

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East Coast Hustle

I don't blame you a bit. I feel the same way when someone trots out the "men are dumb and only think with their dicks" trope. What's even worse is when other men try to use it as an excuse for their own poor behavior.
Rabid Colostomy Hole Jammer of the Coming Apocalypse™

The Devil is in the details; God is in the nuance.


Some yahoo yelled at me, saying 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH', and I thought, "I'm feeling generous today.  Why not BOTH?"

Freeky

Quote from: East Coast Hustle on August 21, 2012, 05:51:35 AM
I don't blame you a bit. I feel the same way when someone trots out the "men are dumb and only think with their dicks" trope. What's even worse is when other men try to use it as an excuse for their own poor behavior.

Ohh, I bet it does. "LOL IM A DUDE GIMME CARTE BLANCHE FOR MY BEHAVIOR LOL DICKS." I mean, really? Seems like it would be a form of low self esteem, or maybe just a gleeful malice on his own character and the rest of men's characters, too.

LMNO

I've been doing a lot of thread reading the last couple of days, and it's only been two threads!


Re-Jack:  LABELS.

I can almost see where Garbo was going in the OP, and why Garbo might prefer more labels to fewer.  It seems like a fundamental difference in outlooks.

On one side, you have the holistic approach: "Do not shoot, I am a human".  I agree with this: we are all both a single group, and single people: any given label subtracts the value of the whole, as it denys everything it does not encircle.  Look, I made a diagram:



However, neither the structure of our language nor our ability to survive is holistically based -- we have to use nouns, which are essentially labels.  So, to overcome this, it sometimes could be beneficial to write out the whole narrative of a life using as many labels as possible:



As you can see, an increase in labels also increases the amount of "is" being contained, and therefore somewhat more complete a description of the human.

However, the problem with this is that the narrative blinds us to the underlying truth, and we get "special snowflake" syndrome.  We see all the labels as differences, and forget that we are all human:



The trick is to keep a balance between 1 and 2, and try not to fall into 3.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: v3x on August 20, 2012, 11:11:25 PM
Quote from: Dear Departed Uncle Nigel on August 20, 2012, 10:57:42 PM
Quote from: v3x on August 20, 2012, 10:52:09 PM
Quote from: Dear Departed Uncle Nigel on August 20, 2012, 10:27:51 PM
Quote from: Pixie on August 20, 2012, 08:46:11 PM
Quote from: v3x on August 20, 2012, 06:28:52 PM
I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

Yes, it makes perfect sense to me, and I agree with it completely.

No one (here at PD) has said "don't act/think/dress like that" as advice on how to fix the problem. That happens, yes. It should be stopped. But it doesn't happen here. What we have here is one group of people says "I am going to continue behaving the way I have been and shouldn't be told to change my ways," and another group that says... "I am going to continue behaving the way I have been and shouldn't be told to change my ways." Two equally uncompromising groups who, when we aren't specifically discussing this topic, don't actually cross these lines very often.

What is the point of this discussion? One month ago, nobody here was assumed to be sexist or anti-woman. Now, we have a number of people who are racing for that line because of the nature of the Internet, where arguments become very extreme as quickly as possible. So this discussion, about improving gender relations in society at large, has effectively caused a schism roughly along gender lines in the immediate society. If this is not typical Human behavior I don't know what is.

This is why it is my belief that forcing the issues of one or another gender, however technically necessary it may be, is a bad idea compared to everyone pretending that gender doesn't fucking exist. There's no reason that won't work, except for a dwindling number of assholes who are going to die out anyway.

P3nt did. Just because you missed it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Can't speak for p3nt but I'd be inclined to think he's trying to get a reaction more than stating his honest opinion. But even if that is his honest opinion, it would make him one of those dwindling number of assholes.

