Is the White Male Under Attack?

[Emil Miller]

Since you are the one who brought the age into this discussion, I would like to point out that I consider myself mature enough to be able to carry on a discussion without resorting to rudeness and I sincerely do hope that the same thing is true for you.

Naturally.


Isn't it possible that a smart person has experienced and, hence, learnt different things from their experience? Why is the assumption that if they are "smart", their experience and conclusions should be in line with yours?I started teaching at the age of 24 and among my students were a group of bank managers whose average age was twice mine. (Then again, It is a truth universally acknowledged that I am a genius!)

I don't know what you teach, but your bank managers would have been unlikley to have enrolled in a course that involved their learning about 'positive discrimination'. Although, given the kind of social engineering that the UK has been subjected to for some time, perhaps they did.


What's more, Maturity > Age.

I am sure there are people out there who have experienced the kind of things and learnt life lessons I could not even begin to imagine despite being younger.

Of course, but they are more likely to be the exception than the rule.

[BienvenuJDC]

Actually, this happens all the time in the military. Snot-nosed 21 year old 2nd Lieutenant/Ensign having authority over and sometimes instructing a Gunnery Sergeant or Chief twice his or her's age is...uh...half the job of a 2nd Lieutenant/Ensign.

Assuming that someone, regardless of age, experience, or whatever, has nothing to teach you is one of the most arrogant and disrespectful things possible.

I don't think that your statement accurately assesses the issue at hand. It is easy to make exaggerated statements to take the focus off of what really transpired.

[DanielBenoit]

Do you have statistical research that proves that "white males" scapegoat minorities for things that they cannot handle? Because that is a very racist and biased statement. People of ALL races have used other races to blame their problems on. I can say the same thing about minorities, but I don't chose to because I think that it's a racist remark.

Lol, you ask for statistical research but disregard it when it is given

I corrected my previous statement of a few pages back in that post by saying that white racist males scapegoat minorities. History has proven this with my example of post-WWI depression Germany. I don't think any logical person will dispute that racists do indeed scapegoat people.

It must also be given a regards to the common history of the West. Whites have always been the majority throughout the modern history of Europe and they have unfortunately been the perpetrators of racism (not as a result of being white, but just for being human and having the evil instincts we can have when a group of people are in absolute power). Throughout history Jews, blacks, foriegners have been scapegoated for peoples problems.

Just some examples:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...9;s_bureau.jpg

(sorry, the picture is too big to post here)



Just to make it clear: The above painting depicts the American citizen's jobs being "stolen" by newly-arrived immigrants.

I don't think that your statement accurately assesses the issue at hand. It is easy to make exaggerated statements to take the focus off of what really transpired.

Please explain how so

[The Atheist]

Age.

Pope Ratzinger is 83 years old and leads a billion Catholics.

{edit}

William Pitt was Prime Minister of Britain and led the greatest Empire ever at the tender age of 24.

Joan of Arc was a legend at 15 and executed at 19.

People who assume age has any bearing whatsoever on wisdom, intelligence or ability are merely being dishonest with themselves.

[DanielBenoit]

People who assume age has any bearing whatsoever on wisdom, intelligence or ability are merely being dishonest with themselves.

Though if it did have bearing, Rimbaud would sure be one poor poet

[BienvenuJDC]

I corrected my previous statement of a few pages back in that post by saying that white racist males scapegoat minorities.

Fine. Black racist males (and females) use the white community as a scapegoat for their shortcomings.

Yeah....that's a no brainer!!

[DanielBenoit]

Fine. Black racist males (and females) use the white community as a scapegoat for their shortcomings.

Yeah....that's a no brainer!!

It's funny how I'm defending a statement that Delta originally posted. But anyway, the very context that comment was originally in was in fact just my agreement with Delta when she referred to the arguments made as "[an] old strategy". I agreed in the context that most recently conservative commentators have been throwing around the talking point that the white male is becoming the "minority" in this country, as has been argued in this thread. In light of the statistics and evidence, I call this either a rhetorical point by conservatives in order to criticize liberalism or a more subconscious admittance of their own discomfort with the growing presence of minorities on, as papaya said, the "TV, radio , and the board room". It is indeed scapegoating when one speaks of the increasingly pro-black bias in the media without evidence to back it up, and even evidence to the contrary in regards to the supposed "anti-white" discrimination increase. Until you prove the numbers wrong, it is scapegoating.

Oh and btw, it is indeed a no-brainer that a racist black male would most likely scapegoat the "white community". It's kinda a part of what racism is.

[BienvenuJDC]

Until you prove the numbers wrong, it is scapegoating.

I don't agree with that statement, and I'm not going to just let you get away with it. Truth is not based upon someone's ability to document it.

[DanielBenoit]

I don't agree with that statement, and I'm not going to just let you get away with it. Truth is not based upon someone's ability to document it.

