The "D" word

Reply to Teller Just to be a kind of half devil's advocate...
I agree, but imagine no one was offended by certain words. Then those words would lose their bite.

Reply to Coben That would be a good thing.

Imagine if everyone became bulletproof. Then guns would lose their bite. And that would be a good thing.

Reply to Pfhorrest I don't think that's a good analogy. Let's say I call out 'This is bullshit' in a meeting, a meeting where management has been breaking rules in their treatment of staff. I have expressed something in a blunt way that makes that word useful. Or if you never think it is OK to use that word in a professional, imagine I simply use it in relation to my own behavior. I notice a rationalization, again, about something, and call myself on it. Words are not bullets. And having words with extra charge, a dash of the taboo, is not killing anyone and it has a use. I think they have a place. I find them useful and satisfying. That doesn't mean I think those words are always ok. I don't use them in all situations - not that I think it is easy to find rules for them,

Quoting Teller

Does One Million Moms not have anything better to do than invite ridicule on themselves?

Don't you have anything better to discuss?

Quoting unenlightened

Don't you have anything better to discuss?

:lol:

Reply to unenlightened Reply to unenlightened

Seems to me that what is "better" is a personal value. Just what, in your estimation, would be better to discuss?

Reply to Coben I see the point you’re making, but it seems separate from the point I was making. I for instance don’t find “bullshit” offensive like the Million Moms find “damn”, but I still understand the emphasis it’s meant to convey. That, I think is good: no offense, but still emphasis.

Quoting Teller

I read with some interest the story of the group, One Million Moms, condemning a Burger King commercial for using that horrid word: "Damn".
It seems to me that this organization might better spend their disparaging time on something that matters.
In my view condemning a word that has little pejorative meaning anymore is silly and petty.
Does One Million Moms not have anything better to do than invite ridicule on themselves?

Well, it seems "damn" means to condemn to hell and so it's understandable that One Million Moms, being a Christian group, is, to put it mildly, upset since if their children repeat at home, it would constantly remind them of hellfire - the very thing they wish to flee from by embracing christianity.
.
It all seems very silly to those who aren't religious for hell to them is just a iron-age myth but one can, with a little bit of imagination, get a feel of the horror the word evokes in those who believe that hell is a real place; to understand the psychological stress such people go through when they hear "damn", imagine if someone were to tell you, flippantly so, that your worst nightmare is going to come true and that too enlisting your children to repeat the same in your homes. You would be overwhelmed by the 24/7 assault on your beliefs both inside and outside your homes.

Of course we could say that since the faithless don't make a fuss about religion in a similar way, the faithful should return the courtesy and each side could coexist peacefully without stepping on each other's toes. This state of equilibrium is impossible because religions come with so many prohibitions that are incompatible with the world in this day and age; plus religious doctrines aren't amenable to alteration, being the word of god.

The best that can be said of the situation is that the religious right will act as a counterpoise to moral mayhem and in these small, seemingly childish, quarrels between the two sides society may find the golden mean.

Reply to TheMadFool

Well said, bravo!

Quoting Teller

Well said, bravo!

:joke:

Reply to Teller
Eh, they're just mad that BK is selling a meat-less burger that really tastes good now and are looking for something to complain about.

Quoting Artemis

Eh, they're just mad that BK is selling a meat-less burger that really tastes good now and are looking for something to complain about.

Does that mean that they have stopped using worms as the protein additive, or that worms do not count as meat? :chin:

Reply to Baden Reply to unenlightened

Quoting unenlightened

Does One Million Moms not have anything better to do than invite ridicule on themselves?
— Teller

Don't you have anything better to discuss?

Quoting Baden

Don't you have anything better to discuss?
— unenlightened

:lol:

Well done you two. How to make someone welcome.

Quoting Pfhorrest

Imagine if everyone became bulletproof. Then guns would lose their bite. And that would be a good thing

Imagine that on a philosophy forum website everyone would become stupidity-proof. Then arguments would lose their bite. And that would be a good thing.

Reply to unenlightened Reply to Baden

Quoting Brett

?Baden ?unenlightened

Does One Million Moms not have anything better to do than invite ridicule on themselves?
— Teller

Don't you have anything better to discuss?
— unenlightened

Don't you have anything better to discuss?
— unenlightened

:lol:
— Baden

Well done you two. How to make someone welcome.