What we need is a growing disregard for gender. We do not need to be reminded that women are out there and have been oppressed. We need to be taught that gender is a non-factor. We don't need special "how to handle a black person" training; we need to be taught that race does not matter. Or, better yet, we need to eliminate the sources of education that gender and race do matter - since these are learned prejudices, not natural ones.

This is why my philosophy calls not only giving no fucks about race, gender, sexual orientation, but proactively wrestling fucks away from other people* so that they cannot give any, either. But it has nothing to do with focusing on gender or race, because such a focus is entirely antithetical to the fundamental principles of egalitarianism.






* "Wrestling fucks away from other people" is clumsy wording, not a reference to rape.

"I don't see color".
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Dear Departed Uncle Nigel on August 21, 2012, 06:08:20 PM
Quote from: v3x on August 20, 2012, 11:11:25 PM
Can't speak for p3nt but I'd be inclined to think he's trying to get a reaction more than stating his honest opinion. But even if that is his honest opinion, it would make him one of those dwindling number of assholes.

What we need is a growing disregard for gender. We do not need to be reminded that women are out there and have been oppressed. We need to be taught that gender is a non-factor. We don't need special "how to handle a black person" training; we need to be taught that race does not matter. Or, better yet, we need to eliminate the sources of education that gender and race do matter - since these are learned prejudices, not natural ones.

This is why my philosophy calls not only giving no fucks about race, gender, sexual orientation, but proactively wrestling fucks away from other people* so that they cannot give any, either. But it has nothing to do with focusing on gender or race, because such a focus is entirely antithetical to the fundamental principles of egalitarianism.






* "Wrestling fucks away from other people" is clumsy wording, not a reference to rape.

"I don't see color".

I don't see color, or at least I do everything I can do to eliminate my ability to see color. Or gender. And I do a lot of hard thinking every time I catch myself violating that rule. It isn't a lofty, bullshit, "privileged" thing to say that I examine my thoughts and my actions and reactions in a conscious effort to eliminate prejudice. This surely is what I hope everyone is doing. This isn't saying I am blind to PREJUDICE, but that I am (try to be) blind to DIFFERENCES. I am also not blind to prejudice on the part of others, but I limit my "activism" to those in my vicinity because that is how I believe it is best to effect meaningful and permanent social change, and probably the only way to see results in my leftime.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: v3x on August 21, 2012, 06:18:43 PM
Quote from: Dear Departed Uncle Nigel on August 21, 2012, 06:08:20 PM
Quote from: v3x on August 20, 2012, 11:11:25 PM
Can't speak for p3nt but I'd be inclined to think he's trying to get a reaction more than stating his honest opinion. But even if that is his honest opinion, it would make him one of those dwindling number of assholes.

What we need is a growing disregard for gender. We do not need to be reminded that women are out there and have been oppressed. We need to be taught that gender is a non-factor. We don't need special "how to handle a black person" training; we need to be taught that race does not matter. Or, better yet, we need to eliminate the sources of education that gender and race do matter - since these are learned prejudices, not natural ones.

This is why my philosophy calls not only giving no fucks about race, gender, sexual orientation, but proactively wrestling fucks away from other people* so that they cannot give any, either. But it has nothing to do with focusing on gender or race, because such a focus is entirely antithetical to the fundamental principles of egalitarianism.






* "Wrestling fucks away from other people" is clumsy wording, not a reference to rape.

"I don't see color".

I don't see color, or at least I do everything I can do to eliminate my ability to see color. Or gender. And I do a lot of hard thinking every time I catch myself violating that rule. It isn't a lofty, bullshit, "privileged" thing to say that I examine my thoughts and my actions and reactions in a conscious effort to eliminate prejudice. This surely is what I hope everyone is doing. This isn't saying I am blind to PREJUDICE, but that I am (try to be) blind to DIFFERENCES. I am also not blind to prejudice on the part of others, but I limit my "activism" to those in my vicinity because that is how I believe it is best to effect meaningful and permanent social change, and probably the only way to see results in my leftime.