Truth is not based on one's disagreement either. Please provide me with evidence that speaks against my own (the links are there, go look at them) or provide me with thorough reason as to why the evidence is invalid or if there is another more accurate epistemological basis for finding out the truths of current social science that extends beyond pure reason (Kantian transcendence perhaps? )

[Propter W.]

Based on Orwell's years working in a BBC propaganda unit

In my right hand I'm holding a bag with 50 coins. You know nothing about the bag in my left hand. Which bag holds the most coins?

and I am not exactly surprised that you seem to think you know more about Newspeak than the man who invented it

Once again, step by step:

Newspeak is a language used in a work of fiction. This language was devised in order to control thought. The assumption is that if the vocabulary is restricted, thoughts not in line with IngSoc would be literally unthinkable.

This concept, that language shapes or defines thought, is called linguistic determinism. Newspeak is an example of strong linguistic determinism. Psycholinguists have been testing this hypothesis for decades now. The general consensus is that a strong form of linguistic determinism is highly unlikely, if not impossible.

The claim that Newspeak would work and limit or restrict thought is at best unsubstantiated. I think you won't find any linguists who'd argue that the concept of Newspeak, like Orwell described it, is a realistic one.

If a certain term that exists in language A does not exist in language B, speakers of B would be incapable of perceiving that which the term describes.

Non-applicable as the language used in 1984 was English, even in it's perverted form.

Of course it's applicable:

If a certain term that exists in Oldspeak does not exist in Newspeak, speakers of Newspeak would be incapable of perceiving that which the term describes.

It's pro-black by dealing with black issues which many white people are simply not interested in. Black Panthers? Don't make me laugh.

And this is based again on what? How can you know what interests many white people? I bet I can find lots of white people in this very thread who are interested in these "black issues".

Again, you retort with unsubstantiated claims.

[papayahed]

Truth is not based upon someone's ability to document it.

Since when?

[Basil]

Since when?

Since truth was replaced with:

truthiness: a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively from the gut without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

[BienvenuJDC]

I'm just saying that there are some things that are true, but no one has set out to document them. There also is much documentation that is biased and false. I wish I had the resources to document and "prove", but I don't have those resources. Therefore, sometimes it is the one with the most money who gets to "document" their version of truth...which is no truth at all.

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=Propter W.;951994]In my right hand I'm holding a bag with 50 coins. You know nothing about the bag in my left hand. Which bag holds the most coins?

It's of no consequence.

Once again, step by step:

Newspeak is a language used in a work of fiction. This language was devised in order to control thought. The assumption is that if the vocabulary is restricted, thoughts not in line with IngSoc would be literally unthinkable.

If that were true, then the other means of suppression that Orwell mentions in 1984 would not be necessary


This concept, that language shapes or defines thought, is called linguistic determinism. Newspeak is an example of strong linguistic determinism. Psycholinguists have been testing this hypothesis for decades now. The general consensus is that a strong form of linguistic determinism is highly unlikely, if not impossible.

I don't think that countries would have spent money setting up costly propaganda units if they believed that language doesn't shape thought,or that Newspapers would bother to print editorials or that companies would pay large sums of money to try shape our thinking on whether we should buy their product as opposed somebody elses.

The claim that Newspeak would work and limit or restrict thought is at best unsubstantiated. I think you won't find any linguists who'd argue that the concept of Newspeak, like Orwell described it, is a realistic one.

In which case, you should refer them to the above

Of course it's applicable:

If a certain term that exists in Oldspeak does not exist in Newspeak, speakers of Newspeak would be incapable of perceiving that which the term describes.

It does exist in Newspeak but in a convoluted form


And this is based again on what? How can you know what interests many white people? I bet I can find lots of white people in this very thread who are interested in these "black issues".

Again, you retort with unsubstantiated claims.

I don't know if you have ever lived in England but I do. I have known very many people over a very long time and black issues seldom ,if ever, come into everyday conversation. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that they are not interested; otherwise they would have mentioned them.
I'm sure that you could find people on this thread who are interested but they are hardly a representative sample.[QUOTE] .....

[DanielBenoit]

I'm just saying that there are some things that are true, but no one has set out to document them.

Then how can you go about judging them to be true, unless you have other forms of evidence?

There also is much documentation that is biased and false.

Please point out the biases in my evidence/links. I'm starting to fear that nobody's even bothered to look at them.

I wish I had the resources to document and "prove", but I don't have those resources. Therefore, sometimes it is the one with the most money who gets to "document" their version of truth...which is no truth at all.

Yeah I'm just rolling around in money here. And how did you come to that conclusion that evidence I provided is just my version of truth when you haven't even put in the effort to logically prove it to be invalid!

But then again. .. truthiness trumps all.