We should really be talking more about Nathan Phillips
- Thread starter TheOriginalHappyGoat
- Start date
Are we now thinking that if someone over whom I have no control is triggered by something I do that said person sees as a signal, that I have some responsibility for that, or such signal/trigger is remarkable, or relevant to any social or political discussion?
Rhetorical question. Of course the answer is yes. This idea is the whole basis for “toxic masculinity,” “white privilege,” “male privilege,” and of course a simple slogan like “Make America Great Again”. All of this is how liberals now think. There is no debate about anything important. Any debate is always subordinated to some moral preening or virtue signaling.
I give AOC credit for an honest expression of politics these days as she said moral correctness is more important than factual correctness.
I think that is bullshit. This view of MAGA is a liberal construct. It’s a way for you to avoid any meaningful discussion about Trump policy and instead reduce all policy to your preferred and familiar territory of discussion—RACISM!
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You certainly have a responsibility to at least make some effort to be aware of the signals you might be sending with your actions. But we both already know you don't agree, because we've had this conversation before. You absolutely believe that others have this responsibility. You absolutely think if I say or do something that offends your sensibilities as a white, male, conservative, or Republican, then that's on me, and I should have known better. But you absolutely do not believe that the same responsibility can be laid at your own feet. If you offend someone else's sensibilities, then tough shit. You've made this crystal clear multiple times beyond counting.
You keep acting surprised that almost no one here any longer takes you seriously. Chalk this up to just one more in a long line of explanations why.
MAGA is a construct of Roger Stone.
A magahat is not an invitation to a debate it is more like a threat of a punch in the nose. It tells me the wearer is hostile and is easily provoked. It is a warning to stay the hell away. If I had to choose between initiating a debate with someone wearing a magahat or someone wearing a sidearm in a bar it would be a difficult decision.
He also didn't say that the MAGA haw shows that the wearer "definitively is" sympathetic to white nationalism, which is what you thought he said. I think my interpretation of what he was getting at was more accurate, and I think att's own response to my interpretation shows that I was right.
When I observe people trying to communicate something I am always guessing about what is being communicated. If I am talking with them then I try to ask questions to make sure I understand them. Often times people aren't quite clear about what they are trying to say and it takes them a couple of tries to clarify it. If I am observing people communicating with others (perhaps including me) then typically clarifying questions aren't possible. Then it is useful to talk with others about what they think is being communicated. In either setting if I have to make a decision about how to behave then I typically go by my best guess about what is being communicated. Although there are exceptions to that...say if I am a juror in a court or if there is great risk from misinterpreting in one way and much lower risk in the other.
Take out “definitively” and it’s still what he said. There was no alternative motive considered in his statement.
I try pretty hard but I am sorry to find that what I think I am saying and what people claim to hear seem to diverge more often that I would like.
No, you apparently still don't get it. Whether or not you use the word "definitively," there is a huge gulf between stating that the MAGA had allows us to conclude that a person is sympathetic to white nationalism and stating that the MAGA hat sends a signal that a person is sympathetic to white nationalism. The former improperly imputes a general trend within a population to an individual, and is a form of logical fallacy. The latter is simply a recognition of how symbols are communicated between people, and doesn't actually draw any conclusions about the actual beliefs of the individual in question, and the fact that the MAGA hat sends these signals to at least some people is pretty much undeniable, after seeing how many people received exactly those signals from these kids, and how strongly those signals helped shape how those people interpreted what they were seeing.
I think it's now clear att intended the latter, not the former.
Once again, he said, “We saw young men wearing gear showing themselves sympathetic to white nationalism and male prerogative behaving in ways that are entirely consistent with those sensibilities.”
I responded to what he said and you responded with what you wish he had said. Att didn’t even say he agreed with what you wish he had said. He said, maybe he ought to have said that. However, he did not.
You responded to what he said, and in doing so, appeared to misunderstand what he said. I tried to offer a clarification based on how I interpreted his comments. If you think my interpretation is wrong, fine, but it appears to me that you are taking no effort whatsoever to even acknowledge my interpretation.
I still don't know what att actually meant, but his responses since seem to suggest I was a lot closer than you were. Either way, att is only one person, and the distinction I brought up - whether he intended it or not - is an important one. Saying that wearing a MAGA hat sends signals is not the same as assuming those signals accurately reflect what the wearer thinks.
Well, I don't feel like I have been as clear as I would like to be. Suppose we are driving on the highway together and we see the driver in front of us swerving wildly. We don't know for sure that they are driving drunk--any of a wide variety of things could be true about them after all--but our suspicions are raised. More importantly for us, we would properly behave towards them AS IF they were drunk. We would call the police to report them and slow way down to make sure we aren't involved in an accident. What I am trying to say is that we should treat the MAGA hat wearer AS IF they were sympathetic to white nationalism and male privilege. It is the most reasonable working assumption until we can get more information to form an opinion on some better foundation.
