jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (02/18/84)
One has to be careful in describing something as "subtle and insidious"
sexism (or racism, or whatever) that one does not fall into the trap
I will illustrate this way:
I can imagine that if I told random Nazis "I have no problems relating
to Jewish people; they seem just as fine as any to me", sooner or
later I would get the response, "that's perfect evidence of the subtle
and insidious powers of persuasion and media manipulation they have."
Personally, if something is so subtle I can't see it, it's not there.
To believe otherwise is to invite prejudice and paranoia. And if someone
else sees it anyway, it may say more about them than about me. However,
I'm usually willing to listen and think about it.
The question of whether the use of the generic "he" is sexist has been
debated ad nauseum on net.women at least twice since its inception.
It's a controversial topic. I guess I would say that there's enough overt
sexism around to fight without troubling oneself about subtle and
insidious (and questionable) forms of it.
the the the the,
Jeff Winslowrlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (02/21/84)
> Personally, if something is so subtle I can't see it, it's not there. > To believe otherwise is to invite prejudice and paranoia. And if someone > else sees it anyway, it may say more about them than about me. However, > I'm usually willing to listen and think about it. --Jeff Winslow Subtle and insidious subliminal manipulation (conscious/intentional or otherwise) do exist. To simply say, "It's easy for someone to say it exists in cases where it doesn't solely for the purpose of making a point." doesn't make it go away. -- Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway oh, god, I'm so depressed... Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
renner@uiucdcs.UUCP (renner ) (02/23/84)
#R:tekecs:-352000:uiucdcs:31600044:000:1014 uiucdcs!renner Feb 22 19:05:00 1984 >> Personally, if something is so subtle I can't see it, it's not there. >> To believe otherwise is to invite prejudice and paranoia. And if someone >> else sees it anyway, it may say more about them than about me. However, >> I'm usually willing to listen and think about it. --Jeff Winslow > Subtle and insidious subliminal manipulation (conscious/intentional or > otherwise) do exist. To simply say, "It's easy for someone to say it > exists in cases where it doesn't solely for the purpose of making a point." > doesn't make it go away. --Rich Rosen If something is so subtle that it cannot be detected, then there is no reason to assume it is present. By definition one cannot show that it does not exist. One might as well blame your problems on the subtle and insidious influences of the Tooth Fairy -- nobody can prove that the Tooth Fairy *isn't* doing bad things to you, and it will help to cover the things really wrong in your life. Scott Renner {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (02/23/84)
>>> Personally, if something is so subtle I can't see it, it's not there. >>> To believe otherwise is to invite prejudice and paranoia. And if someone >>> else sees it anyway, it may say more about them than about me. However, >>> I'm usually willing to listen and think about it. --Jeff Winslow >> Subtle and insidious subliminal manipulation (conscious/intentional or >> otherwise) do exist. To simply say, "It's easy for someone to say it >> exists in cases where it doesn't solely for the purpose of making a point." >> doesn't make it go away. --Rich Rosen > If something is so subtle that it cannot be detected, then there is no > reason to assume it is present. --Scott Renner I guess this means there are no electrons, since we cannot detect an individual electron, and thus there is no electricity. This is a very bogus argument, that if we cannot see something it is not there. Very anthropocentric. No, I don't think that "they" (those attempting to persuade through subliminal whatever---media manipulators) know what they're doing; they don't have enough smarts to "make us" buy a particular product. But there is a measurable (though probably unplanned) effect resulting from many subtleties present in mass media. To deny that there are certain media images that have subtle effects on people is preposterous. No, I'm not prepared to argue the point with examples and evidence, since I don't consider books like "Subliminal Seduction" to be all that purely scientific. In any case, this certainly does NOT belong in net.women anymore. Let's move it to net.misc if anybody else has anything else to say. I'm backing out of this one. -- Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway oh, god, I'm so depressed... Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr