Davis convinced some and failed to convince others. The ones he convinced were, in some relevant sense, not bigots. They were not obstinate given that they changed their belief when presented with evidence to the contrary. — Leontiskos

I'm growing weary of nonsense such as this. The KKK grand wizard was not unbigoted because Davis managed to turn them. Davis is remarkable because he was able to turn a paradigmatic bigot.

Only a non native English speaker could make such a mistake about such a common term in good faith.

Do you think "Houses house people" is a substantive claim?
— hypericin

Suppose it is. Would it become bigotry? — Leontiskos

I seriously hope this was a lame attempt at a joke. If not, you aren't following the discussion at all.

Daryl Davis’s method wasn’t the one seen here. He didn't meet racist propositions with counter-propositions, as though the problem were a matter of epistemic error.

Rather, he dissolved the framework within which those propositions took hold. The racist belief “Black people are less intelligent”, that Black people are somehow other, less human, or outside the circle of empathy was undermined by his calm, articulate, personable, unmistakable humanity. He invalidated the tacit presupposition on which the racist attitude rested. — Banno

Very, very well said.

I'm growing weary of nonsense such as this. The KKK grand wizard was not unbigoted because Davis managed to turn them. Davis is remarkable because he was able to turn a paradigmatic bigot. — hypericin

And I'm growing weary of your fallacious approach and your inability to engage arguments. Again:

Whether any claim, "X is Y," is obstinate, intolerant, based on "dislike of other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life," etc., depends on the context. Again, bigotry is a ↪mode of behavior or belief. To give an example, Daryl Davis is a famous black man who convinced dozens to leave and denounce the KKK, simply by interacting with them and showing them that their views were mistaken. Davis convinced some and failed to convince others. The ones he convinced were, in some relevant sense, not bigots. They were not obstinate given that they changed their belief when presented with evidence to the contrary.

If you were right and everyone who says, "Black people are less intelligent on average than white people," is inherently a bigot, then it makes no sense that Davis convinced some and failed to convince others. The fact of the matter is that some of those whom Davis encountered held that belief in a mode that involves bigotry, and some did not. Or if someone wants to insist on a particular definition, they must at least admit that some whom Davis encountered were more bigoted than others, despite holding the same material proposition. — Leontiskos

Your approach is apparently to claim that all of those who Davis encountered were equally bigoted, because they each held to the same material proposition. That makes no sense. If you cannot admit that someone who changes their mind is less bigoted than someone who won't, then your own inability to change your own mind is something that should give you serious pause.

Very, very well said. — hypericin

It is a strawman to think that this turns on propositionality. Everything I said holds just as well even if we eschew propositionality. There is no premise that Davis engaged in some sort of formal, propositional argument (although he did at times engage in formal argumentation with his interlocutors on the matter of racism).

Heck, the whole underlying reality here is that we all know @Bob Ross is not bigoted, not because of any propositional presentation, but because we have interacted with him. It's precisely the same.

A bigot is obstinate. They have not entered into the conversation in order to engage in earnest dialogue. They are not going to change their mind as a result of a rational discussion. — Banno

Right. Prejudice is a 'pre judgement' about a situation. When exposed to things which demonstrate that the initial prejudice was wrong, but a person insists on the prejudice being correct, that's bigotry. I confess to not reading the entire thread, but I have hours of conversations with Bob about multiple topics. I have seen Bob ask deep questions, and deeply defend their side. But when a point has clearly been proven, Bob is one of the few people with the humbleness to say, "I've changed my mind." Bob has also pointed out many things to me that have made me think deeply about my own presuppositions, and made me readjust my thoughts and approaches and changed my mind. That's a rare and amazing human being.

So I find the accusations of bigotry incredulous. Have you clearly demonstrated why Bob's position is factually incorrect? Have you engaged honestly with him on his viewpoints, definitions, and as a thinker? Forgive me Banno, but your first impressions in this thread seemed more confrontational than intellectual. If you confront someone you put their guard up and good conversation rarely happens.

