itt a strange man asks if you saw the ass on that one

"i made my all-too-obvious points earlier about the freedom of thought because i think there IS a contemporary tendency - both here @ ilx and in the world at large - to view people's inner selves in rather puritan terms. to insist in a weirdly passive way, without quite saying it outright, that all decent people MUST at all times be free of certain kinds of thinking."

literally no one on this thread has even implied this

― max, Thursday, December 3, 2009 4:54 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

that's what i was responding to, in the spirit of what i guess you could call social libertarianism. i have the idea that it's better to encourage free and open exchange, with the idea that there will be disagreement and even hurt feelings, than to insist that certain ideas are so unforgivably wrong that they must never be given voice.

(and maybe that's naive - i dunno, it probably is. i mean, there are certainly some ideas that i'm VERY glad not to have to hear a "free and open exchange" about every day. maybe i'm just saying that a little less social censorship would go a long way.)

anyway, as an example of what i'm talking about, i didn't see laurel's inflammatory poll suggestion as racist per se. a bit thoughtless, but not motivated by a desire to hurt or denigrate anyone, not reflective of some undisclosed hostility, and therefore not a significant wrong. it's true that there wasn't a great, immediate rush to condemn her, which is great, but once the other shoe fell, the tone became rather aggressive and censorious. imo.

point is, it bugged me, and maybe that's what's motivating this more than anything else. along with some earlier comments about how great it is that no one feels that they can say this or that. again, i'm not arguing that we should all be free to attack and paw and degrade one another...

paws

several posters have at least implied that certain kinds of thoughts are just plain wrong.

yup, you got it! more technically, i argued that thought has moral content. i guess this is debatable -- if you think that "moral content" exists entirely-and-only in an effect on not-you, then no, thought has no moral content at all, good or bad. (everyone basically agrees that actions have moral content) but thinking, i believe, has an effect on you, and therefore eventually on others, in time. but this gets into philosophical and scientific territory where i'm not educated and i'm basically talking out of my ass anyway.

also, to get technical, you seem to be defending (or at least, not willing to condemn) surfacey kinds of thoughts like impressions, images, reactions, and i'm talking more about beliefs, intentions, sustained patterns of thinking. it's not a bright line of difference but it is a line. since this whole clusterfuck started not with a dude's mere sensory impressions but how he thought it was ok to behave in response i dunno why you're so focused on the former.

i have the idea that it's better to encourage free and open exchange, with the idea that there will be disagreement and even hurt feelings, than to insist that certain ideas are so unforgivably wrong that they must never be given voice.

right, but this goes back to my vaguely political/miltonic statement up there somewhere: saying that "everyone should say what they believe openly" is not the same thing saying "everything people have in their heads is just fine". go ahead, speak up! it doesn't mean you don't believe a lot of disgusting bullshit.

i think-- there was something said upthread (was it Laurel? Jellybean?), about how sometimes getting an aggressive sexual comment can ruin your day because you can't stop thinking 'is this how people really think about me, is this what i really am to people,' and it messes you up, it messes up all your interactions, and you feel like shit; and this has been true for me. And I don't actively want people to not-think certain thoughts - i've no doubt thought enough things that would hurt someone badly if voiced - and I don't think you can really control what you think. But I do believe that there are a lot of things that really shouldn't be given voice, because they do pretty much only hurt. It isn't just disagreement that's engendered.

'free and open exchange' could probably work if everyone had equal voice, but there's a big problem when the people w/ the smallest voices are also the people the conversation's hurting most.

i think in as much as the "tendency... to view people's selves in rather puritan terms" exists, its opposite also exists - that the wrong things that aren't given voice to are more authentic, and should therefore be given voice because they're what people 'really' think.

ugh this doesn't make much sense, sorry, i should sleep.

There's a jellybean now?

this is exactly the sort of weird puritanism i was talking about. i haven't said anything sexist or racist or gross or whatever. i've only suggested that we've manufactured a rather censorious public culture over the last few decades. but it's apparently tempting to read that purely intellectual criticism as some kind of smokescreen cloaking a hidden eeeeeevil. which, again, fucking sucks.

― a dimension that can only be accessed through self-immolation (contenderizer), Thursday, December 3, 2009 6:12 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

fyi if youre going to advocate the free and open exchange of ideas you might have to be ok with one of those ideas being that you are racist

i mean: there is a weird thing you are doing, where you are advocating some sort of agon of ideas, and then when people offer up the idea that your ideas are wrong, you accuse them of "puritanism"

have we all established how to not be a dick yet

right, but this goes back to my vaguely political/miltonic statement up there somewhere: saying that "everyone should say what they believe openly" is not the same thing saying "everything people have in their heads is just fine". go ahead, speak up! it doesn't mean you don't believe a lot of disgusting bullshit.

this deserves to be said again by the way. im a big fan of open engagement but its not "engagement" if youre going to be all hands-off "ooh well he has racist thoughts but theyre his thoughts so theyre beyond judgment."

have we all established how to not be a dick yet

you may want to check back later.