Hahahaha wow.

You really can't learn, can you?
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Salty

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 21, 2012, 05:58:54 PM
I've been doing a lot of thread reading the last couple of days, and it's only been two threads!


Re-Jack:  LABELS.

I can almost see where Garbo was going in the OP, and why Garbo might prefer more labels to fewer.  It seems like a fundamental difference in outlooks.

On one side, you have the holistic approach: "Do not shoot, I am a human".  I agree with this: we are all both a single group, and single people: any given label subtracts the value of the whole, as it denys everything it does not encircle.  Look, I made a diagram:



However, neither the structure of our language nor our ability to survive is holistically based -- we have to use nouns, which are essentially labels.  So, to overcome this, it sometimes could be beneficial to write out the whole narrative of a life using as many labels as possible:



As you can see, an increase in labels also increases the amount of "is" being contained, and therefore somewhat more complete a description of the human.

However, the problem with this is that the narrative blinds us to the underlying truth, and we get "special snowflake" syndrome.  We see all the labels as differences, and forget that we are all human:



The trick is to keep a balance between 1 and 2, and try not to fall into 3.

:mittens:

This is great, and I agree.

These talks could use some visual aids I think.
The world is a car and you're the crash test dummy.

Juana

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 21, 2012, 05:58:54 PM
I've been doing a lot of thread reading the last couple of days, and it's only been two threads!


Re-Jack:  LABELS.

I can almost see where Garbo was going in the OP, and why Garbo might prefer more labels to fewer.  It seems like a fundamental difference in outlooks.

On one side, you have the holistic approach: "Do not shoot, I am a human".  I agree with this: we are all both a single group, and single people: any given label subtracts the value of the whole, as it denys everything it does not encircle.  Look, I made a diagram:



However, neither the structure of our language nor our ability to survive is holistically based -- we have to use nouns, which are essentially labels.  So, to overcome this, it sometimes could be beneficial to write out the whole narrative of a life using as many labels as possible:



As you can see, an increase in labels also increases the amount of "is" being contained, and therefore somewhat more complete a description of the human.

However, the problem with this is that the narrative blinds us to the underlying truth, and we get "special snowflake" syndrome.  We see all the labels as differences, and forget that we are all human:



The trick is to keep a balance between 1 and 2, and try not to fall into 3.
I can get behind this. Awesome, LMNO.
"I dispose of obsolete meat machines.  Not because I hate them (I do) and not because they deserve it (they do), but because they are in the way and those older ones don't meet emissions codes.  They emit too much.  You don't like them and I don't like them, so spare me the hysteria."

Verbal Mike

Quote from: v3x on August 20, 2012, 11:11:25 PM
What we need is a growing disregard for gender. We do not need to be reminded that women are out there and have been oppressed. We need to be taught that gender is a non-factor. We don't need special "how to handle a black person" training; we need to be taught that race does not matter. Or, better yet, we need to eliminate the sources of education that gender and race do matter - since these are learned prejudices, not natural ones.
Apologies for replying to this before reading on, but friends are about to arrive and this is important.
It seems to me like you're assuming that by people consciously considering something a non-factor, it ceases to be a factor in people's behavior.
Example: I don't really remember ever not consciously believing gender should be a non-factor, but nonetheless I noticed a year or two ago that I am FAR more likely to interrupt a gal than a guy in a group conversation. Whether it's to just mention something not related to the conversation (like "shall we take this conversation to the balcony") or one of those moments where two people start talking at once, I've noticed that I'm likelier to butt in when a woman is talking, and also that women are likelier to just "concede the floor" and not bother to take up their point again.
I've been working on myself, trying to change this, ever since, and it shocks me again and again and kinda depresses me (especially how a lot of women seem to just let their points go, where a guy would wait and bring it up ASAP).