There is a point at which further engaging with bigotry is doing no more than providing them with a platform, or the walls to their echo chamber. — Banno

And I agree. A person who is obstinate in holding a position that rationally can be proven to be incorrect, and they provide no counter argument, is not worth listening to. Has this happened here?

That same hateful attitude can be seen in this thread, from the petty disparaging of the tom boy to the outright perdition of the homosexual. The anecdotal accounts of compromised transgender folk are pathetic, given the profuse accounts of transgender folk being ostracised by their community. — Banno

Ok, have you demonstrated that to Bob? Not just merely insulted him, but actually examined his definitions, his arguments, and then attempted to explain another viewpoint that is more rational? The black man did not go into the group of white men with a "How dare you" attitude. But we can imagine that many of the white men had that attitude towards the black man. We should not easily compare ourselves to the black man in the story, but the group of white men. Group hostility with a culturally agreed upon 'moral' view against a lone individual trying to talk with us is the danger we should all be aware of.

Heck, the whole underlying reality here is that we all know Bob Ross is not bigoted, not because of any propositional presentation, but because we have interacted with him. It's precisely the same. — Leontiskos

What is at stake is not @Bob Ross's personal attributes. No one here knows him well enough to even be interested in arguing this. What is at stake is the nature of his claims. That is why in my attempted definition, I defined rhetorical bigotry. And why I argue that this is a kind of bigoted discourse. Whereas, a KKK grand wizard makes bigotry a life project, and is so paradigmatically a bigot.

You and Bob are the ones that persist in making it personal, focusing on personal attributes of obstinacy eople (as if bigotry were mere mulishness). And yet by your own narrow definition you are both plenty bigoted. Bob, in dismissing all the negative feedback he's gotten as "The Liberal Agenda", in dismissing the entirety of the responses he's received as "ad hominems and red herrings", and dismissing the opinion of the entire medical establishment as the whim of, again, "The Liberal Agenda". And you, in your exhausting tendency to right fight each and every point, no matter how contorted your position becomes, as well as interpolating positions of mine that I don't hold, while seeming to ignore my actual arguments. And then chide me for not addressing each of your mistakes. If I were to do so, the discussion would branch exponentially to infinity.

What is at stake is not Bob Ross's personal attributes. No one here knows him well enough to even be interested in arguing this. — hypericin

Er, but that has been a huge part of this thread, namely personal attacks and accusations on Bob. You yourself are arguing that someone who says what Bob is saying is bigoted, are you not?

I defined rhetorical bigotry. — hypericin

And I pointed to the problems with your definition and your approach before offering .

And you, in your exhausting tendency to right fight each and every point, no matter how contorted your position becomes, as well as interpolating positions of mine that I don't hold, while seeming to ignore my actual arguments. — hypericin

Do you not admit that your argument has been very strange and "contorted"? You have been arguing about whether statements are "definitional" or "non-definitional" in order to try to support your claims of bigotry. When you take that pedantic route and erect curious and undefined terms like "definitional" and "substantive" you should expect similarly pedantic responses. Throughout I have been trying to get you to clarify your terms and your arguments, to little avail.

I don't mean to be too hard on you. As , you have engaged in substantive argument against the OP (or something vaguely related to the OP) more than anyone else in this thread. For example, you've disputed the factuality of the medical claims upon which some of @Bob Ross' arguments depend. It's to your credit that you are often one of the persons who is trying to offer a reasoned account in threads where others are not.

If you want to call it a day, that's fine by me. I'm a bit tired of the topic as well.

Er, but that has been a huge part of this thread, namely personal attacks and accusations on Bob. You yourself are arguing that someone who says what Bob is saying is bigoted, are you not? — Leontiskos

Bob is not only participating in, amplifying, and offering legitimatization of a larger homophobic and especially transphobic movement in this historical moment, especially in this country. But he has implicitly insulted forum members and their loved ones, implying they are bad, immoral, and crazy. So neither Bob or yourself are in any position to pearl clutch if he has received personal attacks in return.

