JD
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RE: virus: Deeply unfair accusation that fellow Virian is a racist
« Reply #15 on: 2006-01-18 08:26:22 » |
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com
> [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of Blunderov
> Sent: 17 January 2006 20:51
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: RE: virus: Deeply unfair accusation that fellow
> Virian is a racist
>
> [Blunderov] It was not my intention to ask you to defend a
> position which you do not hold. But I feel compelled to
> clarify the logic involved here.
>
> It was my position that you may have implied:
>
> The underclass is black.
> Only the underclass remained.
> Of those who remained, some were too stupid or lazy too leave.
> Therefore: the only ones too stupid or lazy to leave were black.
This is a circular reference. We know that the class of people "Those who
remained" contain sub-classes "The stupid", "The lazy" and "the unable to
leave".
If the only people who remained were black (they were not and I did not say
they were) and some of those people were lazy and stupid, then of course the
only lazy and stupid people *who did not leave* are black because EVERYONE
who did not leave is black!
I can substitute any subclass and formulate the same statement:
Only the underclass is black
Only the underclass remained
Of those who remained some were brilliant.
Therefore: the only brilliant people to remain were black.
Your conclusion, whilst logically sound (if you accept the premises, which I
do not), is wildly misleading.
Only a staggering level of bad faith could extract that this deeply
misleading statement from my two line statement that did not even mention
blacks at all!
> I continue to maintain that your original statement was
> sufficiently ambiguous as to reasonably allow this interpretation.
There was no ambiguity at all. It was a two line statement in which I stated
clearly that:
1. The people who remained were predominantly an underclass - the urban
poor. This is not really disputed.
2. I said that those that remained were further broken into several classes:
The stupid, the lazy, those who could not leave.
These are facts and facts cannot be "racist".
> I think probably you are the victim of your own punctuation.
I was speaking. Maybe listen to the audio. It is only 8 minutes and you will
see that this is a fuss over nothing.
> And possibly relevant too, is that various communications
> media are involved. A podcast.
> An IRS chat at which the podcast was discussed. A log of the
> chat. A blog. A mailing list. An RSS feed. It's a
> McLuhanesque nightmare!
Indeed!
> But that aside. On this we are more in agreement:
>
> "Even better, get rid of it entirely."
>
> Yes. IMO characterising such attacks as "racially motivated"
> usually tells us nothing useful at all about the incident,
> and indeed (usually) raises more questions than it answers, if any.
>
> Usually but not always. "Four black men burst into the
> Greymont liquor store today and robbed it" is a gratuitously
> racist statement.
Why? How can a statement of fact be racist?
>"Blacks at the meeting chanted 'one
> settler, one bullet' is not. Most unfortunately the press
> seems to have persistent difficulty in drawing this
> distinction. So perhaps it is better to get "rid of it
> entirely" as you say.
Not sure what you mean :-(
> PS Loved "Bowfinger" btw. I'm an Eddie Murphy fan. Did you
> see "Holy Man"?
> Not quite as good as Bowfinger but very funny too.
No, but I will get it out soon. Thanks for the heads up.
Kind regards
Jonathan
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