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Calling white men racist seems to be the new "have you stopped beating your wife"

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  • Calling white men racist seems to be the new "have you stopped beating your wife"

    Sooner or later, every one of us is confronted with questions to which we are not expected to be able to answer. One of the toughest and most common is the infamous loaded question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” which implies that you have indeed been beating your wife. Some people actually DO beat their wives. But what of those of us who don't? How do we answer that loaded assumption without agreeing with it? How do we NOT give an answer without appearing evasive or silently confirmatory?

    It has occurred to me that the latest loaded assumption "you're a racist" is one of those unbeatable loaded propositions. What do I mean?

    A white guy gets called a racist. How can he defend himself? Are his accusers going to take his word for it that he isn't? How about the word of his white friends? If he even mentions that there are minorities that can vouch for him, he's accused of employing tokenism, and then again, accused of racism for the "token". Despite what the minority individual says, they are testifying for a racist and are just there to be a distraction from his racism.

    Or what if he realizes all of this is a no-win situation and just agrees that there is no way he can prove otherwise, should he just say he is a racist?



    All the bases are covered! So, you DO beat your wife...
    That's what
    - She

    Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
    - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

    I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
    - Stephen R. Donaldson

  • #2
    I thought the consensus was that white men are automatically racist. Why is it necessary to even ask the question?
    Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

    Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
    sigpic
    I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

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    • #3
      I want to judge based on the content of character.
      sigpic

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      • #4
        Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
        I thought the consensus was that white men are automatically racist. Why is it necessary to even ask the question?
        Seems you are asking the exact sort of loaded question that btc oppose to. He wrote:

        "But what of those of us who don't? How do we answer that loaded assumption without agreeing with it? How do we NOT give an answer without appearing evasive or silently confirmatory?"
        "Yes. President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing." Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler Jr.

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        • #5
          Good causes sometimes have bad consequences. Blacks, women, and other historical out-groups were right to demand equality before the law and the full respect and liberties due to any member of our civilization; but the tactics they used to “raise consciousness” have sometimes veered into the creepy and pathological, borrowing the least sane features of religious evangelism.

          One very notable pathology is a form of argument that, reduced to essence, runs like this: “Your refusal to acknowledge that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…} confirms that you are guilty of {sin,racism,sexism, homophobia,oppression…}.” I’ve been presented with enough instances of this recently that I’ve decided that it needs a name. I call this general style of argument “kafkatrapping”, and the above the Model A kafkatrap. In this essay, I will show that the kafkatrap is a form of argument that is so fallacious and manipulative that those subjected to it are entitled to reject it based entirely on the form of the argument, without reference to whatever particular sin or thoughtcrime is being alleged. I will also attempt to show that kafkatrapping is so self-destructive to the causes that employ it that change activists should root it out of their own speech and thoughts.

          My reference, of course, is to Franz Kafka’s “The Trial”, in which the protagonist Josef K. is accused of crimes the nature of which are never actually specified, and enmeshed in a process designed to degrade, humiliate, and destroy him whether or not he has in fact committed any crime at all. The only way out of the trap is for him to acquiesce in his own destruction; indeed, forcing him to that point of acquiescence and the collapse of his will to live as a free human being seems to be the only point of the process, if it has one at all.

          This is almost exactly the way the kafkatrap operates in religious and political argument. Real crimes – actual transgressions against flesh-and-blood individuals – are generally not specified. The aim of the kafkatrap is to produce a kind of free-floating guilt in the subject, a conviction of sinfulness that can be manipulated by the operator to make the subject say and do things that are convenient to the operator’s personal, political, or religious goals. Ideally, the subject will then internalize these demands, and then become complicit in the kafkatrapping of others.

          http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122
          Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
          But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
          Than a fool in the eyes of God


          From "Fools Gold" by Petra

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          • #6
            Reminds me of the claim/joke that denial of a drug problem means you have a drug problem. But what if you never drink alcohol/smoke/consume illegal drugs?
            If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Charles View Post
              Seems you are asking the exact sort of loaded question that btc oppose to. He wrote:

              "But what of those of us who don't? How do we answer that loaded assumption without agreeing with it? How do we NOT give an answer without appearing evasive or silently confirmatory?"
              My post was entirely sarcastic.
              Enter the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent. – St. John Chrysostom

              Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
              sigpic
              I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist

              Comment


              • #8
                Wouldn't a better comparison be "have you stopped being a rapist"? Another question to not answer in a yes/no fashion.

                I never beat my wife, because I am not even married! And I'm a woman that couldn't actually beat up anyone.
                If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
                  Sooner or later, every one of us is confronted with questions to which we are not expected to be able to answer. One of the toughest and most common is the infamous loaded question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” which implies that you have indeed been beating your wife. Some people actually DO beat their wives. But what of those of us who don't? How do we answer that loaded assumption without agreeing with it? How do we NOT give an answer without appearing evasive or silently confirmatory?
                  "I never started".

                  Though I'd probably use something ruder.
                  Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                  MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                  MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                  seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Roy View Post
                    "I never started".

                    Though I'd probably use something ruder.
                    Then they'd claim you were lying! Or insist that you answer with a yes or no.
                    If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Christianbookworm View Post
                      And I'm a woman that couldn't actually beat up anyone.
                      That's sexist. Women can beat up anybody they want!
                      Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                      But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                      Than a fool in the eyes of God


                      From "Fools Gold" by Petra

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                      • #12
                        I personally don't have the strength to beat an adult in a fight. And I don't want to hurt a young child. My plan for self defense is look out for danger and run.
                        If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Christianbookworm View Post
                          Then they'd claim you were lying! Or insist that you answer with a yes or no.
                          Exactly. And how can you prove you never started?
                          That's what
                          - She

                          Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                          - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                          I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                          - Stephen R. Donaldson

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
                            Exactly. And how can you prove you never started?
                            Well, I'm single. But I do have a reputation of being too kind and sweet to ever actually use physical violence.
                            If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Christianbookworm View Post
                              But I do have a reputation of being too kind and sweet to ever actually use physical violence.
                              But, but you're a girl!
                              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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