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0 pointsjakelazaroff5y ago0 comments

Well, this article is about the writer. But maybe I was unclear — by “true position” I don’t necessarily mean the feelings of the writer, but the thrust of their argument. You said that there is pressure to continuously restate the obvious; my point is that to a lot of people, it’s not actually obvious at all.

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nwah15y ago· 2 in thread

Why is it important that peoples' intentions are obvious in every piece of writing?

Journalists, anthropologists, and plenty of others strive towards rhetorical neutrality intentionally, and just as someone can be a citizen scientist, someone could also be a citizen journalist or anthropologist.

And furthermore it just isn't any of your business anyhow. What you are talking about is the equivalent of worrying about thoughtcrime. No objective harm was done but you worry that someone secretly holds an opposing viewpoint.

jakelazaroffOP5y ago

You can write however you want to. But don’t be surprised if you write something that could be construed as sympathetic to race science, and people go “hey, this person might support race science”. You seem to be saying that you can be as ambiguous as you want and that people shouldn’t try to fill in the gaps, which is ridiculous.

And no, it’s not “thoughtcrime” to form an opinion about a person based on things they’ve written.

nwah15y ago

The only reason your statement here doesn't seem completely absurd is because you are invoking an issue which people have an acute emotional reaction on, to the point where even something which would be viewed as paranoid in another setting seems acceptable.

I shouldn't be surprised if people react in a paranoid or irrational manner, no. But I would hope that they would hold themselves to a higher standard.

In this case we are talking about a very humane and nuanced thinker, and under normal circumstances we should in fact withhold insinuation of malice unless evidence exists. It is called the principle of charity.

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