.
Crying ‘racist ’ makes a person look like a below-average irrational tropester, like in the exchange below, between Sculptor and I.
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He always offers opinions, but never any proofs.. Ich-troll has also done likewise, with no grounds for the claim whatsoever.
Just like the use of the word ‘retarded’ was recently called into question, by the Ich-troll no less, so should the claim of ‘racist’ be.. and equally be deterred from being used far too liberally.
Ha, yes indeed. As soon as the other person starts calling you a racist, you know you’ve won the argument. Because they have given up on reason and sanity.
I think it’s racist to not allow for the race card. Because what if the person is being irrationally racist? You should be able to explain how they are being irrationally racist, and not just call them racist, however. (Not that there would be a rational racism.)
In that thread you cited, I have repeatedly said who cares what race or ethnicity the violators are—address it. End it. To selectively enforce or not enforce based on race is definitely racist profiling.
Same with sex/gender. Say all the transgender women band together and form rape squads in the children’s sections of libraries, totally interrupting 100% appropriate drag queen story time. Address it. End it. Nail balls to walls. Transgender women have gonads, too. Unless they were already surgically removed. You gotta find something else to nail to the wall in that case. I wanna see a movie where the drag queens nail balls to walls when the transgender women take over story time with their rape squads—before any rape actually happens—because they are truly heroes.
You take Sculptor seriously?
He believes canoes are the same as schooners.
Same engineering, technology, craftsmanship, sophistication…etc.
I guess mud-huts are the same as castles.
Dealing with below 100 IQ individuals, and naive idealists, requires a thick skin and a sense of humor.
Nothing you can ever tell them will get through their thick skulls…they have an objective they will never let go of.
The objective is usually encompassed by safety, comfort, pleasure, popularity…
Some things are racist though, some people think things for racist reasons. Is there any circumstance at all where saying something is, or might be, happening for racist reasons is actually an appropriate thing to do @MagsJ ? Or is it never the right thing to say?
Saying that something is racist isn’t actually any kind of argument against it as being incorrect or untrue. Such claims have no place in philosophy.
Is nature …racist?
She seems to produce such distinctions…they are part of her selecting process.
Um, …“she”? What.
Racism is a bias and biases are absolutely worth probing in philosophy.
Just because a belief seems racist doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not true, of course, but if it’s possible that someone came to a belief due to biases like racism, then it’s worth talking about. Just like it’s worth talking about any other bias.
Not all biases are unjustified.
If one race is more pathologically violent than another, then you may be justified in developing a racist attitude toward that race. Again, the mere fact of having a bias/discrimination (being intellectually discriminating of some things against/in contrast to other things) is no argument as to the truth or untruth of something.
Calling someone a racist is an emotionalist attack and ad hominem, not a philosophical argument.
And how do we evalaute bias?
By using a common point of reference…the apparent.
Those who deny race, deny the obvious differences they perceive, choosing to believe the comforting lie, that all differences are superficial, only when it comes to one species.
Now, imagine we practiced this ideological delusion, in all contexts…
We couldn’t even go to the market. We would require an “expert” to tell us what is an apple and what is an orange…because our senses are fooling us into believing there’s a difference.
We couldn’t determine which bananas were ripe, based on color, because it is superficial and irrelevant.
Unless they are, in fact, a racist.
And if you were paying attention you would have noticed I said “it makes you LOOK like a racist”, - which is objectively true.
Yes, it might be. But it takes what you might call “a human” to see passed your inherent tribalism and act for humans regardless of arbitrary categories..
11 posts were split to a new topic: Race and Technology
Surya Loka Mags posted a racist on GB News who showed an innocent young immigrant pleading for help without further context.
Mags claimed that because that person was Albanian then he was undeserving of any help, not because of any thing about the person, but was guilty of assocation BECAUSE he belonged to a nationality, some of whose other members have committed a crime..
It would be like damning Obama because other black people like Idi Amin Dada was a monster.
That is essentailly racist.
That can’t be right. Not everything that is said in philosophy has to be an argument. Things are regularly called “good” or “wrong” or “sound” or “fallacious” or “humanist” or “dualist” in philosophy, which aren’t arguments but absolutely have a place.
In the case quoted in the OP, it’s part of an implicit argument:
To be clear, ‘racist’ can be and often is used purely as an insulting epithet. That’s bad and people shouldn’t do it.