When you take that pedantic route and erect curious and undefined terms like "definitional" and "substantive" you should expect similarly pedantic responses. — Leontiskos

Give me a fucking break. To attack these as curious and undefined is itself pedantic, fittingly as you are one of the most pedantic posters on here. If one were to take your pedantry seriously, a bigoted claim would simply be impossible.

Let's play a game. Make a claim that you believe is actually bigoted, if you think any exist.

Bob is not only participating in... — hypericin

I'll take that as a "yes," which contradicts what you just said. You say no one is personally attacking Bob and then you continue to personally attack Bob. That's the sort of gaslighting that Bob has been dealing with throughout, and it's not odd that he would defend himself.

Let's play a game. Make a claim that you believe is actually bigoted, if you think any exist. — hypericin

The problem is with your claim in (1). Bigotry involves a mode of behavior or belief, and therefore cannot be identified by merely pointing to a behavior or belief. For example, if bigotry is defined as "obstinate attachment to a belief," then the holding of a material position can never be sufficient for bigotry. This is because obstinacy is a mode of belief, and no belief is inherently obstinate. — Leontiskos

I've pointed out your error from the start, wherein you fail to understand that bigotry is a mode of behavior or belief, not an intrinsic quality of a proposition. Your response has been to reject the idea that bigotry requires obstinacy, and more generally to reject the idea that bigotry requires a mode of belief. Maybe have a look at the first sentence of 's post which you quoted approvingly.

So if one wants to point to bigotry, they cannot merely point to a claim. If you want me to point to bigotry, I can do so. In fact I already have, if indirectly. The corollary of what I say in the following quote is that those who Davis failed to convince were bigots:

Whether any claim, "X is Y," is obstinate, intolerant, based on "dislike of other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life," etc., depends on the context. Again, bigotry is a ↪mode of behavior or belief. To give an example, Daryl Davis is a famous black man who convinced dozens to leave and denounce the KKK, simply by interacting with them and showing them that their views were mistaken. Davis convinced some and failed to convince others. The ones he convinced were, in some relevant sense, not bigots. They were not obstinate given that they changed their belief when presented with evidence to the contrary.

If you were right and everyone who says, "Black people are less intelligent on average than white people," is inherently a bigot, then it makes no sense that Davis convinced some and failed to convince others. The fact of the matter is that some of those whom Davis encountered held that belief in a mode that involves bigotry, and some did not. Or if someone wants to insist on a particular definition, they must at least admit that some whom Davis encountered were more bigoted than others, despite holding the same material proposition. — Leontiskos

I'll take that as a "yes," which contradicts what you just said. You say no one is personally attacking Bob and then you continue to personally attack Bob. That's the sort of gaslighting that Bob has been dealing with throughout, and it's not odd that he would defend himself. — Leontiskos

Nope, not a personal attack, except perhaps against his judgement. He might be doing this unwittingly, with the best intentions. But he is doing it regardless.

I've pointed out your error from the start, wherein you fail to understand that bigotry is a mode of behavior or belief, not an intrinsic quality of a proposition. — Leontiskos

And so your answer is "no". To you, no proposition or discourse can themselves be bigoted. And so if they are not, why should believing or promoting these propositions, no matter how obstinately, be bigoted either? Do you see how absurd this is?

Again, you have called KKK grand wizards "unbigoted", because the best ambassador to bigots we have ever seen were turned by him. And so whatever authority you may have had as to what bigotry is and isn't has already been ceded.

Nope, not a personal attack, except perhaps against his judgement. He might be doing this unwittingly, with the best intentions. But he is doing it regardless. — hypericin

Okay, fine. But as has been pointed out, there are lots of LGBT individuals who agree with Bob, and who would find many who oppose him within this thread to be, "implying they are bad, immoral, and crazy." Do we care about them? Or do they not count? Is inadvertent offense objectionable when you are the one inadvertently offending people?

And so your answer is "no". — hypericin

I literally gave you an example of bigotry. If you don't know by now that I think bigotry involves a mode of belief and not a material proposition, then you haven't read anything I wrote.

And so if they are not, why should believing or promoting these propositions be bigoted either? — hypericin

Feel free to check out I've pointed to a few times already, along with the accompanying conversation.