The point: there is no way in hell I would be able to improve my behavior in this respect by ignoring gender. And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg, because people always go around believing they are better people than they really are, by whatever values they think they live. (This is not meant to say you are less egalitarian than you think you are, v3x, not is it supposed to be an attack on anyone; just an observation about the majority of mankind in my estimation.)
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: VERBL on August 21, 2012, 07:32:03 PM
Quote from: v3x on August 20, 2012, 11:11:25 PM
What we need is a growing disregard for gender. We do not need to be reminded that women are out there and have been oppressed. We need to be taught that gender is a non-factor. We don't need special "how to handle a black person" training; we need to be taught that race does not matter. Or, better yet, we need to eliminate the sources of education that gender and race do matter - since these are learned prejudices, not natural ones.
Apologies for replying to this before reading on, but friends are about to arrive and this is important.
It seems to me like you're assuming that by people consciously considering something a non-factor, it ceases to be a factor in people's behavior.
Example: I don't really remember ever not consciously believing gender should be a non-factor, but nonetheless I noticed a year or two ago that I am FAR more likely to interrupt a gal than a guy in a group conversation. Whether it's to just mention something not related to the conversation (like "shall we take this conversation to the balcony") or one of those moments where two people start talking at once, I've noticed that I'm likelier to butt in when a woman is talking, and also that women are likelier to just "concede the floor" and not bother to take up their point again.
I've been working on myself, trying to change this, ever since, and it shocks me again and again and kinda depresses me (especially how a lot of women seem to just let their points go, where a guy would wait and bring it up ASAP).

The point: there is no way in hell I would be able to improve my behavior in this respect by ignoring gender. And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg, because people always go around believing they are better people than they really are, by whatever values they think they live. (This is not meant to say you are less egalitarian than you think you are, v3x, not is it supposed to be an attack on anyone; just an observation about the majority of mankind in my estimation.)

This is fantastic. Thank you for being aware.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Verbal Mike

LMNO: Awesome re-jack! Spot on!

v3x: having finished reading the posts up to my last one, I have something to add: it seems like you try to do what I try to do (and hopefully everyone does) but you don't seem to be acknowledging that you need to see the labels in order to notice these patterns. In other words, in order to eliminate bias towards/against a label, you have to be highly aware of that label's presence, so that you can notice when you're being biased. In yet other words, you have to really really see gender in order to stop acting like you see gender.
Unless stated otherwise, feel free to copy or reproduce any text I post anywhere and any way you like. I will never throw a hissy-fit over it, promise.

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: VERBL on August 21, 2012, 07:40:58 PM
LMNO: Awesome re-jack! Spot on!

v3x: having finished reading the posts up to my last one, I have something to add: it seems like you try to do what I try to do (and hopefully everyone does) but you don't seem to be acknowledging that you need to see the labels in order to notice these patterns. In other words, in order to eliminate bias towards/against a label, you have to be highly aware of that label's presence, so that you can notice when you're being biased. In yet other words, you have to really really see gender in order to stop acting like you see gender.

If it is my inability to express what I am doing then I apologize for that. In saying I ignore gender (or race, or sexual) divisions consciously, I mean I consciously try to ignore them in deed. I recognize prejudice when I see it, so obviously I'm not incapable of seeing when someone is a woman or when someone is a man. I just refuse to take that into consideration in my actions, and I won't stand people taking that into consideration in their actions. This is all just rephrasing what I have already said.

But it will not help to keep talking to me, as I am unable to learn and, in fact, am a subhuman piece of shit. This, no less, is the fully justified conclusion of a person who is angry that people have treated her gender as subhuman pieces of shit, so you know it's true.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

V3x doesn't SEE color, though!  :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: VERBL on August 21, 2012, 07:32:03 PM
Apologies for replying to this before reading on, but friends are about to arrive and this is important.
It seems to me like you're assuming that by people consciously considering something a non-factor, it ceases to be a factor in people's behavior.
Example: I don't really remember ever not consciously believing gender should be a non-factor, but nonetheless I noticed a year or two ago that I am FAR more likely to interrupt a gal than a guy in a group conversation. Whether it's to just mention something not related to the conversation (like "shall we take this conversation to the balcony") or one of those moments where two people start talking at once, I've noticed that I'm likelier to butt in when a woman is talking, and also that women are likelier to just "concede the floor" and not bother to take up their point again.
I've been working on myself, trying to change this, ever since, and it shocks me again and again and kinda depresses me (especially how a lot of women seem to just let their points go, where a guy would wait and bring it up ASAP).

