ce6 wrote:Honor wrote:Ce6 wrote:Well, me for one. But then I don't find aggression to be at all arousing.
(go figure, the long-hair'd tattoo'd pacifist going against the typical stereotype)
To each his own, of course... But generally, when someone speaks of women being sexually aggressive, they're not talking physical restriction and forcible rape so much as healthy interest in taking the initiative.
Pacifist... Hm. I'd certainly say I'm a "peace loving" person... But pacifism..? The staunch belief that war or violence is simply
never justifiable...? So we shoulda stuck with telling Hitler that he wasn't being a good dictator? Maybe we could show our disapproval for the wholesale extirmination of Jews, gypsies, blacks, and homosexuals by changing the name of "hamburger" to "Freedom Beef"? Rather than sending troops into Kosovo to stop outright genocide, we should have... What? Asked them to play nice? And after pearl harbor was bombed into the stone age, the proper response would have been to take one knee and ask Japan "C'mon, baby... Tell me what's bothering you."
Holy fuck... I certainly can't agree with that.
Careful with your hyperbole, honor.
Not everyone takes all matters in life to their irrational extremes.
I do not live my life to the extremes of true pacifism as you are trying to claim, I simply decided to err on the side of brevity in my comment. "Non-agressive" would be more accurately discriptive, but I chose an easily recognizeable word that did not appear to be blatantly repetitive of the subject matter discussed immediately prior. Though given your penchant for grammatical exactitude, I should know better than to make assumptions that people wouldn't overreact to an obviously hastily-chosen word choice.
As for the accusations of extreme pacifism, I will support violence where it is due, but I do not believe violence alone should be the ultimate goal of one's life. The examples you give sound like they were taken from the Republican talking point about Democrats wanting to give therapy to the 9/11 attackers. There as here a blatantly untrue example set up purely to polarize the general public.
I often find that those who make a habit of seeking out conflict tend to have personal gain in mind or are seeking a scapegoat to rationalize thoughts or emotions which they harbor but are not willing to accept for what they truly are. We all have our issues in life, some of us just prefer not to take them out on others.
I overreacted to an "obviously hasty word choice"? No. It wasn't obvious at all. I just thought you actually meant what you actually said. My bad.
But still... Where was this world class hyperbole? The examples I chose are blatantly untrue? And the bit about them sounding like they come from a list of republican talking points...? Oh, yeah. 'Cause only the most warlike fringes of the republican party supported world war two.
The examples I chose were, in fact, as far from those republican extremes as I could get... They were situations where almost everyone could agree that violence was a sadly correct answer.
I don't think you'd have to look for someone who's an admitted stickler for linguistic exactitude to find someone who wouldn't see "I will support violence where it is due" as absolutely not being part of the definition of the word "pacifist"... But right after you take me to school for leaping to extremes, you make an implication that the listing of examples I use speak of someone for whom violence is the "ultimate goal" of their life?
I particularly like that last paragraph... If it hadn't been for the condescending, insulting tone of that paragraph, I'm not sure I would have replied. No... You know? I probably would have. Getting my shit jumped for not guessing that when you said the word you said you meant some other word probably would have been enough to get me to post.
So, as long as we're here, let's parse this bitch, huh?
I often find that those who make a habit of seeking out conflict...
Starting right there, I have a problem with the advancing trend of coloring any marginally strenuous intellectual exchange as some terrible "conflict", or twisting "argument" to mean something bad. The places in polite society where it's in poor taste to disagree on anything of more importance than how many sauce packets is appropriate for a Taco Bell Grande are becoming ubiquitous, and I think it's costing us our best chances to improve the world and society.
This isn't any grand "conflict". We're exchanging ideas here. Mine was "I'm a peace-loving person and I strive to avoid violence, but I think it's fairly obvious that pacifism as a defining philosophy is unrealistic and, on average, not too bright." Yours seems to have been "When I said 'pacifism' of course I didn't mean 'pacifism' and you're an aggressive, evil, sociopathic bitch for thinking I did." Close?
...tend to have personal gain in mind...
Shit. Busted. If my plan had gone one more week without being discovered, I would have gained... No, wait. What exactly am I supposed to gain here?
...or are seeking a scapegoat to rationalize thoughts or emotions which they harbor but are not willing to accept for what they truly are.
I'm... Uh... What the...? I really have no clear idea of what it is you're charging me with on this one.
We all have our issues in life, some of us just prefer not to take them out on others.
And that brings us back to the first point in the paragraph, doesn't it? Except now, instead of just confrontational, I'm apparantly borderline psychotic and filled with repressed hostility.
Seriously, dude... All I did was take what you said your position was, and explain why I didn't find it to be a particularly valid world-view. Now it turns out our world-view vis-a-vis the justifiability of violence seems to be essentially identical, and you're all goin' off about my harbor full of irrational scapegoats and how bad it was of me to take them out on you?
If the worst thing that happens to you today is that you say you subscribe to a philosophy that you actually don't, and someone say's that they disagree with the point of view you claimed, you're leading a charmed as hell life.