welch wrote:Steersman wrote:
<snip>
Apart from wondering how she would have known that Spokesgay and company were “non-attendees†some 4 months ago, one has to ask whether she knows how many people they retweeted, e-mailed, posted, gossiped, or otherwise communicated that message to - speaking of "stochastic terrorism". As for her last sentence – which really doesn’t scan all that well – one has to assume she means Melody who didn’t seem particularly sympathetic to Justin’s right to be at that conference. One might reasonably wonder how Lindsay would view actions that don't look all that "impartial".
It would help steffy a lot if she wasn't so dishonest about so many things.
You won’t get much of an argument from me on that question. Case in point was the “
discussion†that I had recently with her about her comments in
Nugent’s dialog on the supposedly nefarious activities of “white, cis-gendered, middle-to-upper-class malesâ€:
Stephanie wrote:We may not or we may or we must shape our agendas to appeal to groups of people whose relationships to these various issues are very different from the relationships of the white, cis-gendered, educated, middle-class to upper-class men who have shaped the traditional concerns of our movements.
Which Phil objected to by asserting:
Phil wrote:5. snip “white, cis-gendered, educated, middle-class to upper-class men who have shaped the traditional concerns of our movements.â€
It ascribes to someone an intrinsic identity because of their sex, race, or sexual orientation. This is not acceptable, regardless of “oppressorâ€, “oppressedâ€, or minorities. It shouldn’t come into account for what someone has to say.
While I think he was a little wide of the mark or overly vague as I don’t think he gave much detail about what he thought were the supposed causal connections between “intrinsic identity†and the “shaping of concernsâ€, I think it quite credibly highlighted some decidedly problematic implications in Stephanie’s phrasing. But her response was, I think, totally off the wall and out to lunch, and was, if I’m not mistaken, a large part of the reason why our moderator, Skep tickle, objected to it:
Stephanie wrote:25a. The first comment on my opening statement provides an excellent example. Phil Giordana unilaterally declared it “unacceptable†that I discuss how the organizations of the secular and skeptical movement have been influenced by the fact that most of the leaders of these movements have historically been white, cis-gendered, educated, middle to upper-middle class, and male. He was not willing to see where that discussion went before passing judgment on it or even to have the discussion at all. He apparently did not feel that he was in a position to risk the outcome of that discussion.
Phil, of course, being the sort of guy likely to be turned into a bowl of Jell-O by the prospect of that discussion, and quite likely thereby to be obliged by his girlfriend to take a necessary break from the Internet for a weekend or two ….
My response to that assertion by Stephanie:
Steersman wrote:However, I also think you have made some real howlers that egregiously contradict the spirit if not the letter of those moderation guidelines. For instance, I think you went way off the rails and into the weeds in a spectacular fashion in your argument using Phil Giordana’s “this is not acceptable†as some kind of evidence of an “emotional responseâ€. Would you have gotten the picture if he had said as well, “as saying 2+2=5 is not acceptableâ€?
My point - and Phil's, I expect - being, of course, that her bare-faced assertion about “white, cis-gendered … males†had as much credibility as someone asserting “2+2=5â€. But the real kicker is in her subsequent responses (in two comments) to that:
Stephanie wrote:And 2 + 2 = 5 is analogous to the idea that someone who has interests will favor those interests when they’re in charge. Also, someone with an interest in discrediting another person would declare that it is unacceptable for that person to be given a chance to claim that 2 + 2 = 5.
Now, one might argue – if one wished to be charitable – that she was simply responding in kind without giving any thought to the implications of the counter-examples she provided – which at least suggest some plausible motivations. However, for her to not realize that the two cases were entirely different kettles of fish, if not critters from completely different phyla, suggests that she was rather obtuse, and reacting more from butt-hurt than from anything else. Either that or she was so intellectually dishonest as to refuse to admit that maybe her original claim and subsequent ones based on it had more and bigger holes in them than a sieve.