What you are actually saying here, then, is something different than either my or Aloha's interpretations of your original statement. I think you are on to something, but I will need to mull it over to give you a better response.
I did poorly enough on my PSATs I didn't think it made sense to take the SATs. I guess my soul searching is incomplete too. Thanks for the feedback.
Gotcha. If you had taken the SAT's the original joke would have made sense to you.
What are you up to these days aside from over-complicating head wear and hurling racism accusations?
What I was saying is much closer to what you thought in that I am NOT saying that the hats definitively reveal anything about the wearer. You are right to emphasize the difference between what people communicate and what they mean to communicate. You are right to emphasize that, regardless of what people mean to communicate, the hats do communicate what I said.
I recall the discussion Aloha and I had about civility. In that spirit I think Aloha would advise against drawing any definitive inference about individual hat wearers. He would say that such negative initial inferences may quite possibly be wrong and would demonstrate an incivility that might foreclose the possibility of good dialog. I would respond that "Aloha is a wise man who gives good advice."
Your second paragraph is instructive of where I originally thought Aloha went wrong. I don't see recognition of the messages that symbols send as equal to drawing any inference about the bearers of those symbols.
In other words, I think "MAGA hats send a signal of racism" and "MAGA hats do not mean the wearers are necessarily racist" are perfectly compatible statements. I think you can recognize and explore the semiotics without necessarily accusing particular individuals of any particular evil.
Two things:
1. We are all responsible for what we say whether others misunderstand or not.
2. We are all responsible for what we believe other people say.
I guess 3 things. We have no control over what other people say or believe. If I think an MAGA hat means work, optimism, and a good economy, it makes no difference if you insist MAGA is a racist rant. I can’t control your belief.
You aren’t capable of offending my sensibilities about any thing. But that’s not to say you aren’t capable of making yourself insignificant in my view as you consantly strive for supremacy by calling other posters racists, Islamaphobes, Trumpists, bad Christians, deniers, or you name it. Same for your searching out and finding racist or other deplorable subtexts in other posts.—or MAGA hats.
Try engaging in a strong disagreement without calling the other party a name or coming up with another put down. I don’t think you can do it.
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Yes indeed. This was the point you made to CoH as well. But I do think we properly learn something about the person sending the message even though what we learn is not definitive. As in the weaving driver, we don't learn that they are drunk for sure, we do learn that there is a considerably higher probability they are drunk than we would have thought had they been driving normally. We also learn that it is prudent to react to them as if they were drunk even though they may not be.
I think if you perhaps replaced "learn something" with "gain potentially useful information," I would agree with you 100%. Only because I think the phrasing "learn something" implies something you don't quite intend.
1. We are held responsible for what others hear.
2. I believe what is true and have no choice about that hardly at all.
This is entirely inconsistent with everything you've ever said about your own statements whatsoever. You've repeatedly claimed that you are not responsible with what others misunderstand; you are only responsible for your own intent. You've made this patently clear on multiple occasions. You've never extended the same courtesy to people who are not you, but whatever.
So why are you being dishonest now?
Really? You are responsible for what I hear. No way. That’s on me. Hearing is not an objective sound wave. Hearing is our minds applying our experience, beliefs, and attitudes to those sound waves. It’s applying the filter of confirmation bias.
Truth is much the same thing.
It is an interesting distinction. Not sure exactly why you want to make it. Useful information is information that might influence my behavior. Whenever I acquire useful information I learn something. But I might learn something in the sense that my beliefs about the world are altered without that information being useful. In the context of my example with the MAGA hat, I might learn something about the wearer of the hat but not enough to influence my behavior towards them.
I don’t follow. I will say the point is situational. If I’m writing a contract, my responsibility is different from wearing a hat. Since we are talking about MAGA, let’s stick with that.
Because "learn something" implies that you have made a firm conclusion of a fact about someone, while "gain potentially useful information" implies that you have gained knowledge that might inform your conclusion, but haven't yet made one.
I said that we are held responsible for what others hear. If I shout "fire" in a crowded hall I am held responsible for the melee that results. Do you think if I were to claim that "fire" to me means there is no fire I should be let off the hook?
Do you think the second law of thermodynamics is true? Could you choose, if you wanted, to make it not true?
This is really interesting. I guess I am using language in about the opposite way you are. Sorry for the confusion.
I think we are using the phrase "learn something" in different ways. Imagine that we have observed 1000 independent flips of a coin and observed 300 heads and 700 tails. If we observe another 1000 independent flips and see 450 heads and 550 tails I would say I have learned something from the additional 1000 flips. I would say I had learned the coin was much closer to a fair coin than I had thought.
If you had asked me after the first 1000 flips whether I would like to bet on heads or tails for the next flip I would bet on tails. If you asked me after the second 1000 flips whether I would like to change my bet (i.e., did I learn anything useful) I would answer no, I would still bet on tails.
So, I say I learned something from the extra 1000 flips but didn't learn enough so that the information would be useful.
