Do We Really Have It Right?

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Gadianton
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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by Gadianton »

Honor wrote:given we have already asserted I drove EA off the board
If that's true, then he's even a bigger snowflake than I though.
honorentheos
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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by honorentheos »

Gadianton wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 4:32 pm
Honor wrote:given we have already asserted I drove EA off the board
If that's true, then he's even a bigger snowflake than I though.
I would agree, but only so far as to say I highly doubt I did more than contribute. I do think he'd lost patience.
honorentheos wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 1:15 am
I think she's likely right I contributed to EA choosing to not participate here when the move happened. I've thought the same thing. I would be surprised if that were the only reason.
I do think too much Twitter is akin to the paraphrase attributable to Nietzsche regarding the effects of staring into the abyss too long...but that's not really here nor there.
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Some Schmo
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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by Some Schmo »

honorentheos wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:24 pm
I would agree, but only so far as to say I highly doubt I did more than contribute. I do think he'd lost patience.
I don't know about any of this. EA never struck me as someone easily offended or intimidated by other posters. I wouldn't blame anyone here for his departure.

The most likely explanation is that he got bored of the board and decided he'd had enough.
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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by Some Schmo »

ceeboo wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:32 am
I'm not sure I am understanding what you're saying here. Could you elaborate a bit on this? Specifically regarding the "cultural baggage of our youth" and letting that go to "catch up to today's youth."

Thanks in advance.
I'm not sure how else to explain this except to give an example.

When I was young, gay people were fair game for all kinds of derision and insult. You could say, "Don't be gay" and few people would think much of it. Calling someone a faggot was a serious intention to insult. The kids I grew up with all tended to think that being gay was a major defect or character flaw (at least, nobody said otherwise for fear of the retribution that would come from actually defending homosexuality).

Obviously, this all sounds terrible today because the culture has changed. People have become educated. Most of American society now accepts homosexuality as normal, so the kinds of comments I listed above are going to draw much more criticism than they used to.

So if I, as someone who grew up in the 70s, refused to learn about what made gay people tick and stuck to my old way of thinking, I would piss off a lot more people than I used to. I had to let go of the homophobic attitudes (baggage) and quit acting like being gay was a defect, primary by realizing that being gay isn't a defect.

These are the kinds of cultural changes I was talking about. Attitudes about a whole range of topics has evolved, and it behooves us older types to keep up.
Religion is for people whose existential fear is greater than their common sense.

The god idea is popular with desperate people.
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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by honorentheos »

Some Schmo wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:12 pm
ceeboo wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:32 am
I'm not sure I am understanding what you're saying here. Could you elaborate a bit on this? Specifically regarding the "cultural baggage of our youth" and letting that go to "catch up to today's youth."

Thanks in advance.
I'm not sure how else to explain this except to give an example.

When I was young, gay people were fair game for all kinds of derision and insult. You could say, "Don't be gay" and few people would think much of it. Calling someone a faggot was a serious intention to insult. The kids I grew up with all tended to think that being gay was a major defect or character flaw (at least, nobody said otherwise for fear of the retribution that would come from actually defending homosexuality).

Obviously, this all sounds terrible today because the culture has changed. People have become educated. Most of American society now accepts homosexuality as normal, so the kinds of comments I listed above are going to draw much more criticism than they used to.

So if I, as someone who grew up in the 70s, refused to learn about what made gay people tick and stuck to my old way of thinking, I would piss off a lot more people than I used to. I had to let go of the homophobic attitudes (baggage) and quit acting like being gay was a defect, primary by realizing that being gay isn't a defect.

