Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
Counterexample: "murder". Very judgmental word there, laden with emotional buttons.
I guarantee, given sufficient motivation, you could find judgmentalism, from someone's perspective, about most words.
Words describe ideas. Ideas are used to label things and people. Usually we try to avoid falsely labeling people, but attempting to go wholly without labels is... idiotic. Two labels I can slap on you right here and now: you're "German" and you "read books".
Pretty much anything is bound to be offensive to someone out there -- it's a big world. 
I *could* react in a highly illogical, devoid-of-facts manner to those labels, and associate your location with Nazis and progress from there to calling you an Anti-Semite (I am a religious Jew, BTW)... but that would be downright retarded, not least because I have no logical backing.
It is nevertheless true that both Nazis and Anti-Semites exist... however much of a label those words may be...
Well, that is why I suggested people not be so quick to "just dismiss" people for utilizing a term, but rather to consider their argument/statement/whatever, and determine whether or not they are indeed being dismissive.
No one here has yet put forth an even slightly convincing reason why not.
Instead, you have engaged in the slippery slope fallacy, by suggesting that anyone who utilizes a term you don't like to hear will automatically fail to provide any sort of reasoning. |
That is very flawed logic you use there. Not all labels are equal. And "german" and "nazi" are very different labels. I would be in no way offended, if you call me german (okay, that depends on the tone in which you are saying it) but I would be offended if you call me a nazi. Don't you see the difference? Black is a label. As in your way would be the bad n... word. Would you say they are the same, since they refer to the same population?