Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
Calling a person a bigot is not a misrepresentation if a person truly considers them a bigot.
Let me ask you this; if you truly considered that someone is a racist and a bigot and is constantly partaking in dishonest dog-whistle politics, would you then see it as acceptable to call a spade a spade?
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Just to expand on this, I think a lot of people don't take enough responsibility for their words. Interpretation at best is 50% speaker, 50% listener. If you speak poorly or clumsy, you're likely to get a poor or clumsy interpretation, because you're giving more than 50% responsibility to the listener.
Corsi, you are a repeated advocate of speaking clearly and directly about "the issue," whatever issue it is, but there's not enough responsibility going around to the speaker to make sure he doesn't come off sounding like an idiot, or racist, or bigot.
We can complain to the end of the earth about how casually people accuse others of these things and misrepresent their point, but the speaker is not the victim here, it is their responsibility to make their point known properly. Own what you say, and own the amount you've left to interpretation. If you're called a racist and you don't think you are, don't get mad at the listener and whine about how they're smearing your name, consider WHY that interpretation is available and FIX it yourself. Blaming others is cowardly and lazy, and it's a huge problem in the moderate population.
"Oh, they're far right, or far left, so they just don't get it." No, you're a poor speaker. So you weren't able to communicate it. That might not mean your grammar is bad or you're dumb, but (as is OFTEN the case here, since everyone is a lawyer or an English professor or a philosopher) it means you failed to speak to your audience. That's one of the most crucial and basic parts to good writing and good speaking. Having a conversation with friends? Talk to them differently than you would a professor in the related field. Seems simple, but people seem far more interested in looking clever than being understood. Hard to feel sympathy.
It's a big reason I despise Sam Harris (bringing it all back to the start of the thread here). He's got some solid ideas, but he's such a poor writer and speaker that he spends way too much time going back and re-explaining himself. It's always "here's this idea" and then "no, why are you reacting like this? I meant this" and "no, I meant this, you still aren't getting it" etc.
Be better or quit complaining.