Haha, lol, I actually collect environmental samples for a living, soil, air, water. Manage research studies, etc. That's why I pointed out this is in no way scientific. But none of you can possibly not see how negatively these terms are being recieved in the general public, can you? I suppose you can. And if not, I suppose you can also fool youselves into thinking it doesn't matter anyway.

The problem isn't that people can't see that the terms are used negatively. The problem is with the conclusions you are trying to draw from that fact.

Your not-particularly-clearly-made argument is that at one point these terms were received positively by the general public, but because of abuse have become ill-reputed. But there is no evidence that the general public ever had positive opinions about those terms. There is no evidence that negative opinions of them follow from abuse. Pretty much from the moment the "general public" heard of these terms they disliked them, and even liberal criticism of "microaggressions" is more theoretical than based on reciting abuses.

The counter-argument is that a lot of people don't like these sorts of ideas because they fundamentally reject the premise that systemic inequality is a real problem, whether racism or sexism or xenophobia based on ethnicity or religion. Beyond that, most people's understanding of the concepts is shallow. All they've ever heard about them is mockery.

You keep repeating that some people don't like the terms, as if anyone ITT has denied that some people don't like them, or that denial in any way supports their argument

What a pile of horse****. Define "general public" and there isn't a shred of evidence that "understanding the concepts" is "shallow" by most people. Citation needed. If nothing else this thread is entertaining with this kind of nonsense.

That's a good point. As far as I can see, these terms all sort of burst into the public sphere a few years ago, and that's when the original definitions were quickly lost to the boatload of abuses posted in this thread, which got press, while the not so ridiculous did not. You're right it's unlikely most of the public would understand or much care to accept systematic inequality is a real problem. We don't like to face hard truths. Still, not sure it's being sold well either.

It's sort of amusing that you demand a citation from me but pass over foldn's assertions in silence. In any case, I can't provide a citation. I'm relying on my own experience. Research is nice when it's available, but in this case I'm not particularly concerned.

foldn you haven't posted "boatloads" of examples of abuses of the microaggression concept in this thread. I don't believe you've posted any.

Im waiting for my chain letter to find out what Warren Buffett can solve in three minutes so I can chessmate libtards.

One term that you used as an example was literally coined as a pejorative by gamer gaters in between threatening women with rape and death over twitter.

But, sure, probably was the fault of the meanie PC crowd.

As ShameTrolly says, this is the crux of FoldN's problem. Outside of talking about lucky duck slaves or comparing Mexicans to cockroaches, he really doesn't want to be bothered with the idea of systematic inequality and is personally annoyed most of the time when its discussed.

I mean, sure, if a bunch of white dudes on the internet want to wistfully muse about minorities, that can be OK sometimes, as long as no one passes judgment on any opinions or is mean at all to bigots or wants to do anything besides aimlessly muse about the topic. But actually critique FoldN's terrible views on Ferguson or the Holocaust or say something mean to his racist friend? Nah, that's disturbing his safe space and he doesn't like it.

Thousands of FoldN posts later, here we are.

Sure I have. Thedemands.org has long lists of student demands to censor other students including the microaggression "All Lives Matter." There have been plenty others. Here's an article that cite's the "victimhood culture" paper and discusses an ugly scenario involving microaggressions and public shaming.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ulture/404794/

There have also been tons of similar examples of strange trigger warnings, attempts to extend safe spaces outside single rooms onto campuses, classrooms, newspapers defunded, deplatforming, etc. I expect these types of examples will continue to dominate the general public mindset regarding these terms for as long as the general public hates facing hard truths, and as long as the terms continue to be so publically abused.

students "demanding" something is not an abuse unless the demands are both abusive and actually enforced.

People using the term "microaggression" to describes things where you disagree with the use of the term is also not actually an abuse. Misuse (even if granted) is not abuse.

The "victimhood culture" study makes absolutely no attempt to describe "abuses" of the concept, as that's not what it is about at all. You seem to not have actually read it.

You say tomato. I say abuse. Maybe you agree with the way these terms are being used. That's basically where we are I guess. The tons of examples I've posted don't bother you. They are clearly disturbing to most people... and not just the general public who hates facing hard truths. As mentioned once or twice, educators, sociologist, psychologists, speech advocates, across the political spectrum are raising serious objections. I guess we'll see how it shakes out.

Call us liberals crazy, but students demanding something dumb and being duly ignored still fails to chill us to the bone, and I don't think a reasonable person can call that an abuse, unless you consider any dissenting opinion an abuse.

There's like zero chance FoldNRape has ever read an Atlantic article in its entirety.

Jared Kushner's defense of Trump should seem real ****ing familiar:

http://observer.com/2016/07/jared-ku...-trump-i-know/

My argument has nothing to do with whether or not I agree with the way the terms are being used, and you still haven't posted tons of examples that deal with microaggressions at all. Nor safe spaces. You've posted several examples of putative free speech issues, but they didn't involve either microaggressions or safe spaces. At least in one case (the Koala), I agree that there is likely an overreach by the school but it seems likely it will be resolved correctly.

Here's my definition of abuse: if it involves someone acting egregiously in a manner which should be disallowed, that's abuse. It's hard to call the scenario in your linked article, with the Oberlin Microaggressions site, an abuse under that definition. I think the students involved are being kind of silly, but they are also exercising the free speech rights you rightly consider so precious.