You are right in saying that if a material proposition is not inherently bigoted, then believing that material proposition is not inherently bigoted. What is needed is a particular mode of belief, such as obstinacy (for example).

A common form of taboo occurs when bigotry becomes correlated with certain beliefs in a given time and place. Given our current time and place, Holocaust denial is correlated with bigotry. When this fact is combined with the condition where Holocaust denial is beyond the Overton window (and therefore is correlated with bigotry according to the vast majority), a society will prohibit Holocaust denial.

Prohibitions based in aversion to bigotry are one form of taboo. All taboo is culturally situated. If it is taboo to say, "Women are defined by their sex," in country X, and it is taboo to say, "Women are not defined by their sex," in country Y, then each country will view those claims differently. People will be offended by two opposite claims in each of the two countries.

If those two countries come together, they cannot simply impose their taboos on one another (which is what you are doing). Instead they must recognize that what is at stake is a taboo, and engage in rational and good-faith discussion about their differing points of view. See especially the bolded:

I want to emphasize that these are not easy things for someone like Jamal to navigate. I don't even know what I would do if I held to Western European sexual ethics and I were in his shoes. The answer is in no way obvious, and I don't want to pretend to oversimplify the issue. In any case, I think that folks like @Bob Ross should try to understand how difficult it is for Western Europeans to countenance traditional sexual ethics, and the Western Europeans (and those who agree with them) should try hard to entertain the possibility that some people who hold to traditional sexual ethics really are acting in good faith, and are not bigots. (But in my personal opinion, I think Western Europeans need to be more open to debating their sexual ethics given the fact that their sexual ethics are geographically and historically idiosyncratic.) — Leontiskos

(I.e. The taboos that accompany the sexual ethics of Western Europe are also geographically and historically idiosyncratic.)

there are lots of LGBT individuals who agree with Bob, and who would find many who oppose him within this thread to be, "implying they are bad, immoral, and crazy." — Leontiskos

WTF. Bob has literally, explicitly, called multiple subsets of people bad, immoral, and/or crazy. This is quite different from simply opposing someone's wacky beliefs.

I literally gave you an example of bigotry. If you don't know by now that I think bigotry involves a mode of belief and not a material proposition, then you haven't read anything I wrote. — Leontiskos

Your misunderstanding of what bigotry is does not constitute an example. Again, you believe that any proposition, however odious and hateful it might seem on the surface, is not in itself bigoted. Such a proposition must be uttered by someone who we know is affectively obstinate, and we know in advance will never change their mind about it. Until we can somehow know that, we can never know if it is truly bigoted.

What is needed is a particular mode of belief, such as obstinacy (for example). — Leontiskos

So if I obstinately believe that the earth is round, that is bigotry by your reckoning?

Here's the TL;DR that you seem to require:

• "I was on an international philosophy forum and I encountered someone who holds fundamentally different beliefs than I do, in good faith! He even transgressed one of my local taboos!"
• "That's horrible!"

GTFO with your horseshit.

.

Here's the TL;DR that you seem to require — Leontiskos

Not that I want to continue the discussion, but there was a good chunk of your reply I missed in my irritation, so apologies for that.

Thanks. :up:

Again, I appreciate your engagement. But yeah, let's be done. :lol:

A bigot is obstinate. They have not entered into the conversation in order to engage in earnest dialogue. They are not going to change their mind as a result of a rational discussion.
...
That same hateful attitude can be seen in this thread, from the petty disparaging of the tom boy to the outright perdition of the homosexual. The anecdotal accounts of compromised transgender folk are pathetic, given the profuse accounts of transgender folk being ostracised by their community.

I don't understand why you are DM me that you would like to be omitted from the discussion in this thread, of which I honored and respected, to just inject yourself yet again to spew false, defamatory, unsubstantiated, and spiteful comments about me.

Like I said in the DM and in this thread, I need to understand what you mean by gender being social and sex being physical/biologically to be able to discuss with you our differing opinions on this topic. I already clearly defined the terms; and, in good faith, I will do it again.