However, on second thoughts, I realise I have not been innocent if this myself.

Reply to god must be atheist Only stupid arguments would lose their bite. But yes, that would be a good thing.

Reply to PfhorrestI suppose I think that some of that emphasis comes from the taboo, even if you and I don't fully believe in the taboo like those offended by the term damn. I mean, I have mixed feelings about this. I think it is silly to give negative magical power to these words, though on some level I do it myself, and, of course, a word like 'cunt' or 'nigger' or 'faggot', I have negative magical reactions to myself, and I would find it hard to find situations where I would use either one in a direct expressive sense. Obviously I just wrote them, but as information about the words themselves, at a meta-level. My mixed feelings are that I think it is silly that a word like shit or damn is offensive. They are blunt terms, and God, presumably the concern in relation to the latter, must have bigger fish to fry than getting mad at people for not using 'darn' when they are in fact feeling 'damn' deeper down. On the other hand, the fact that these words, even in secular minds, carry a hallucinated weight gives them a power that I think would be lost. In a sense I think we all have one of these Million Moms deep down inside us and that inner sense that these words are special in a negative way makes them useful in certain situations. So, I have this double reaction: the Million Moms are ridiculous, it's just a word, but then also, liking the fact myself that the word has a frisson other words do not. What I like about that frisson, as opposed to the charge around the words that bother me I mentioned above, is that they don't put people permanently in a box, dependant on their gender or race or sexuality or temperment. They are expressive without being linguistic apartheid makers. I want that expressive dash, but I don't want to use words that contribute to putting people in sections of an updated Dantean hell.

Reply to Teller Quoting Teller

Does One Million Moms not have anything better to do than invite ridicule on themselves?

Yes

Quoting Brett

However, on second thoughts, I realise I have not been innocent if this myself.

To the extent that a person is identified with their posts, not everyone is welcome on this site. But in this case, my comment can hardly be seen as less friendly or more critical than the op as quoted as it merely redirects the op's rhetoric back to the source.

Reply to unenlightened

Well you may be more tuned in to things than me. I bow to your experience.

In some circumstances there is nothing better to do than what the person actually is doing. To say "you have nothing better to do than..." is a moral call, which is a condemning voice, without any punch, other than it being humanly degrading and provocatively insulting albeit in a mild way**. However, it is a non sequitur, a strawman, an ad hominem, and misplaced pacifier all at the same time.

Because most people do what they do because there is nothing better to do.

** I say mild, because there are much harsher expressions of lingual condemnation than the one used here. On the Richter scale of insults, it registers a noticeable but not traumatizing 1.7.

Quoting Sir2u

Does that mean that they have stopped using worms as the protein additive, or that worms do not count as meat? :chin:

Who? BK? I don't know what is all in "real" meat... Not that it matters, cause decaying flesh seems all equally gross to me.

But the Impossible Burger they started using doesn't have worms in it.

I did hear that some places are experimenting with grasshopper burgers as a healthier and more environmentally-friendly alternative to beef.... But, eh, I'll stick to plant proteins for now.

Reply to Artemis Some grasshopper species are actually more plant-based than animal-based.

Reply to god must be atheist

How do you figure?

Quoting Teller

Does One Million Moms not have anything better to do than invite ridicule on themselves?

Do Christian fundamentalists in the US have?

Btw better discuss the American Family Association, who created the websites "One Million Moms" and also "One Million Dads". Should we be also worried about bestiality in the ad with Maxwell the Pig?

Reply to Brett

@Teller is absolutely welcome, but un's comment was apt. Not a big deal, I'm sure @Teller has plenty of value to offer the site.

Quoting Artemis

Who? BK? I don't know what is all in "real" meat... Not that it matters, cause decaying flesh seems all equally gross to me.

http://dailybuzzlive.com/mcdonalds-uses-worm-meat-fillers-can-legally-call-100-beef/
:lol:

Reply to Sir2u

Yup, gross.
Pass me the peas, please :cool:

Quoting Baden

I'm sure Teller has plenty of value to offer the site.

After seeing your latest OP on Gwyneth Paltrow, @Teller, (now deleted for low quality), I am wavering. OPs are not supposed to be a couple of lines on something that just jumped into your head. Try this: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7110/how-to-write-an-op and please make a little more effort.