[Discuss] free email less intrusive than google

[John Hall]

Discussion of the politics of linguistics, free speech, or privacy as an
exercise in pure logic is not very productive. It's more complicated
because much of the nuance lies within ambiguities.
That said asserting that person C is oppressing person A proposes that
persuasion is oppression. That is utterly preposterous. Persuasion is an
intimate part of the type of discourse that is necessary for any healthy
democratic or similarly participatory polity.

On an earlier point I agree that Rush coopted 'political correctness' seems
right, but and I would argue that he popularized the use of it with the
same regrettable conflation that asking people to eliminate unintended
cultural bias in their speech is somehow 'suppression of speech'. It's not.
If intended meaning is conveyed with fewer unintended interpretations that
improves communication, it does not suppress it.

The agenda Rush was pursuing but that I do not believe you are, is that
some people want to be subtiltly racist sexists and homophobic without
being held accountable through use of traditional phrases and subtile
references. What I am suggesting is that if you want to say something that
is racist or homophobic etc. then please take responsibility for it. If the
culturally biased language is not what you mean then it is reasonable to
simply apologize and clarify upon objection, though it's not very sincere
if you continue to perpetuate the use of culturally biased language.

Being offended is also not oppression. Oppression does exist if discourse
does not permit identification and accountability for offensive speech.
No one has a right not be be offended, but anyone in this list and in many
, other contexts certainly has a right to say they were offended and
request clarification, and for greater care to be taken. That is public
discourse. To participate you need to be expressive, open minded, and
flexible.



On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 2:48 PM, Rich Pieri <richard.pieri at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3/15/2016 12:39 PM, Gordon Marx wrote:
> > That's not what suppression means, Rich, and if you don't know it,
> > you're doing a pretty good job of insulating yourself from the outside
> > world.
>
> Please enlighten me because I thought suppress meant to curtail, to stop
> activities, to do away with, to subdue, to withhold from publication and
> so forth.
>
> On 3/15/2016 12:50 PM, Edward Ned Harvey (blu) wrote:
> > then Person C says to Person A, "you're being oppressive," it doesn't
> > then make Person C the oppressor.)
>
> It makes C an oppressor, too. C is trying to apply social pressure to A
> with the goal of curtailing A's speech. That's oppression. Whether or
> not A is wrong for saying it is orthogonal to C being wrong for trying
> to suppress it.
>
> --
> Rich P.
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