Three questions in response to my school's performance of The Laramie Project
1) Consider the comments below. Maybe you've heard people say something like them before.
- "I'm not racist, but . . ."
- "I'm not homophobic, but . . ."
- "I'm not sexist, but . . ."
If the comment referred to in the question is an opinion, then a convincing counterargument could convince the speaker that his opinion is wrong. Or, it could lead the speaker to further develop and believe in and dwell on his opinion. I'm not sure which is more likely to happen in the average case, if, say, a person were to challenge every such comment he hears. I am, however, pretty sure that if a large group of people opposed the single speaker of the comment, and if this speaker is not convinced by the large group, he may be persuaded by peer pressure, or at least become embarrassed and hide his opinion. This last case would lead to the speaker not being any more accepting, while being less accepted.
If the comment referred to in the question is a fact, then I do not see how the substance of the comment could be challenged. One could, however, challenge whether the fact should be said. This would lead to acceptance of our society's diversity by censoring facts which are not conducive to that idea.
2) Think about the quote below.
"Canadian society is a reflection of the world's diversity."
Describe some examples of how Canada's diversity enriches our community.
I agree with the quote. Canada's diversity enriches our community by making more ideas present, from different cultures. This is enrichment as if instead of eating a four course meal of salad, steak, pie, and cheese, all of the foods were mixed and eaten together in a single, enriched, piece of food.
3) Reflect on the statement below.
"The Laramie Project demonstrated how the actions of a small number of people can negatively affect an entire community."
Do you think this could happen in Vancouver?
If yes, why do you think so and how could we avoid it? If no, why do you think that it could not happen here?
Certainly two people is a small number of people, but I do not think that The Laramie Project showed two people negatively affecting an entire community to a significant extent. Hundreds of people may be a small number of people; and if so, then I agree with the quote. The hundreds of people would be the media, who caused the death of Matthew Shepherd to be a major issue when it would probably have, without extensive media coverage, gone largely unnoticed.
Do I think that extensive media coverage drawing attention to an issue that would probably otherwise have gone largely unnoticed could happen in Vancouver? It has happened many times before and will happen many times again. We could avoid this publicity of human interest stories by defying both the purpose of the press and basic economic principles.
posted by carpo @ 9:59 p.m.
14 comments
14 Comments:
Steven! You're opinions appear to be almost normal...
Please make some more contraversial ones, they're so much more fun.
Clearly you weren't reading too carefully.
Your use of capitalization but also of extra punctuation and a truncated ellipsis and a phonetically-based spelling error has never been seen before in my commenters, indicating this is your first comment. Of course, there is a better reason to come to that conclusion, so the comment was for the specific reasoning (means, not end).
I'm not sure the ellipsis was truncated. There are three full-stops in one, right? Unless you're talking about the full-stop at the very end, then I'm afraid to inform you that that isn't an ellipsis.
"This would lead to acceptance of our society's diversity by censoring facts which are not conducive to that idea."
Sounds like a dictatorship. It happens, I guess.
I could say more, but you already said it.
It is right that you're afraid.
An ellipsis indeed has three dots, however she has it after a complete sentence which should also have a period. It is indeterminable whether or not the period or a third dot to the ellipsis was missed. Nonetheless there was an error, and usually errors involving ellipses are that the ellipsis is too long, which was not the case here.
She?
Now, I really don't wish to contradict you on your own website, becuase by all means it is your own and you're not forcing an opinion on anyone: if they read it, that's their problem. So kudos to you for not shoving it down their throats, which is what I've come to expect from you.
It is unfortunate, however, that you have such a negative attitude towards women. If your general aversion to females had come about by an experience you had, your stance would be more believable. Sadly, your fear of the opposite gender is only going to increase to levels of paranoia as you age.
If you wish to be understood, you must seek to understand: I've mentioned it before, I'll say it again. Naturally, you fear what you do not understand. Hence, your opinions scare me. Not in that I don't comprehend the subjects; in that what is disturbing.
At least it's clear that I'm not the only one who doesn't understand something.
