Ban Me Please

Discussion in 'The Cesspool' started by sderenzi, Dec 15, 2006.

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  1. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Courage is a term that I would apply to a behavior that is the opposite of fear.

    You don't seem to.

    Semantics.
    Then what term would you choose to indicate the opposite of fear which doesn't carry all the emotional baggage you apply to the word 'courage'?
    Surely not 'cowardice'?
     
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  3. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    resolve, desperation. both of these will quell the fear in people. neither of which is courage.
     
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  5. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Equates to a sort of determination. A resolve to carry through with a decision made despite pangs of conscious.
    This could well take part in the gestalt of the situation, but is not the opposite of fear.

    A word which I find quite distasteful. Indicating a lack of personal choice and alleviating personal responsibility for one's acts.
    One acts desperately because one has no choice but to act thus.
    Shame on you for trying to use this word.
    You'd let the killers of the hook by speaking of their desperation.


    No. Neither word is the opposite of fear.
    Apparently the language doesn't exist with which the two of us can come to terms on this issue.

    Bravery and courage both carry connotations of heroism to you which cannot and must not be applied to those who act in a manner not corresponding to your personal worldview.
    Makes me wonder what you think of courageous acts by the enemies of the United States.
    Are they all desperate and cowardly simply because they exist on the other side of the fence from you?


    A shame you can't simply accept the term bravery minus the heroic qualities. I feel you apply too much baggage to the concepts. You destroy the power of language by robbing yourself of the ability to speak about certain subjects.

    Ever read 1984, by any chance?
     
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  7. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I prefer reckless, foolhardy, precipitate, wild.
     
  8. q0101 Registered Senior Member

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    I always laugh when the Columbine kids or Islamic terrorists are called cowards. It takes a lot of courage to fly a plane into a building or run into a school with the intent of shooting everyone that you see. Most people have a fear of death, (even people that are suicidal) and anyone that is willing to put themselves in a situation where they could die is showing some kind of bravery. It doesn’t matter if you believe the acts are evil or not. Everything is subjective. It all depends on which side you’re on. There are some people out there that like to call the men and women in the British and American military cowards for killing innocent people in Iraq.

    The cowards in the world are usually the people that decide to do nothing when they are faced with some kind of threat. However, it does take a lot of strength and determination for a person to decide not to resort to violence when they’re angry or scared. There are some situations where it is logical to have a peaceful or diplomatic reaction to a threat or physical attack from an enemy. It is easy to hate an enemy, but it is very difficult to forgive an enemy. Treating an enemy with love, compassion, or empathy can be seen as a sign of strength and bravery, but it call also be seen as a sign of weakness. As I said before, everything is subjective.
     
  9. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Hmm.
    Choosing these words is interesting in that they show how words carry an emotional weight and, truly, there is no word that is the simple, and neutral, opposite of fearful.

    The words you've just chosen all have to do with disregard of reprisal, but also apply qualities which are extraneous to the simple opposite of fear.

    Wild is too wild. Too ambiguous to be of any real use.

    Precipitate speaks more about the choice to act and the possibility that they should have waited and thought things out more carefully. (True, but extraneous.)

    Reckless indicates a behavior that is not concerned with safety, yet also carries negative connotations of judgment over the actions rather than a neutral tone which is the context I wish to convey.

    Foolhardy judges them fools. Bravery through foolishness. Again, non-neutral.

    It is interesting how the language veers away from non-judgmental nomenclature on this topic.
     
  10. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i hate to say it but you finding something distasteful is amusing to me for some reason.
    no.
     
  11. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    You disappoint me.
    I find this response distasteful in the extreme. The standard 'you amuse me' ploy.
    I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, you've also used the 'you're on my ignore list' ploy as well.
    Two very distasteful debate tactics.

    Wow.
    I wasn't expecting that. I thought everybody has read 1984...

    Well. A brief summary of the key portion of the book which is relevant:
    The society about which Orwell writes is repressive and totalitarian.
    Thoughtcrime. I'm sure you've heard the term.
    There is a drive underway, within the government, to create a new language. Newspeak.
    An engineered language.
    A language specifically designed to prevent people from committing thoughtcrime.
    It removes their ability to not only speak of certain subjects, but also to even think them.

    Language is our key to abstraction and it has a geography which is clearly demonstrated when we come across particular swells in the landscape such as this one surrounding the word 'fear' and its opposites.
     
  12. Sandoz Girl Named Sandoz Registered Senior Member

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  13. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    well invert you just go on ahead and apply the word courage to the scum of the planet.
     
  14. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    huh? for what?
     
  15. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Ok. Thank you.

    *nudge nudge*
    The thread topic...
     
  16. Sandoz Girl Named Sandoz Registered Senior Member

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    Trolling.
     
  17. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    As a good American, I believe in the right to free speech. The only limitations should be on speech that is a crime itself (lying to people to manipulate their behavior such as fraud, yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, etc.) or speech that encourages, conspires or incites commission of a crime (riot, blocking a public thoroughfare, lynching, treason, etc.). Of course even in America this protection of free speech only applies to the government. Publications, private universities, clubs and websites are free to enforce their own standards.

