Thoughts of a grumpy old man

Treatment of Taboos

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11 Comments
by
Chimpy
, 13th April 2012 at 02:50 PM (227 Views)
Recently, I have seen a lot of people calling out others for being 'homophobes' on JV, sometimes going as far as to haunt them into the Village Games.

I see the reasoning behind this. The general idea is that homophobes tend to have the bible as their only reasoning behind their ideals and usually do not have many arguments to call on.

But is it right to just go full force and call people homophobes the moment they perform such an action? What exactly do you have to gain from doing this? And to what extent is just calling people homophobes managable?

Usually, when someone makes a claim, one's argumentation behind the claim is tested and if someone disagrees the claim is checked for inconsistencies to disprove this person's case.

In this case however, people are instantly called homophobes and no longer get to defend themselves at all; rumors are spread about them and attempts are made to make sure this user is no longer taken seriously at all.

This is not unique to JV. Anything you claim that isn't within the moral norms gets you burned down right away. In the Netherlands, you were not allowed to oppose multiculturalism until 9/11 and supporting the Iraq wars now will instantly decrease one's approval of you.

But why exactly do we do this? While I do not neccecarily mean to agree with the aforementioned examples, I do think it is strange that we reject people who propose these ideas right away? What happened to the general protocol of testing one's argumentation?

In these scenarios, people immediatly get catagorized as something. Be it a homophobe, a redneck or an idiot. But doing this creates another problem of it's own: Catagorizing someone on basis of very limited information; a stereotype and with that a taboo in our modern-day society.

Of course, you get annoyed IF people keep mentioning the same argument over and over with no argumentation whatsoever. But you have nothing to gain from instantly assuming that this is the case.

tl;dr: By calling people out just for mentioning taboos you are not not only wasting your time, you are also guilty of mentioning taboos yourself.
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Comments

  1. Rammjet's Avatar
    I think taboos may have come about as a manifestation of people's submission to authority; if everyone submits to one viewpoint, arbitrary or not, I guess it provides a team with solidarity and therefore gives them an advantage as a group- and the taboo makers survive.

    I get the feeling that kind of submissiveness probably originated long before our age of reason, so now this deeply ingrained tendency is sometimes getting in the way [although I think there are probably still some examples where taboos are useful].

    It's very difficult not to call out people who are making what seem like hateful comments [especially when we probably have recited our own arguments to ourselves many times], I suppose it's okay if you frame your accusations with a reason, or at least as a question?
  2. Cirmentia's Avatar
    Not contributing very much at all, but good rant.
  3. Rammjet's Avatar
    [this would have made an excellent thread]
  4. Cirmentia's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Rammjet
    [this would have made an excellent thread]
    But he would have to add something to get us thinking at the end. Not just post a random wall of text.
  5. Azula's Avatar
    Whenever I think about someone calling others gay, I think about Johnny Galecki's quote on gay rumors

    [QUOTE]“I haven’t really addressed those rumors because why defend yourself against something that isn’t offensive?”

    — Johnny Galecki

    [IMG]http://the-big-bang-theory.com/images/uploads/0/8969826ec2627eaa7ba66e.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
  6. Lonic's Avatar
    People are stupid. That's why.
    Really, you won't find any better explanation.
  7. Chimpy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Rammjet
    I suppose it's okay if you frame your accusations with a reason, or at least as a question?
    Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm trying to say here. It's fine if you go against people, but you need a better reason than just an instant catagorization.

    By the way, I'm perfectly fine with anyone who is reading this making a thread about it. As long as I don't have to make it myself. It'd kill all sincerity if I did it.
  8. Mainza's Avatar
    You live in Holland? Are you Dutch? It was unlucky they didn't win the world cup. They played well. They have a great team with Robben and that.
  9. Rammjet's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Chimpy
    Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm trying to say here. It's fine if you go against people, but you need a better reason than just an instant catagorization.

    By the way, I'm perfectly fine with anyone who is reading this making a thread about it. As long as I don't have to make it myself. It'd kill all sincerity if I did it.
    It's very trying to not catagorise people who are doing just that themselves, not because they're annoying, but because the arguments and behaviours used to catergorise others are often very similar...I guess it works both ways though.
  10. Cirmentia's Avatar
    I assume this is where your rant stemmed from?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cod4Fan View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by PinkyPinkWink View Post
    I think it's
    Homophobe alert
  11. Chimpy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gοd
    I assume this is where your rant stemmed from?
    The problem had been going on for some time now. But yes, I wrote this the moment I saw that post.