Someone needs to look up the definition of a "running joke".
Apparently people take things way too seriously at this age. They need to realise that right now, we don't have to give a fuck, so it's better not to.
"If you wish to be understood, you must seek to understand"
It is not clear what exactly you mean by this. Aside the fact that the above statement is probably not true, I do seek to understand, and am usually extremely successful for the set of information provided. For example: I am sure that I understand your point of view, and that the following refutations are valid in response to your point of view. I developed the refutations for my own understanding and not your own (though you should be able to understand), because I am relevant.
I don't see where the contradiction is.
If you got the impression that I used "she" as an insult for the first commenter's English errors, then you got the wrong impression. On this blog I am not able to conclude with certainty who anonymous commenters are, with the exception of Spencer, Matt and Toni (who probably make up the majority). However, knowing who makes a comment gives it more context and I am able to understand the comment better; so I imagine a person makes each comment even if there is no indication that that person was the commenter. I understand you better as being Alison Moore or Sandy Lockhart. It is beside the point if you are not, because you must be sufficiently like them that I can understand your comment better. Similarly I imagined the first commenter was Joelle Tan, and asserted this hypothesis in a fit of cleverness by using the female pronoun.
"If your general aversion to females had come about by an experience you had, your stance would be more believable"
I think you mean "more easily explained" and not "more believable", in analogy, for instance, to a case where a person bitten by a dog as a small child has an irrational fear of dogs. The process I think you are looking for here is slightly more complex, based on my sexual orientation: I frequently analyze how a hypothetical long-term co-habitual relationship would work with specific females, attempting to come to a conclusion of how successful permanent true love would be in that case. I do not conduct the same analysis for my relationships with males because they are expendable and require next to no commitment and I can control how much time I spend with the other male. Thus I am more critical of women because I expend more effort criticizing them and have a higher standard. This effect is compounded, because I am usually frustrated in these hypothetical relationships with females by the female's flirtatious teasing. This is a vague and not a specific description of the personality trait, as I cannot find precise words to describe it. And it so happens that flirtatious teasing is much more prominent in females than males. It is probably the case that the converse is true for some other personality trait, but I just haven't cared to notice.
Thus for this fault I criticize females by calling them "women" because it is characteristically more of a female trait than a male trait. The similar comment for any deficiency in males is "idiot", not "man", because I don't compare genders in those cases.
One word for that anonymous number 3.
Pwn'd.
Yo steven, so do you consider yourself an idiot since you're a guy? Or is it possible that you're some shemale that possess's all the godo traits of both
I mean literally that your idiocy would not be visible if not for the apostrophe.
Let it be clear, some of us have school this term. School to the degree of a lack of free time. More over if I were going to waste my time bothering with a reply, not only would I find some obscure reference which only about two other people in the world will ever get, but I would certainly put some more flavour to it. I find feminism from a man, rarely appreciated.
S.
Hey steven... MURGOLGOGLGOGLOG.
Priests are tough cookies k thanks. ( So essentially you treat girls better because you like to use guys and they are expendable?)
As it is said in Dirty laundry,a song by Don Henley:
People love it when you lose, give us dirty laundry.Thanks for the dirty laundry steven.
Pah, your comment about the media coverage making the Matthew Shepard story more of a major event than it might have been, that's really very, very irrelevant. Before media, almost everything not pertaining to the specific community would go largely unnoticed by those not a part of that community, save for larger scale events like wars and such. Yeah, so the media informs people about things, so what? What does that have to do with the questions? You've used them as a cheap excuse to be cynical and anal. Just because they are perhaps not worded as well as they could have been, or are a little too general, &c., gives no discernable reason to pick them apart. A lot of (and I'm tempted to say most) things in this world are flawed, and I think you'd be a lot happier if you just let them exist in their flawed way instead of picking them apart in whatever way possible and using them as vehicles for excersizing your ability to make unrelated, redundant and irrelevant observations about the state of the world. I agree, the media gives usually too much weight to issues that don't deserve it, and not enough to those that do. What does that have to do with homophobia?
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