Equally, “making noise” is to minimise that which I am objecting too. Talking politely, quietly, slowly, with a smile makes noise, but is normally fine. I do object to Malcolm X, though.
Yeah, see, the discussion you were replying to was about whether it would be useful to have confrontational or non-calm comments in discussions, one reason being that listening only to calm people might mean hearing only one side of the story, because it’s easier to be calm if you have little to lose (because you’re on the more powerful side), and another reason being that the truth may be confrontational, so hearing only non-confrontational comments may lead you to miss it.
In the comment you were originally replying to, Jandila was arguing that MLK tends to be cast as non-confrontational, vs. Malcolm X as confrontational, in young white people’s discourse today, but that in fact MLK and his followers were quite confrontational. Thus, looking at history, non-calm confrontational speech seems like a reasonable tool if you want things to change something for the better, even if the people who would be the target of that confrontational speech misremember the actually-society-changing civil rights movement as being less confrontational than it was.
Both of your comments seem to consider only the extremes of “talk politely with a smile” and something in the space between black nationalism and actually killing people who disagree with you (I’m not sure what exactly you’re objecting to in saying you “object to Malcolm X”). This seems unhelpful in a discussion about whether or not it would be useful to also have people participate in discussions who talk confrontationally with angry raised voices.
Both of your comments seem to consider only the extremes of “talk politely with a smile” and something in the space between black nationalism and actually killing people who disagree with you
No, I was just pointing out that the same argument applies to both violence and impoliteness. Making an analogy between X and Y does not mean that one thinks that X and Y are the same in other respects.
(also how can the truth be confrontational? maybe we’re using the word ‘confrontational’ in different senses (or, god forbid, using the word ‘truth’ in different senses) but it seems like only agents or utterances can be confrontational.)
One thing I seem to notice is that the more confrontational people are used by the less confrontatioanl ones to intimidate their opponents while they offer acceptable terms.
Yeah, see, the discussion you were replying to was about whether it would be useful to have confrontational or non-calm comments in discussions, one reason being that listening only to calm people might mean hearing only one side of the story, because it’s easier to be calm if you have little to lose (because you’re on the more powerful side), and another reason being that the truth may be confrontational, so hearing only non-confrontational comments may lead you to miss it.
In the comment you were originally replying to, Jandila was arguing that MLK tends to be cast as non-confrontational, vs. Malcolm X as confrontational, in young white people’s discourse today, but that in fact MLK and his followers were quite confrontational. Thus, looking at history, non-calm confrontational speech seems like a reasonable tool if you want things to change something for the better, even if the people who would be the target of that confrontational speech misremember the actually-society-changing civil rights movement as being less confrontational than it was.
Both of your comments seem to consider only the extremes of “talk politely with a smile” and something in the space between black nationalism and actually killing people who disagree with you (I’m not sure what exactly you’re objecting to in saying you “object to Malcolm X”). This seems unhelpful in a discussion about whether or not it would be useful to also have people participate in discussions who talk confrontationally with angry raised voices.
No, I was just pointing out that the same argument applies to both violence and impoliteness. Making an analogy between X and Y does not mean that one thinks that X and Y are the same in other respects.
(also how can the truth be confrontational? maybe we’re using the word ‘confrontational’ in different senses (or, god forbid, using the word ‘truth’ in different senses) but it seems like only agents or utterances can be confrontational.)
One thing I seem to notice is that the more confrontational people are used by the less confrontatioanl ones to intimidate their opponents while they offer acceptable terms.