Can we do more than argue and get nowhere if we don't agree on what our words mean?
My lingo goes like this:
Progressive - ethics that are humanist rather than Christian, so ending homophobic laws is progressive. Keeping stuck up old laws is Conservative.
Left wing - favoring an economy with substantially less inequality that an unregulated one.
Right wing economics is where the owners of companies can close the factories and open cheaper manufacturing in China. No concern about anyone or anything other than profit is way off on the far right.
And privilege is the key to confining great wealth to just a few people and authority to keeping it there, just like in the French revolutionary parliament where the term originated.
And it had nothing to do with transgender bathrooms and a lot to do with telling starving peasants that if they have no bread then they should just eat cake instead. It's about the economy.
Do you think we should standardise our lingo?
I'm fairly sure she thinks we should
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I agree with Matt Dillahunty that words have no intrinsic meanings, only usages. I've seen two people argue about a topic and both are arguing strawmen because they didn't define their terms. If you ever listen to the atheist experience, Matt will say things like "ok define what you mean by spirit". Definitions can change an entire argument.
BrightTyger979
Level 6
Apr 14, 2018
2
Tribalism and ignorance will ensure that pointless arguing never dies.
Science has proven the world is round, that climate change is real, and yet idiots still argue against them.
WileEQuixote
Level 7
Apr 14, 2018
2
Core point, all over this forum is 'Trump is an idiot' and 'Trump supporters are idiots' people just wanting to argue and feel they are right and everyone else is inferior.
I read one poster who stated he is a liberal and therefore... so I wrote a comment asking what he means in that post by the tern 'liberal' and his response was that he didn't know.
I only ever met the term in England meaning non Bible believing religious person or as the party that was last in power back in the 1920s.
So I put a lot of effort into finding out what the much maligned (except here) term actually means.
@McIntyre so you believe the world is flat and climate change is fake then?
'Climate Change' again is about terminology. 'Global Warming' could at least in principle be proven or disproven or given some kind of limits on warming or cooling, at least over a particular time interval.
Climate Change has been going on since the Earth has existed and is therefore a truism. But it opens a huge and multifaceted topic by including prevailing air currents and rainfall, storms and cloud reflectivity and a zillion other things, and which are beneficial to human or other life and which are not.
So it is important to distinguish between the two topics.
Climate change in the public consciousness is like quantum mechanics or politics, most people think they have a good understanding of it but pretty well nobody actually does.
Well, if she thinks so,... Actually, a definition of terms is essential for understanding & progressing. Otherwise you're just talking past each other & no progrees CAN be made, because one wouldn't even be able to agree on what progress was!
phxbillcee
Level 10
Apr 14, 2018
1
That is what the rich, who own the media, are deliberately doing. As long as reds argue with blues and vice versa the very rich can get away with anything.
They can be prevented from coming to agreement by using highly ambiguous words one side will say it meaning one thing and the other will hear something entirely different.
The media adds to the problem by stating explicitly that they and Obama and what not are trying to get the highly polarised country back together, when they created the polarisation and they are adding to it by telling the population that the country is highly polarised, and it really isn't that bad, except for the language the media use.
Humans have been arguing and killing each other for thousands of years because they don't agree
LeighShelton
Level 8
Apr 14, 2018
0
I think she would too.
The definitions you gave are pretty much how I define the terms, as well.
memorylikeasieve
Level 7
Apr 14, 2018
1
That sounds nice but I think you just kinda threw a definition out for right wing. I’d consider myself economically right wing but I’m all for keeping business in the U.S. I’d say most right wingers are. I really don’t want any government interference in the economy, but if I had to choose I’d prefer an equal chance versus equal outcome. I don’t want to work twice as hard as my neighbor and still live in the same outcome. I’d like to think I’m more of a libertarian, but I was raised conservative so I tend to lean right. Also, I live in the Midwest with a pretty good idea of what most people who lean right tend to think, which is they want to be left alone. They don’t want any new taxes or laws to deal with. For the most part, they don’t care about anyone else, for better or worse. I think we need clear definitions of what our terms should stand for but Its hard when most media outlets skew and blur the lines.
Loganharr96
Level 3
Apr 14, 2018
1
I was communicating with someone who wants to be a state senator and he had exactly the same dilemma.
He wants no regulations and for people to buy American made products even if the Chinese ones are as good or better and a quarter of the price, all done without any government interference.
Possibly. We need a greater emphasis on education in order to have educated discussion.
Joshuahenley
Level 6
Apr 14, 2018
4
Statistically school graduates and university graduates are not significantly different from the non grad population after controlling for wealth.
Real answers are found in University departments, so it needs a lot of education and/or a lot of debate and time to agree on... basic terminology and the associated concepts, but these are typically rejected by the non academic populations.
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