JK Rowling Backlash

[AlucardNoir]

I think you're confusing "slur" and "slander." Truth is the ultimate defense against the latter, and has no bearing at all on the former. What determines if something is a slur is not whether or not it is a fact but the cultural context of where it is delivered. If I call someone "white trash" in a fancy New York restaurant - that's a slur, even if the person in question is in fact white and poor.

You might be up to something... but you still miss the mark.

Calling someone a fascist is most definitely a slur in pretty much every modern Western nation, even if they're an honest to God Nazi, because the culture they operate in will judge them negatively for being associated with that word. Interesting, calling a fascist a fascist in Nazi Germany would NOT be a slur, because in THAT culture, being a fascist is a compliment.

Except, you know, all the neo-Nazis and actual fascist that wear the slur as a badge of honor when it's applied by outsiders and don't use the term as a slur within their - thankfully - little groups. I'm fairly certain calling an actual fascist that's a member of a fascist party now - and yes, they still exist in a few places - a fascist would only be an insult if you meant it as such. As in a journalist reporting on an actual fascist political party would not in fact be insulting it's members by calling them fascists. He could depending on how the phrase would be warded, but he most likely wouldn't since those would be actual fascist and he's probably want to make sure the reader understood that.

Now this might just be my legal education but the first time I encountered the term bad faith was in it's legal context so for me at least bad faith actor doesn't carry the "always a slur" baggage it seems to carry with you.

That being said, you are right, I was confusing a slur with slander. But that's because I lacked the baggage you have with the phrase.

And finally:

You didn't follow the whole Ellen thing? It dominated Twitter and Youtube for like, 2 weeks. Hell, it even made the papers! BOOMERS weighed in on it.

Either I'm watching too much Youtube or you aren't watching enough.

I don't have a Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Gab, Minds and whatever else you might want account. I think I had a Tumblr account at one point, but that was for a few months and then I left. Hell, I have even tuned the 24h news cycle off around a decade and a half ago because all 24 news stations were becoming political and supporting one political party or another. Around 15 years ago because I'm not american, our 24 news stations went off the rails a bit sooner then they did in the US, despite being clones of the US based CNN.

As for Ellen, while I did catch episodes of the old show from the 90's she was just another TV actress to me. Never saw anything from the talkshow so she kinda fell of the radar for me a long time ago. (no gay puns intended)

As for youtube... I mean, I do watch a lot of YT, but I'm not really a subscriber to the left side, or the right side for that matter. Hell, from the YT you mentioned I only recognized two, hbomberguys - who I know because of his games reviews - yes, really - and Lindsay Ellis - that I knew as Nostalgia Chick on That Guy With the Glasses, and in whom I lost all interest when I found out what her debut short The A-Word.

[LittleRaven]

Except, you know, all the neo-Nazis and actual fascist that wear the slur as a badge of honor when it's applied by outsiders and don't use the term as a slur within their - thankfully - little groups.

As I said, it's all context dependent. Take my white trash example. Calling someone white trash in a fancy restaurant is slurring them....you are attacking them with a derogatory label. However, that exact same statement, made out in the woods among poor whites, might actually be a badge of honor, a signal that a person is one of the group, not some fancy elitist from the big city.

For the Internet Edgelord's favorite example, just look at the N-word. As a whitish male, there is virtually NO context in which I can utter that word without someone rightfully assuming that I have just made a HORRIBLE slur. Yet black people can and do use it among themselves all the time, with nobody assuming or taking offense, because the context of that use is radically different. And no, this doesn't mean white people are oppressed or that everyone is too PC...it just means that human interactions are complex, and context is always king.

I'm fairly certain calling an actual fascist that's a member of a fascist party now - and yes, they still exist in a few places - a fascist would only be an insult if you meant it as such.

It would depend on where and how you did it. Calling someone a fascist at a fascist rally is probably not a slur....similar to my white trash example, it could actually be a compliment. Calling someone a fascist on the street though is virtually ALWAYS a slur, even if you're sure the person really IS a Nazi. You're trying to turn people against them by associating them with a label that has very negative social implications. That, by definition, is a slur.

Maybe there's a legal definition of 'bad faith actor' which means 'really cool guy' that I'm just unaware of, but I'm pretty confident that if you went up to 10 random people on the street, and accused them of being a bad faith actor, they would take offense...and rightfully so, in my opinion. I've never heard the term used positively.

