with tact (Destiny)

by Claude Errera , Thursday, July 30, 2015, 23:46 (3402 days ago) @ slycrel

It's not about being an english major - it's about being careful not to accidently exclude swaths of the community by the words you choose.

This is where I start getting nervous.

There's a difference between common courtesy and being afraid to let your freak flag fly. I agree that we should all be respectful and diverse in our opinions, that we should make room for everyone.

I don't agree that we should always be "careful not to accidentally exclude swaths of the community by the words you choose". Because it's not my responsibility to keep tabs on the perspective of the people posting in a given thread, the forum as a whole, or even in the larger community. I'll try to be a good guy as much as possible. But I may say something that offends someone, or is taken out of context. That's life, especially on the internet.

I'm not saying we should open it all up to whatever, whenever. But I am saying that this is all starting to sound like "we need to be politically correct". And I'm not sure that's going to actually fix anything.

This totally misses my point - and it's probably my fault.

I'm not even a LITTLE bit asking for political correctness, or that people should work on not offending others. That is so far from what I meant as to be in a different county.

Feel free to offend whoever. Go read some of my old posts on HBO - I had a running thing about eating kittens.

I guess it's really hard to explain what I'm trying to get at. It's about making sure that you don't phrase your arguments in a way that I have to write 10 paragraphs explaining where I START before I get to your actual argument.

"When did you stop beating your wife?"

That's not something anyone here would ever write (at least not on this forum) - but it's an example of how the CHOICE of words (or the way you ask something) dictates how the conversation will go forward, regardless of whether the person you're speaking to agrees with you or not. There is an IMPLICIT, unspoken base of assertions in that statement that (if you disagree with them) you need to spend considerable effort to dispel BEFORE you begin to answer the question.

That's what I meant by trying not to accidentally exclude swaths of the community - there are plenty of people who will look at an argument that comes with implicit assertions they don't agree with, and simply skip over the discussion, EVEN IF THEY WERE INTERESTED IN IT, because getting to the discussion is too difficult.

You can offend anyone you want. I don't give a damn. (Just do it politely, please. ;) )