Comments on: RINO Sightings

By: Nick Blesch

Nick Blesch — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 04:39:20 +0000

I confess, for a law student, I am significantly Latin-averse. I am a big proponent of plain English, especially in the law. (As I learned in Torts: “An instrumentality is a thing! A thing! Save five syllables and te letters and call it a thing!”)
I still remeber only a few short months ago when I could barely understand a court’s decision (much less have any clue what a ststute meant). As with all specialties, I realize that there’s going to be some jargon, but I think it shold be minimalized as much as possible. I just try to avoid using florid lanugage when there’s a more commonly accessible way of communicating my point.
Besides, using Latin is almost always pretentious, not that I’m not guilty of doing so sometimes (e.g., when I use “i.e.”). Heh.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 04:13:42 +0000

Is it pretentiousness–or habit? (Although I would have thought that a law student would have been more apt to use the phrase than a polisci guy.)

By: Nick Blesch

Nick Blesch — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 03:34:25 +0000

“inter alia”
I spent a significant amount of time last week arguing in my Legal Research and Writing class that only an abnormally pretentious person would use “inter alia” in normal conversation. But then, it would be bold of me to assume that the comments here are “normal conversation,” so maybe you’re safe, Paul.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 02:15:42 +0000

And I love this comment:
“Um…what’s wrong with having a preference for people of your own race? Could it possibly be that this is a natural, innate characteristic of a healthy, balanced person? And that in fact there’s nothing wrong with it? And further, that trying to act as though you don’t have this perfectly normal affinity for people like yourself is actually unhealthy?”
A “natural, innate characteristic”? This is precisely the definition of racism, albeit of a more or less nonvirulent strain. (It demonstrates, inter alia, the principal intellectual failure of racism–the privileging of “race,” which does not exist, as a natural and irreducible construct, while rejecting historical evidence, such as the attitudes of Soviet apparatchiks toward kulaks or of misogynists toward their sisters, that such characteristics are arbitrary and only rarely salient.)

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 02:12:49 +0000

“simpliciter”
God damn I love phil’s comments.
Perhaps it is not reading, but cognition, that is at issue.
(And I say this as someone who scored perfect–that is, no bias at all–on the tests twice, months apart.)

By: philosopher

philosopher — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 00:15:28 +0000

I would suggest that Eric Scheie learn how to read a scientific study, but it seems he really just needs to learn how to read, simpliciter. He points to what he takes to be a tension between the researchers use of “self-acknowledged” reports and their claims to study implicit biases; yet the text in question goes on to say quite clearly:
“The researchers examined correlations between _explicit_ and implicit attitudes and voting behavior in all 435 congressional districts” (emphasis added).
His ‘don’t think of an elephant’ rejoinder also fails the basic test of a proposed confound: it doesn’t account for the data. The data in question is about regional differences; but ‘elephant-thinking’, if it affects task performance at all, would apply across the board.

By: SayUncle

SayUncle — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 18:41:53 +0000

Ditto the sentiments of others. Submitted, not posted.

By: Dan Melson

Dan Melson — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 17:59:19 +0000

I believe you may have missed my submission email to you as well. I just re-sent.

By: Larry Bernard

Larry Bernard — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 15:55:32 +0000

Send to your GMAIL with a FWD on it I think the Subject is Bam Bam

By: Joshua Claybourn

Joshua Claybourn — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 15:46:29 +0000

I must not have gotten it. Re-send and I’ll definitely add it.