Of course, some people DESERVE to be slurred. Calling a Nazi a fascist may be a slur, but if he's actually a Nazi...well, he kind of has it coming. And maybe Natalie Wynn falls into that category...but I haven't seen that case made very convincingly.

As for youtube... I mean, I do watch a lot of YT, but I'm not really a subscriber to the left side, or the right side for that matter. Hell, from the YT you mentioned I only recognized two, hbomberguys - who I know because of his games reviews - yes, really - and Lindsay Ellis - that I knew as Nostalgia Chick on That Guy With the Glasses, and in whom I lost all interest when I found out what her debut short The A-Word.

Jesus man, that was 10 years ago. Lindsay has done tons of great stuff since then. And if you've never seen Contrapoints...well, you are in for a treat. She's fantastic, at least when she's firing on all cylinders. And Philosophy Tube! Sooooo much good stuff there. You should really check some of these folks out. They have taken Youtube production values to astounding heights, and manage to cram in a lot of interesting philosophy and economics as well.

[CmdrKing]

I get the sense that you may be reading more than I meant into the term "bad faith actor"

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bad%20faith%20actor

I'm saying is ContraPoints is full of shit, I believe knowingly full of shit, and continues on anyway because it is profitable, consequences and harm to others be damned. While it's possible that ContraPoints advocates its creator's genuine position, Natalie Wynn's personal beliefs are fairly irrelevant; we can only judge the videos and public statements, and they advance some pretty harmful stuff, predominantly about trans issues. When ContraPoints videos were about things beside gender and other directly trans-adjacent issues it was less noticeable, but basically all of 2019 kept circling about around to a presentation/"passing" focused definition of gender and being trans and public statements trying to defend this work tended to keep doubling down. After a year of that, I've given up on it as little more than a grift.

However a lot of this is some high level "thinking about being trans and how to shape a trans rights movement" stuff, things a cis person is highly unlikely to notice without a lengthy lecture on it, so a personal friend of Natalie's is just going to see the pushback and the inevitable shit-stirrers and nazis taking advantage of that and dismiss the entire thing. I suspect ContraPoints is going to dip more obviously into grift as time goes on, so we'll see other creators back away soon enough in all likelihood.

[AlucardNoir]

Bad faith is a concept in law that means about the same thing that it mean outside on the law.

Say you go to a pawn broker and you think you see a "gold" ring and you buy the ring. If you made it clear you thought the ring was gold and the pawn broker did not clarify it wasn't gold, especially if the asking price was in line with what a gold ring would cost then the pawn broker would be said to have acted in bad faith. HE knew you thought the ring was gold and you only bought it because of that but he did nothing to clarify the situation.

No one will go to prison for acting in bad faith, but hearing a prosecutor say the accused in a case acted in bad faith, when dealing with things like fraud for example, is not unheard of. Thing is, in those situation it's not slander. In fact, in several legal texts you will find the words "good faith" and in a few even "bad faith". Even if bad faith itself isn't punishable, proving bad faith can be proof enough for an actual punishable offence. Similarly good faith can be a defense against further prosecution. To take the example above, say you as a pawn broker bough a fake god ring and then sold it. If you didn't know it was a fake gold ring - say it was tungsten with a heavy enough gold plating on it not to rub off on a touchstone - and actually thought you had just sold a real gold ring, depending on where you are in the world you might be protected from prosecution because you acted in good faith.

Accusing someone of acting in bad faith is never a good thing, but saying it's always a slur is saying you can never actually accuse someone who is acting in bad faith of acting in bad faith. It's granting immunity to people that act in bad faith by allowing them to deflect the conversation from their actions to the perceived slur. In place of putting the onerous on the accuser and asking for proof of said acts committed in bad faith, they claim victimhood and become the accuser themselves - or in this case someone jumps in defending them and turning the tables on the accuser.

As for left tube and philosophy tube... yeah, I think I'm fine thanks. Seriously, the last time I visited someone on philosophy tube I ended up on a Marxists channel and had a "chat" with a British socialist that kept on telling me what happened in eastern Europe was fascism not communism. Sorry but "left-tube" and "philosophy-tube" seem to actually fit the internet stereotype of the "far-left". I'm in that small centrist minority that actually thought the comic that spawned the "new guy" meme was a parody of SJWs only to be shocked to find out it was sincere. When it comes to that segment of the internet I'm good.