As an example, that anecdote is representative of most of what you're talking about. Reasonable people might find the campus culture a little silly, or have criticisms of some of its excesses. I agree with at least some of those criticisms, and I think there are points that are worth making and worth paying attention. But it's also in some large part older people yelling at the kids because the kids are negotiating their own cultural norms. This is a story as old as time. Beyond that, they are grappling with issues that are also serious, and from my perspective far more important and urgent than whether or not college students are perfectly measured in their responses to perceived slights.

Mostly, the objection to your framing of the issues is that it lacks all reasonable perspective, because somehow for you college students being excitable and slightly overzealous is more important to criticize or combat than actual racism, sexism, or other social inequality. That's just not a reasonable place to be.

It's sort of funny people don't think I read the articles, because I'm certain most of you guys aren't. The "appeals to authority" I keep making are not because my arguments aren't impelling on their own, but because of your objections that they are reasonable. Quite a lot of intellectuals across the political spectrum disagree. I really don't think it's possible at this point to fill your blind spot on how all this relates to safe spaces (as the term has come to mean) which I more charitibly describe as abuse of safe spaces.


The Koala was pretty fringe, but it's telling how everyone in here has completely ignored The Argus. Sure, there must be some amount of "kids these days," and believe it or not, plenty of critics have thought about that too. There's back and forth, kids have good points and so do adults. Greg Luikianoff, president of FIRE and co-author of Atlantic article, "The Coddling of the American Mind" tackles that question pretty well here. http://www.theatlantic.com/video/ind...american-mind/

When Obama (for example) criticizes elements of campus culture, he doesn't conclude on the basis of his argument that therefore no one should use the term "racist" or talk about racism.

Again, you're conflating the reasonable argument that exists and which has been made by the some of the "authorities" you cite with your own unreasonable conclusions which differ from those arguments.

FoldNDark, enthusiastic reader of literary magazines.

Sure, but moving on from the subject of Foldn - What do you think Obama does conclude? and/or what do you think does follow from his criticisms (are they even valid)?

True, the forum rules tangent had little to do with Obama, nor did I cite him in support of those rules arguments. I may have mentioned he thinks deplatforming is wrong, prefering a free exchange of ideas, which would relate to banning racists in here.

The rule to allow some types of personal attacks and not others has to do with restricting speech in a viewpoint neutral fashion, which is clearly not done in here, by admission. We got into that during the Koala discussion where I cited speech restrictions allowed by the first amendment, and pointed out if this were a public forum, it would never pass.

Anyway, that whole rules tangent only came up when it hit me why so many of you disagreed with the articles I posted, because, duh, most of you prefer restricting speech you disagree with, that offends you. Safe spaces are a very touchy subject to many of you, clearly.

If we refer to the Howard University commencement speech, then his first advice is basically that they should make sure they don't lose perspective about the progress that's been made, and that loss of perspective and an over-emphasis on ideology can be counter-productive. He encourages them to engage in concrete political organizing.

His previous comments at a town hall are less fleshed out, but his primary criticism is really the same as at Howard: he thinks it's a bad idea to try to win by silencing opponents.

That's an entirely valid point, and as far as I'm aware none of the main participants in this thread disagree with it. But Obama also encourages Howard university graduates to speak out, to fight racism, to organize, and to create change. He's not telling them they shouldn't call anything racist, or that they should be especially concerned with protecting the feelings of people they're arguing with. He's not commenting on specific conceptual constructs like safe spaces or microaggressions. His advice is more narrowly focused, and mostly concerned with keeping perspective and not shutting down free speech so tightly that students never have to be exposed to disagreeable views.

Uh, so do you! You want to restrict speech which calls people racist. That you think you have a good argument for doing so doesn't change the fact that you want to restrict speech. Nearly everyone supports some restrictions on speech, and different restrictions in different contexts. I support removing obvious hate speech. You support removing the word racist.

It's also noteworthy that your whole construct about viewpoint-neutral restrictions on personal attacks doesn't actually exist in any of the contexts in which viewpoint-neutrality is enforced. In all of those contexts it would be a 1st amendment violation for someone to censor posts that call people racists. Personal attack rules in general are probably very difficult to enforce in such a venue, because there is probably no such thing as a viewpoint-neutral evaluation of a personal attack. In any case, I'm not aware of any examples.

I will have you know that Cody and I discuss the latest issue of Harper's after each of my reading lessons.

See, here's where I assume you're just confused, because you don't tend to conflate arguments on purpose to troll, or to purposefully miss a point, at least not in my experience. Let me be clear once again. I do not want to censor people calling others racist. A rule prohibiting personal attacks should not be necessary.

But here is a place I'll have to say you are making a silly mistake out of a desire to avoid the point. Even if I grant you that there have been >0 instances of posters calling other posters in here racist that weren't personal attacks, like in the same way that pulling someone aside to gently let them know they're ugly, or fat or stupid, just out of some friendly attempt at helpful criticism, there is no way you can defend that the number is greater than a fraction of a percent, or that the rest of the time when it is clearly a personal attack, it is moderated equally in a veiwpoint neutral fashion.

So, you don't support having a personal attack rule at all, you merely assert that given that such a rule exists, it should preclude calling people racist?

I find that hard to reconcile with your previous dissatisfaction with PU.