    SciForums is not run by the government and in any case it's not an American business, so it is not bound by this law. Nonetheless there's no good reason not to adhere to it. People come here of their own free will, seeing that many of our members are young and poorly socialized, expecting a lively and often rude discourse that goes far beyond the bounds of propriety. It takes about an hour on this website to become familiar with the IDs of the people who are the biggest offenders, and after that it's trivial to scroll right past their postings if you don't want to be offended by them.

    Louis Brandeis said it best: "The best disinfectant is sunshine." We need to bring these cockroaches out in the open where we can keep track of them. It's far better than forcing them into the dark crevices where they only talk among themselves and get even stupider.

    So my advice to the moderators is: Unless these people post something that is just flat illegal, please leave them alone.
     
  18. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    So bravery and courage are non-judgemental?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  19. Lord Hillyer Banned Banned

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    Nice, Fraggle Rocker.
     
  20. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Sam,

    Ah. But you see, that was exactly my point.
    Truth is, I knew courage would be taken wrongly. It was a touch of the polemic I alluded to. A punch in the face to make you think, you realize.
    But, bravery was perhaps a touch more neutral in my mind, yet still weighed down.

    However, I thought that in the interests of having a discussion in meaningful terms, we could come to an agreement to subtract the emotional baggage from the terms to simply mean the opposite of fear.

    Yet, when you came in from the other side with her choice of words, it made me realize just how slippery this particular hillock of language is.

    It is interesting to me, these twists and turns of our language apparatus. They show clearly the purpose behind the manifestation of language being a social concern (implying social groups that oppose one another. Good vs. Evil and such. We're brave and courageous when we destroy their homes, but they're dastardly and evil when they do it to us, etc...) rather than a tool for precise distinction between abstract concepts.

    Language is leading.

    Does Whorf rear his head here? But, no, this is not a difference in languages, but inherent to language as a whole.

    I wonder, does Esperanto suffer from this as well?+
     
  21. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I'm not sure I truly understand the question. If you're talking about connotation and subtext and "reading between the lines," there is no real community of "native" speakers of Esperanto. All of us speak a natural language as our primary. When we get together, except at local club meetings, we are people from diverse nations, all speaking a second language--which is of course the milieu for which it was designed. As a result there is very little indirect communication buried in our speech. We're lucky if we are all fluent in speaking and comprehension, all have an adequate vocabulary for hitherto untested subjects of conversation, and all manage to avoid mangling the pronunciation with national accents. Naturally since Esperanto actually works we do far better at this than we would if we were all struggling to speak Arabic or Chinese or English, but not well enough to intentionally or unconsciously create and interpret--or misinterpret--hidden messages.

    I can't speak for the people who are so dedicated that they have truly mastered the language, the Esperanto poets and journalists, those who speak it as well as that of their birthplace. But there are so few of them and they are from such diverse backgrounds, it's hard to imagine that they could have developed this depth, which requires a community.

    Young enthusiasts try to invent slang, but it is forced in the absence of a "critical mass" of community. The only instances I know are krokodili, "to speak a national language in a situation where Esperanto would be appropriate," which is a slang word that pertains to the Esperanto community itself; and fek', literally "feces," shortened by poetic elision that is rarely used in prose and conversation, as an attempt to make it a swear word.

    It's generally said that Esperanto had a million speakers in the 1920s, putting it almost in a league with Yiddish, a rather rich language. That was its heyday and whatever slang and subtleties we have were surely invented then. Today it is dying out except as a hobby, and the promise of computerized translation makes it seem less urgent than ever. There are not enough people speaking it often enough to enrich it.
     
  22. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, just the opposite.

    The example at hand is fear and its opposite.

    The actions of the Columbine killers was the opposite of fear (in at least some regards. Crossing the line to go against social mores is not an easy task. Fear of retribution and societal consequences is what keeps many 'in line'.)

    The same can be said for the 911 hijackers flying those planes into buildings. It's been called cowardly, but that is a moral judgment and not factual. In order to perform such an act, one must be full of not-fear.

    Yet, how is one to speak of these people in clear and precise terms? Simple terminology rather than long rambling dissertations on the exact nuance of emotion and behavior you're trying to get across?

    Bravery and courage are laden with positive judgment qualities. How can you call a murderer 'brave'? Heroes are brave. Not murderers...

    And the other words provided by Sam are equally inadequate for the job.

    A simple and unambiguous term denoting the state and/or behavior of being not afraid. In neutral terms. Not passing any sort of judgment, good or ill, over the act itself except in regards to its fearfulness or lack thereof.

    Language seems to skirt this issue.

    Or perhaps there is a word, but one which refuses to come to mind. This happens.
     
  23. Bells Staff Member

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    Does it take courage to cross the line like these kids did though? Was their form of ultimate revenge courageous? Or was it an easy way out? After all, they did not hunt down their tormentors. They merely opened fire on anyone they happened to see. In the end, they gave their tormentors exactly what they wanted from the beginning. They were teased and bullied because they were supposedly different, weird, strange, etc. Their final acts proved their bullies correct.

    Courage is standing up for one's self. Slinking off home to plan a massacre, stealing the parents weapons and building bombs before slinking back to school to simply shoot all and sundry is not standing up for one's self. It was an easy way out. Instead of standing up to their attackers, they became the attacker and the bullies to their victims. In the end, they became what they had attempted and wanted to kill.

    It doesn't take courage to kill. It takes courage not to kill.
     
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