'Sex' is the procreative nature of a substance; and 'gender' is the natural tendencies of that sex. What do you mean by sex being biological and gender being social? Can you elaborate in depth about that or provide a basic definition of each?

If you truly don't want anything to do with this thread, then please stop interjecting with malicious ad hominems that are unsubstantiated. It's not helping us further the discussion. Like I said before, I would love to discuss this topic with you and hear your thoughts; and, believe it or not, I will concede any points that I am convinced by. I am not a bigot.

:heart:

I've tried to discuss this topic with @Banno many times and they keep evading it. All I've asked is that they describe or define 'sex' and 'gender' so that I can understand where they are coming from and hopefully further the discussion. I don't see any other way to progress the discussion, since my definitions are clear and Banno clearly is well versed in Aristotelianism.

it defies logic that one can keep insisting that nobody should be able to challenge the many flaws in their posts

No one has tried to discuss any flaws in my position, other than @Banno and @Jamal (that I can remember) for a brief moment. You just keep ad hominem attacking me and refusing to substantiate your claims.

 (if Jamal could ban all bigots, the nobody would be able to post here)

Ok, so do you believe that everyone is a bigot then?

yet writing off homosexuality and transgenderism as mental illness or problematic is definetly what i would call bigotry.

If you are good-faith interlocutor, then I give you this challenge: try to play devil’s advocate. Give me a brief account of why I believe that homosexuality is bad as a sexual orientation and immoral as an act; and why transgenderism is a mental illness called gender dysphoria. I will bet you that you will grossly misrepresent my position because you still to this day haven’t engaged with me on the topic in any substantial sense. Prove me wrong.

For example, i'm personally ignoring everything Bob Ross says to me, as he has pulled me into this thread that i've been sick of for a while now

Then please stop calling me seriously bad names without substantiated evidence to back them up. No one has the right to pop into a thread, ignore the actual topic, and gaslight everyone into believing the person is a horrible person.

This is worse than flaming, this is completely manipulative and narcissistic behavior

I’ll give you the transcript. You said in this post that I am a bigot, hypocrite, evangelist, and a transphobe. I responded addressing all of these claims and how they are patently false; and challenged you to demonstrate them with evidence here. You then ignored everything I said with this sidestepping response. I then kindly asked you to substantiate your horrendous claims against my character on this forum here. You responded with hateful comments that were complete red herrings that demonstrated your unwillingness to back up your defamatory claims here. I then rightly pointed out the dodging you are doing and the seriousness of your baseless accusations here. You then, now, ignore me and respond to someone else spewing the same unsubstantiated, hateful claims against my character and, worse yet, trying to gaslight everyone into thinking you are the victim. There’s the tape: you can’t escape the transcript. You have called someone a bigot, transphobe, evangelist, and hypocrite while purposefully evading substantiating the claims. That’s the facts, and I am growing impatient some of these forum members and their unwarranted hostility and uncharitability. .

Bob has literally, explicitly, called multiple subsets of people bad, immoral, and/or crazy

I never once said that people who engage in sexuality immorality are crazy; and you are confusing badness with immorality.

Nope, not a personal attack, except perhaps against his judgement. He might be doing this unwittingly, with the best intentions. But he is doing it regardless.
…
Bob is not only participating in, amplifying, and offering legitimatization of a larger homophobic and especially transphobic movement in this historical moment, especially in this country. But he has implicitly insulted forum members and their loved ones, implying they are bad, immoral, and crazy

This is incoherent. You can’t plead that you are not attacking me and then hurl personal attacks on me. Which is it?

@Jamal, @Philosphim, @Leontiskos

I want it to be on the public record here that @Banno just told me that they reported me for defamatory comments for this response I just gave.

Here's the DM:

Since you accuse me of false and defamatory comments in the thread, I've marked it for mod attention. They can let us know if I've over stepped.

I will probably not be participating further in your thread, despite your chiding.

Now, onward.

I am not going to report @Banno back out of spite, because this whole thing is really childish and unnecessary. What I said in that response was as respectful but honest and true as can be; and anyone who reads it can see that.