But I’m not about to start banning people for calling other people racist. There are arguments made on ILP that are racist, and it’s fair to call them racist; there are people that use ILP who are racist, and it’s fair to describe them as racist. I think it’s a hard line to draw, and I would not consider the use in the OP to be clearly enough over the line to warrant moderation.
Still, I can understand why @MagsJ took offense. For someone who isn’t a racist, being called a racist is and should be offensive (and I don’t think that’s lessened by the qualification that it only “makes you look” like the thing it’s offensive to be mistaken for).
So @Sculptor, please consider whether a particular use is a description or label that adds to a conversation, or just an insult. Use the term judiciously; especially if you care about racism, it’s important that ‘racist’ retain its literal meaning.
It is right. It’s called ad hominem.
" An ad hominem fallacy, also known as an argument to the person, occurs when someone attacks the person making an argument, rather than addressing the argument itself. Instead of engaging with the core points of the argument, the attack focuses on irrelevant personal characteristics or criticisms of the arguer."
You believe in affirmative action and “diversity” hiring quotas, and you support race-based social welfare, so of course you already believe in “racist ideas” yourself.
But because you think those are GOOD racism you are fine with it. If anyone proposed giving white people any kind of advantage according to the law and social policies you would call that BAD racism.
The point is that ideas should be examined on their merit. Calling an idea racist or not is silly, un-philosophical. Explain how the idea is true or false. If the point is to benefit a certain race over others, explain why that is good or bad.
You can call someone racist or their ideas racist, just like I can and will call you racist and your ideas racist for supporting things like affirmative action and race-based hiring and university admission quotas. It goes nowhere, because it’s not even a philosophical argument. The PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT comes in when you explain why those (racist or otherwise) things are either good or bad, true or false.
Edit, and yes I realize there is a difference between calling someone a racist, and saying that an idea they are supporting is a racist idea. But I consider this distinction irrelevant. The point is that invoking so-called “racism” adds nothing to the philosophical articulation and examination of the ideas in question. Whether or not an idea (or a person) can be called racist can be a matter of perspective, like how I am calling you a racist when I am sure you think of yourself as not a racist; “racist” is a label attached to a person or an idea for the purpose of demeaning and degrading that person or idea, making it seem like they are bad and not worth considering seriously or believing. That is the REASON WHY people call ideas or other people racist. But even that aside, which shows that the cry of ‘racist’ IS used as an ad hominem fallacy at least in most cases, saying that an idea or a person is racist is not contributing anything meaningful to the discussion or the examination of the ideas in question. Philosophy is about truth, which includes good and bad / right and wrong. If you think something is racist you are saying you think it is bad BECAUSE it is racist, but you would instead need to explain why you think it is racist and why you think that means it is bad. And all of that is going to be a side-issue to the actual idea itself, unless “being racist” is the actual main point under discussion (which it usually isn’t, in fact usually the discussion is focused on some other completely separate issue or idea and then someone starts throwing “racist” around, derailing and confusing the entire topic which is why I say that calling people or ideas “racist” is almost always a red herring if not also usually an outright ad hominem).
If I call someone a “dualist” or an “atheist”, is it ad hominem? It certainly could be used in an ad hominem, like if someone said, “You’re an atheist, so you’re obviously wrong about tax policy”. But to just describe someone’s worldview isn’t the same as making an ad hominem.
Similarly, if I say, “You oppose open borders because you’re a racist”, that isn’t ad hominem because 1) it’s a literal description of the person’s worldview, and 2) that worldview is relevant to understanding the argument the person is making.
These points are in tension. It is worth discussing whether and why anti-white racism is different from anti-minority racism, and to do that words like ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ are useful, as you demonstrate. You call affirmative action “racist” because it fits a literal definition of the word, and you mean to imply that it has the same moral implication as when it’s applied to Jim Crow or whatever.
Obviously it isn’t the end of the conversation, but it doesn’t have to be in order to be a legitimate step in the conversation.
I reject this. Most people rightly abhor racism and are offended to be associated with it, but that doesn’t entail that offense is the purpose of accurately describing something as racist.
Contrast ‘racist’, which has a literal meaning separate from its use as an epithet, with a word like ‘idiot’, which is just an epithet. Also compare ‘illogical’, another word that can easily be used to disparage, is usually offensive even when used appropriately, but also has a literal meaning that is useful.
‘Racist’ still has a literal meaning, it can accurately describe people and arguments, and that description can be appropriate in context.