The point: there is no way in hell I would be able to improve my behavior in this respect by ignoring gender. And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg, because people always go around believing they are better people than they really are, by whatever values they think they live. (This is not meant to say you are less egalitarian than you think you are, v3x, not is it supposed to be an attack on anyone; just an observation about the majority of mankind in my estimation.)

I think this might be a cause of some of the disagreement ITT. For my part I'm not expecting anything from people. I'm dealing with myself. I go out my way not to pigeonhole people because of age, sex, race, taste in music or whatever. I don't know how I'd even go about influencing people in general to do the same, given that anything I've seen anyone else try has failed spectacularly. It's not that I'm saying that I don't see these things. I go out my way to try and ignore them, tho.

I basically do what everyone insists would make the world a better place if everyone did it. And boy do the monkeys screech and holler and tell me I can't. This is good. If the idiots weren't getting upset with me it'd be because I was just like them.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
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Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
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walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Dear Departed Uncle Nigel on August 21, 2012, 07:53:46 PM
V3x doesn't SEE color, though!  :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:

Luckily for me, your self-righteous bullshit is just as visible in black and white. I cordially invite you to stick your head in a meat grinder and turn the crank until the music stops.

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on August 21, 2012, 07:54:11 PM
Quote from: VERBL on August 21, 2012, 07:32:03 PM
Apologies for replying to this before reading on, but friends are about to arrive and this is important.
It seems to me like you're assuming that by people consciously considering something a non-factor, it ceases to be a factor in people's behavior.
Example: I don't really remember ever not consciously believing gender should be a non-factor, but nonetheless I noticed a year or two ago that I am FAR more likely to interrupt a gal than a guy in a group conversation. Whether it's to just mention something not related to the conversation (like "shall we take this conversation to the balcony") or one of those moments where two people start talking at once, I've noticed that I'm likelier to butt in when a woman is talking, and also that women are likelier to just "concede the floor" and not bother to take up their point again.
I've been working on myself, trying to change this, ever since, and it shocks me again and again and kinda depresses me (especially how a lot of women seem to just let their points go, where a guy would wait and bring it up ASAP).

The point: there is no way in hell I would be able to improve my behavior in this respect by ignoring gender. And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg, because people always go around believing they are better people than they really are, by whatever values they think they live. (This is not meant to say you are less egalitarian than you think you are, v3x, not is it supposed to be an attack on anyone; just an observation about the majority of mankind in my estimation.)

I think this might be a cause of some of the disagreement ITT. For my part I'm not expecting anything from people. I'm dealing with myself. I go out my way not to pigeonhole people because of age, sex, race, taste in music or whatever. I don't know how I'd even go about influencing people in general to do the same, given that anything I've seen anyone else try has failed spectacularly. It's not that I'm saying that I don't see these things. I go out my way to try and ignore them, tho.

I basically do what everyone insists would make the world a better place if everyone did it. And boy do the monkeys screech and holler and tell me I can't. This is good. If the idiots weren't getting upset with me it'd be because I was just like them.

"Be the change you want to see in the world" is not good enough, p3nt. Gandhi had it all wrong. You're supposed to force people to see it your way and get downright fucking filthy about it if they don't! In fact you're supposed to stoop as low as your enemy, and even lower if you can manage. It helps, in that regard, not to have any kind of ethical floor beneath you, though.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.