--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > As I wrote about earlier, pretending that the > criticism or insult aimed at you *personally* > is really about a group is an old cultist's > trick, used to pretend it really *isn't* > about you personally. But it is.
Following up on this, just because it's a fun topic, I think the issue is that some people react to being called a name by pretending that the name was "really" meant to refer not to them personally but to a group that they feel that they are "symbols" for. If you are a public figure, someone strongly associated with one or more groups, that is actually a somewhat valid stance. Barack Obama actually IS a symbol for black men everywhere, because he's shown them what they can accomplish. But if you're basically a media nobody, and the full extent of your public recognition is being a loud fish in the small pond of an obscure Internet chat group, then how valid -- or even sane -- is that stance? I'm such a media nobody. No one outside this group knows me by the name I use here. I live in Spain, but does that make any insult hurled at me an insult to all Spanish? I am a writer, but does that make any disparaging remarks said about me also about writers in general? What I'm getting at is that this claim that criticism of or insults hurled at a *particular* woman is also de facto an insult hurled at ALL women is bullshit. If I call you a name, I'm really calling YOU a name. You're not a symbol for diddleysquat; you're YOU, and that's the person I'm insulting. Get the concept? Let me give you an example. If I were to say to Dr. Pete, "Pete, you're a nanner-nanner pooh-pooh head," even though Dr. Pete is a psychologist I am not calling ALL psycholo- gists pooh-pooh heads. Even though Dr. Pete is a man, I am casting no aspersions on the pooh-pooh-headedness of ALL men. We all know that Dr. Pete is not really a nanner-nanner pooh-pooh head, so such claims about it being an insult to all shrinks and all men are not likely to be made. On the other hand, we all know by now that if anyone dares to tell a couple of women on this forum what they think of them -- and tell THEM directly, not any group the women mistakenly believe themselves to be symbols for -- that person will be accused of criticizing all women. And if you choose to call me names now for suggesting that calling one woman a name is NOT equivalent to calling ALL women that name, watch your ass because I'm a writer and I'll have the Writer's Union on your ass in a second.