*insert Team America speech here*

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (943 of them)

pithy

the weak

this is exactly the sort of weird puritanism i was talking about. i haven't said anything sexist or racist or gross or whatever. i've only suggested that we've manufactured a rather censorious public culture over the last few decades. but it's apparently tempting to read that purely intellectual criticism as some kind of smokescreen cloaking a hidden eeeeeevil. which, again, fucking sucks.

You have got to be kidding.

the conflict here is between people who think that freedom of speech's most important guarantee is the right to say whatever pops into their head without anybody judging you about it & people who think that it's really ok to say "you know, some of the thoughts you have are probably lame and maybe suppressing them/unlearning those thought patterns is actually ok"

which is the thing - there's this dumb-ass pop psych idea that any suppression is "bad for you." it's not. you know who's really conquered the evils of suppressing their desires? gluttons. is gluttony our model for great mental health and a well-functioning society? I propose to you that it is not.

I resisted the urge to have that last sentence terminate in a senseless burst of truly foul obscenity btw so show me love

I'd say we have been rapidly destroying a "censorious public culture" over the last few decades tbh

i completely agree with JD, although a few years months ago i wouldn't have

j0hn dude you should have just gone for it, no one would have judged you. at least no one ~decent~

life ilx has been a harsh but informative mistress

i've been away too long. this thread. you guys.

not saying the thing you want to say has its own discreet pleasures, I know anybody who ever lived in the midwest can at least partially relate in a bitter pissed-off kinda way

elmo fwiw i quoted you upthread because you gave probably the most joyful defence of ogling/wanting to bury face in ass that ilx has seen, and i felt it only right to offer it as a counter-position...not that ogling is really what i'm attacking, more unasked approaches

a strange man asking me about "that ass" is only slightly more awkard and disorienting than a strange man asking me what i thought of "the game" tbh

not saying the thing you want to say has its own discreet pleasures, I know anybody who ever lived in the midwest can at least partially relate in a bitter pissed-off kinda way

otm x infinity

that's why i didn't like the midwest. x infinity.

a strange man asking me about "that ass" i

great ILE board descriptions that died before they got out of committee imo

minus the i at the end that i accidentally didn't delete OR WAS I JUST SAYING WHAT I REALLY FELT

Oh that reminds me of the good old days when Alex in NYC's posts had random letters stuck at the end of them for no discernible reason.h

that ass, i

those were good times.u

lololo

At least once a week I will think "MY BLOOD IS BOILING!" & think of Alex.w

the giggles I get from remembering the Plague of Random Terminal Lower-Case Letters are some of the sweetest lols to be had imo.s

re: the original scenario, when this has happened to me I have assumed that on some level the guy suspected I might be gay and wanted to shore up his own heterosexual credentials (read: clueless AND homophobic AND sexist). When this happens I know instantly that there will be no real level of communication possible with him.

i tend to think of it was a "let us attempt to bond in male privilege by talking loudly and crudely of ladies in their presence" thing. i don't tend to see it as a challenge of heterosexuality and maybe dude is just being a dumb male primate with massive alpha jerk tendencies?

the strange man doesn't really care about your opinion about "that ass" iirc, he's just asking

^^yes, probably true in most cases, but in some there seems to have been that extra sinister element. that's when I tune out.

I don't know if it's sinister as much as it's the equivalent of whipping his dick out in front of you. It's childish and weird and gross. Fine line, I guess.

haven't read the thread, but this is totally harmless, you dicks, unless the chick is within earshot and might get offended

cause, like, ASS

I mean, I probably wouldn't hang around to discuss ass philosophy with coors lite guy, but I'm not going to make the sign of the cross before I pull up my pettiskirts and run in the opposite direction either

http://www.wisdomportal.com/Ouroboros-1.jpg

haha i know he was trolling but Dan I.'s position

haven't read the thread, but this is totally harmless, you dicks, unless the chick is within earshot and might get offended

― Dan I., Friday, December 4, 2009 12:46 AM (15 minutes ago)

was kinda hiarious in its unwitting otm summary of the first 3 hundred posts itt

not saying the thing you want to say has its own discreet pleasures

life of the lurker -_-

lrka

Is it still OK to play 'shoot, shag or marry'. I'm kinda worried now.

Only with Spice Girls.

OK thanks.

Pan's people?

Only Babs.