....inject yourself yet again to spew false, defamatory, unsubstantiated, and spiteful comments about me. — Bob Ross

Edit: Didn't meant to post that. Happened while I was copying into a PM chat. But I'll leave it here, to show that Bob has misread who said what.

I'm out. Too heated.

Just to be clear.

A bigot is obstinate. They have not entered into the conversation in order to engage in earnest dialogue. They are not going to change their mind as a result of a rational discussion.

There is a point at which further engaging with bigotry is doing no more than providing them with a platform, or the walls to their echo chamber.

You are, as before, alluding to me here as the bigot and someone who will not change my mind (which you’ve stated multiple times now in the thread). That’s contextually what you are referring to with @Philosophim. Do I need to pull up the transcripts of what you have said earlier in this thread? You have never once substantiated any of these claims.

That same hateful attitude can be seen in this thread, from the petty disparaging of the tom boy to the outright perdition of the homosexual. The anecdotal accounts of compromised transgender folk are pathetic, given the profuse accounts of transgender folk being ostracised by their community.

The content of this thread is bigoted

You are alluding to me having a hateful attitude, engaging in petty disparaging, doing pathetic anecdotes, and incentivizing the ostracizing of transgender people from the community. You’ve expressed many times that my views are bigoted and that you would censor them.

Nothing I said was defamatory: it’s true.

If there's something I am misunderstanding, then please let me know and I will be more than happy to apologize if what I am saying is false.

I don't understand why you are DM me that you would like to be omitted from the discussion in this thread, of which I honored and respected, to just inject yourself yet again to spew false, defamatory, unsubstantiated, and spiteful comments about me. — Bob Ross

It's a good question.

Edit: Didn't meant to post that. Happened while I was copying into a PM chat. — Banno

And so we learn that Banno is sending PMs to try to drum up sentiment for the notion that Bob is a bigot, behind his back. This does not seem out of the ordinary for Banno, namely working privately behind the scenes to try to influence public threads without the knowledge of those he opposes within the threads. Is this good faith engagement on TPF?

It might be wise for you to back off a bit, . @Jamal has access to the private conversation.

- Fair enough.

Realize though how this post from earlier was meant to assuage the large number of doubts regarding the question of whether in-private moderation jockeying by ordinary members was occurring:

In fact, I haven't received a single private message complaining about this discussion. — Jamal

It appears as if this is no longer true.

CC: @Leontiskos, @Jamal, @Banno, @Philosophim

Banno has finally clarified what they meant by this DM:

Since you accuse me of false and defamatory comments in the thread, I've marked it for mod attention. They can let us know if I've over stepped.

I will probably not be participating further in your thread, despite your chiding.

Now, onward.

What they meant according to a DM today:

I did not report you for making defamatory comments. I reported myself, because you accused me of making such comments.

As anyone can see, the first quote, which is the entire DM message in question, clearly conveys to any person that the sender reported them, not that they reported themselves. I guess @Banno was attempting to make a joke.

In light of this and in hopes of moving forward, I recant my claim about Banno reporting me and chalk it up to a very odd joke by Banno that was not appropriately clarified after the fact.

What i can see from this exhange, and from your stupid fucking accusations against me, is that you want to impose these same persecutions against particular groups that you seem to be whining about. You want people to respect you, respect your opinion, expect who you are, all the while fucking complaining incessantly that "I am not really contending with your ideas", you have now accused me of this at least 4 times, and it was false every single fucking time you hypocritical piece of shit.

Since Leontiskos and Hypericin have finished discussing, it seems like this post has devolved into personal accusations and infighting instead of focusing on the OP. Bob, do you feel this has run its course? Is there anything of value for this post to add at this point? No one is banned, and people can make their own judgements about comments in this thread. You have a lot of other ideas to offer Bob, I don't want to see you gummed up on a thread that has seemingly run its course feeling like you have to defend yourself. You don't.

Also please be kind to ProtagoranSocratist. He's new and feels a bit bothered by his own perceived personal attacks that have happened on these forums. He generally seems like a nice poster and we want him to feel welcome. I think we can all agree it got heated in here and let bygones be bygones for another thread.