"People don't suck; biases and prejudices suck." - People suck when they have biases and prejudices.
"Reasoning (sometimes) sucks, because biases and prejudices cannot be eliminated in this living world." - This is like saying 'Law (sometimes) sucks because illegal behavior cannot be eliminated in society' or 'Mathematics (sometimes) sucks because miscalculation and mathematical misconceptions cannot be eliminated in this world'.
If reasoning sucks, then the "reason" we give you also sucks. So then no reason can answer why reason sucks. But still...I'm operating within my reasoning
Although this is not really important, it would be fun to do a little bit of analysis here.
Of course it can be appropriate, under certain circumstances, to say something like "His biases and prejudices suck, but he does not", but this means is actually that he does not suck IN SOME OTHER RESPECTS or that he does not suck EXCEPT FOR HAVING BIASES AND PREJUDICES. It does not make sense to say "His biases and prejudices suck, but he does not suck with respect to having these biases and prejudices".
May we distinguish between judgement of the person and judgement of the biases that this person has?
Biases can be corrected and they are often impermenent features of the person.
When we say "someone sucks", we may be describing this person as if he has some inherently problematic features.
We may be maintaining an open attitude towards a person if we think that "this person does not suck, only his biases and prejudices do."
Try to capture it along the line of judgement of one's own good friend or one's own child.
We sometimes dislike the person not as who they are (or what they are), but just dislike him with regard to what he does or what particular attitude he has towards certain things.
Perhaps that's a case applicable to all persons too. It all depends on the perspective we adopt in "seeing" the person.
I was merely talking about how we use the word "suck". You are right that we can separate what a person did (or what he believes) and what kind of person he is.
"When we say 'someone sucks', we may be describing this person as if he has some inherently problematic features." - When we say "S sucks", we usually refer to something that S did (and it is usually clear from the context what it was). Sometimes we do use the expression to refer to some feature the person has, but even then it is usually not meant to be a general evaluation of the person.
reasoning sucks! <-- because the one who utters the sentence was fired for his reasoning with his boss
回覆刪除Reasoning doesn't suck; people suck.
回覆刪除People don't suck; biases and prejudices suck.
回覆刪除Reasoning (sometimes) sucks, because biases and prejudices cannot be eliminated in this living world.
回覆刪除"People don't suck; biases and prejudices suck."
回覆刪除- People suck when they have biases and prejudices.
"Reasoning (sometimes) sucks, because biases and prejudices cannot be eliminated in this living world."
- This is like saying 'Law (sometimes) sucks because illegal behavior cannot be eliminated in society' or 'Mathematics (sometimes) sucks because miscalculation and mathematical misconceptions cannot be eliminated in this world'.
If reasoning sucks, then the "reason" we give you also sucks.
回覆刪除So then no reason can answer why reason sucks.
But still...I'm operating within my reasoning
Is it possible, I say, that only baises and prejudices suck, but the people who have them do not?
回覆刪除Although this is not really important, it would be fun to do a little bit of analysis here.
回覆刪除Of course it can be appropriate, under certain circumstances, to say something like "His biases and prejudices suck, but he does not", but this means is actually that he does not suck IN SOME OTHER RESPECTS or that he does not suck EXCEPT FOR HAVING BIASES AND PREJUDICES. It does not make sense to say "His biases and prejudices suck, but he does not suck with respect to having these biases and prejudices".
typo: "but what this means is"
回覆刪除May we distinguish between judgement of the person and judgement of the biases that this person has?
回覆刪除Biases can be corrected and they are often impermenent features of the person.
When we say "someone sucks", we may be describing this person as if he has some inherently problematic features.
We may be maintaining an open attitude towards a person if we think that "this person does not suck, only his biases and prejudices do."
Try to capture it along the line of judgement of one's own good friend or one's own child.
We sometimes dislike the person not as who they are (or what they are), but just dislike him with regard to what he does or what particular attitude he has towards certain things.
Perhaps that's a case applicable to all persons too. It all depends on the perspective we adopt in "seeing" the person.
I was merely talking about how we use the word "suck". You are right that we can separate what a person did (or what he believes) and what kind of person he is.
回覆刪除"When we say 'someone sucks', we may be describing this person as if he has some inherently problematic features."
- When we say "S sucks", we usually refer to something that S did (and it is usually clear from the context what it was). Sometimes we do use the expression to refer to some feature the person has, but even then it is usually not meant to be a general evaluation of the person.