[LittleRaven]

I get the sense that you may be reading more than I meant into the term "bad faith actor"

Not really. You think Natalie is a con artist who knowingly presents a harmful worldview for profit. That's...pretty damning, honestly.

And by extension, you think most of big producers of left-wing content on Youtube are either too stupid, too uninformed about trans-issues, or just too caught up in the grift to notice what she's up to.

And these are your ALLIES. Heaven only knows what you think of the Ben Shapiros, the Sargon of Akkads, and the Shoe-on-heads of the world.

Like I said, that's a dark place to be. You manage it better than I would.

[LittleRaven]

Accusing someone of acting in bad faith is never a good thing, but saying it's always a slur is saying you can never actually accuse someone who is acting in bad faith of acting in bad faith. It's granting immunity to people that act in bad faith by allowing them to deflect the conversation from their actions to the perceived slur.

Only if you believe that nobody should ever slur anybody else ever. Which is....ridiculous. Some slurs are earned. If someone is acting in bad faith, then they deserve the slur. Not all slurs are undeserved.

[AlucardNoir]

Accusing someone of acting in bad faith is never a good thing, but saying it's always a slur is saying you can never actually accuse someone who is acting in bad faith of acting in bad faith. It's granting immunity to people that act in bad faith by allowing them to deflect the conversation from their actions to the perceived slur.

Only if you believe that nobody should ever slur anybody else ever. Which is....ridiculous. Some slurs are earned. If someone is acting in bad faith, then they deserve the slur. Not all slurs are undeserved.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I really, really don't think acting in bad faith is a slur. As I said, calling someone a fascist might be a slur. As you said, calling someone the n-word might be a slur. But saying someone is acting in bad faith, at least if true isn't really a slur, not anymore then calling an actual fascist a fascist would be a slur. It's just an observation partaking to their actions.

Even if you asume there are people that deserve to be "slured", in this case it seems to me to be just describing someone's actions, or at least the way one individual perceives the actions of another. People with mental handicaps - or whatever the politically corect term is this decade - have always had the problem of having the words that are used to describe them ending up as "slurs" in wider society. Thus the fairly common world changes. But that doesn't change the fact that before those words became insults they were descriptors applicable to actual people.

The way I understand the word slur is as making disparaging remark about someone. I don't think correctly describing the activities of someone should count as a disparaging remark.

I really don't think saying Ted Bundy is a murderer for example is slurring Ted Bundy in any way. Even if the term murderer only caries negative connotation I don't think correctly describing what he has done to be a slur.

Basically, I don't think descriptive and true remarks can be disparaging.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Hell, from the YT you mentioned I only recognized two, hbomberguys - who I know because of his games reviews - yes, really - and Lindsay Ellis - that I knew as Nostalgia Chick on That Guy With the Glasses, and in whom I lost all interest when I found out what her debut short The A-Word.

What about it?

Wasn't that a student project or something? How bad can it be?

[LittleRaven]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I really, really don't think acting in bad faith is a slur.

Hey, no law says you have to agree with me. But you should be aware that you're also disagreeing with the fine folks over at Webster.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slur

But fortunately, in this particular case, we can stop getting derailed by definitions, because CmdrKing was kind enough to clarify exactly what she thinks Natalie is doing.

So, a thought experiment.

Say I got onto a forum and said "AlucardNoir is a liar. He deliberately advocates a philosophy that is both wrong and harmful, and he does so with full knowledge that he is hurting people, but he doesn't care, because it makes him money. The exact details of how he does this are....complicated, and you don't really have the necessary background to understand, so I don't want to get into that, but trust me, he's a bad faith actor who profits by inflicting misery on others."

Would you really say I was just describing you?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Media representation is a thing of its own. The matter of public representation itself becomes a pretty sensitive issue, depending on the circumstance. Putting a fraudulent picture on her brand has potential implication, but there's a significant distinction between having personal feelings on a matter respective of more overt protest. At the very least, speculating on the integrity of Contrapoints videos isn't that disaffected.