I say I learn something when what I learned changed my beliefs about the world. I say I learned something useful when that new information causes me to behave differently than I would have prior.
Well, first of all, the odds of flipping a coin 1000 times and only seen 300 heads are effectively zero.This is really interesting. I guess I am using language in about the opposite way you are. Sorry for the confusion.
I think we are using the phrase "learn something" in different ways. Imagine that we have observed 1000 independent flips of a coin and observed 300 heads and 700 tails. If we observe another 1000 independent flips and see 450 heads and 550 tails I would say I have learned something from the additional 1000 flips. I would say I had learned the coin was much closer to a fair coin than I had thought.
If you had asked me after the first 1000 flips whether I would like to bet on heads or tails for the next flip I would bet on tails. If you asked me after the second 1000 flips whether I would like to change my bet (i.e., did I learn anything useful) I would answer no, I would still bet on tails.
So, I say I learned something from the extra 1000 flips but didn't learn enough so that the information would be useful.
I say I learn something when what I learned changed my beliefs about the world. I say I learned something useful when that new information causes me to behave differently than I would have prior.
That said, I'm still really talking about signalling here. I agree with your use of the language on a technical level, but I think the phrasing signals something more definite than you intend. I.e., I think your language implies that you have determined that these particular hat-wearers are, in fact, racists.
I mean to say that the odds I assign to MAGA hat wearer being a white sympathizer and favorable to male privilege go up considerably above the baseline population. I mean to say that it is useful information for me because my behavior will change as a consequence of seeing the hat. But that doesn't mean I am certain that the wearer is a white nationalist sympathizer. How do you recommend I try to convey that idea to people? I would really rather not be misunderstood.Well, first of all, the odds of flipping a coin 1000 times and only seen 300 heads are effectively zero.
That said, I'm still really talking about signalling here. I agree with your use of the language on a technical level, but I think the phrasing signals something more definite than you intend. I.e., I think your language implies that you have determined that these particular hat-wearers are, in fact, racists.
I'm not 100% sure. On these particular points, I understood you all along. Aloha did not. I wish I had an answer for that.
We've dealt with this many times. When we post a poll showing that Evangelicals have changed their views on leaders' morality more than any other group, we are accused of calling all Evangelicals hypocrites. Apparently, for some people, nothing you say is of value, unless you include a standard "Obviously, this doesn't apply to every single individual" disclaimer with it. However, in my experience, even that disclaimer doesn't always help.
I was really just throwing shit against the wall and hoping it would stick when making those suggestions to you above. I don't have much confidence they would actually make a difference. The mindset of many right now is to take all criticisms of anything whatsoever resembling them as a personal insult. Not sure how to get past that.
I should also add that seeing the MAGA hat causes me to increase the odds that the person will be hostile towards liberals like me. That has nothing to do with white nationalist sympathies but is useful information for me too.
Thanks for taking the time to help me think through it. I actually think it is pretty clear to say that "we learn something" when our beliefs change and we say "we learned something useful" when our beliefs change enough to change our actions. It is a good idea that if someone says they learned something we can ask them how their beliefs changed. We can ask them whether their beliefs changed enough to get them to change their actions. This is kind of the distinction I was trying to make in talking with Aloha and Ranger on the new information about Kushner's clearance. I was trying to figure out if they had learned anything they considered useful.
I don’t think you necessarily learn anything about the MAGA hat wearer. You infer things about the MAGA hat wearer. You infer they’re showing sympathy for white nationalism. Others infer that they support Trump for his (ridiculous, IMO) trade policies or because they believe he’ll bring their old blue collar factory or mining jobs back. However, we don’t learn much at all from the mere fact a person is wearing a MAGA hat. It takes more than that - like more observation, discussion, listening, etc.
You’ve stayed away from the black guy in a MAGA hat, but it made me think about my favorite wings joint in the area, a blue collar restaurant/sports bar. The clientele is mixed race, reflecting the town’s (next to mine) population pretty well, and the place is usually about 70-30 or 60-40 white to black. Many of them seem to have grown up together and they hang out together. During the 2016 election I gathered a lot of intel about the election listening to conversations at the bar and. Getting to know several people, and it convinced me Trump would easily win Ohio - as he did. Some of that intel is that a large majority of the people there were angry about losing their manufacturing jobs over the previous years. These are union guys, white and black. They liked Sanders and they liked Trump. They generally and genuinely disliked Clinton. Some of them started wearing MAGA hats, white and black people, and when it was Clinton vs Trump, it was clear Trump would win this area. They wore MAGA hats because he appealed to them due to their circumstances. If you were there you’d be hard pressed to find a white nationalism sympathizer among them. I have no idea what you’d “learn” by seeing a black guy in a MAGA hat because you haven’t said. I merely surmised they supported Trump for reasons that made sense to them.
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By the way, I don’t own a MAGA hat and would never wear one. They do give me a negative first impression because I despise Trump and I’m hard pressed to find any redeeming qualities in him. I wouldn’t want anyone to infer that I support him.
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