These are the kinds of cultural changes I was talking about. Attitudes about a whole range of topics has evolved, and it behooves us older types to keep up.
Along the lines of what Schmo said above, yesterday I was looking for a show to play while also doing some painting. Amazon suggested one called Ghost World from 2001 starring Thora Birch, Steve Buscemi, and Scarlett Johansson that I hadn't seen but seemed interesting. I'll set the movie aside as a tangent, but I bring it up because the first sentence out of the protagonist included calling something "retarded". It was slightly shocking, and a reminder that in 2001 it wasn't. It comes to my mind automatically as an adjective to describe something someone is doing still. I've been able rewire so I pause when it gets in the queue and have a chance to swap it out. I'm not at the point it is erased and am not sure it ever will be. Baggage.
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Jersey Girl
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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by Jersey Girl »

Oh yes, cultural baggage. I have one example to share though there are probably several others. When I was a teen (and younger) coming up in the melting pot that is the East Coast, I had friends of all ethnic, racial and religions. That's just how it was. But to this day if I am talking with the big guy over here, the phrase "Free, white, and 21" still makes it out of my mouth on rare occasions especially if I'm blathering about something. We never meant it as a racial commentary. At all. It was simply a phrase that meant independent. It's like we speak to each other in a different language...same thing with my people back East.*

But yeah, I've had to stop myself more than once from saying it and mind you, I grew up listening to ethnic jokes as well that never seemed wrong at the time but they sure do now. So...got to clip that one phrase from my brain.

*You guys would probably be shocked to hear a conversation between myself and one of my female relatives in particular. She often uses the c-word (which I don't) but if your ear is tuned to Jersey speak like mine is, it never makes me flinch. It's simply a form of expression for a whole list of characteristics, it's a handy way of summing those up into one word. If I am speaking to my Jersey people, especially about a conflict or stressful situation, it's basically a string of profanities laced with normal words. :lol: True fact.

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Jersey Girl
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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by Jersey Girl »

I wanted to write about one more thing and then I have to leave right away. When I first came online almost 22 years ago (Gunnar, our anniversary is coming up next month!), after a while on that one board I got comfortable with the place and started using profanity in my posts. I cannot count the number of times on that board and even MDB here, where someone assumed that profanity meant that I was angry. That's not true. It's simply the language of my people.

When Cam did his AT hike and got to Jersey, he posted about his experience over the boardwalk portion of the trail and into the communities. He said something like "Jersey Girl is exactly from this place." and then went on to describe what he saw and heard in almost a poetic way. I don't know if he ever experienced East Coast folk before, but he perfectly summed us up in that post. I wish I could have kept a copy of it from the old corrupted board because it was nice to see a newcomer to the culture write about it because he understood.

So, you can be misunderstood in that way, too. I suspect those who thought I was angry were those that came from Mormon culture and imagined that people only use profanity when they're angry. I could write an entire primer on the many uses of just the F word alone and of course, all of it's variants. ;-)
We only get stronger when we are lifting something that is heavier than what we are used to. ~ KF

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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by Lem »

ceeboo wrote:
Fri Sep 17, 2021 10:05 am
Do those saying sexist things feel as much hurt as those receiving the crude sexist slaps in the face feel? Who knows. Maybe that hurt will be a topic somewhere in the future.…
That's a really interesting question that I don't know the answer to either. If I had to guess, my guess would be that the answer is very dependent on the individual and that the answer will not be consistent among a larger number of people.
I think you may have misunderstood me, as I meant that question rhetorically.

But if I had to guess, I would guess that, overwhelmingly and consistently, the people "receiving the crude sexist slaps in the face" feel far more hurt than the people who are (occasionally, intermittently, infrequently, and unfortunately sometimes never) called out for sending those sexist slurs.
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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by ceeboo »

Some Schmo wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:12 pm
Calling someone a faggot was a serious intention to insult.
When I was growing up, my grandpa used to use the word "fag" when he was talking about a cigarette.
These are the kinds of cultural changes I was talking about.
Got it - Thanks for clarifying.
Last edited by ceeboo on Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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ceeboo
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Re: Do We Really Have It Right?

Post by ceeboo »

Jersey Girl wrote:
Sat Sep 18, 2021 7:07 pm
..... after a while on that one board I got comfortable with the place and started using profanity in my posts. I cannot count the number of times on that board and even MDB here, where someone assumed that profanity meant that I was angry. That's not true. It's simply the language of my people.
Good point, Jersey Girl. Yet another factor in play that can have impact on the question - "Do we really have it right?"
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