“Liar” accusation of the week. I’ll just raise it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes. Does the writer have a point?
Hi Odum,
I think your post about the VT secessionist candidates (knitting with one needle) was very misleading. WONDERING is just a blogger for VT Commons and in no way represents the candidates. I am also a blogger for VT Commons and I think WONDERING is off their rocker. To equate the positions of one blogger with an entire field of political candidates is just inflammatory and lazy. VT Commons blog is an open forum (and maybe that’s not a good idea) but what you put out there was basically a lie.
Best, (name removed)
I admit, it occurred to me leaving the name of the sender in might foment a little grief in the ranks, but my better self prevailed. Although I do post emails when appropriate, its not cool to leave the names in.
– gasbag
and it’s not because I think Odum did anything wrong … just my view of life.
We all deal with generalities in life and that is a good thing. Imagine if everyone you ever met/meet will require you to develop a full individual life story of that person before you make any assumptions or draw any conclusions. We would never get past the first person we meet in any given day.
Generalities, while fraught with pitfalls, allow us to act.
Sometimes, however, generalities morph into caricatures. That is what I think the writer is trying to say happened with Odum’s originating post.
The caricature moves past generalities by giving a process to make assumed completely true assumptions about people and their associates. This is as opposed to generalities where one makes an intellectual admission that in any given specific case the general assumption can be very incorrect. (Do not confuse a caricature with a statement of demonstrable fact, however. Just because something is insulting does not mean it’s not true.)
[INSULTING LANGUAGE ALERT]
The caricatures are what I generally refer to as “nigger calling”. We know this process well: develop an extremely negative frame of words to describe heinous actions; and then apply that frame of words to a group of people. Think “nigger”, “spick”, “hymie”, “flatlander” and more.
I do want to point out one huge difference between caricatures and “nigger calling”: caricatures can be seen in a positive light.
So it is fair to make the generalization that posters to the Vermont Commons site are pro-secession. It is not fair to assume they all agree with the wildest eyed out there person. And it is not fair to assume candidates that some wild eyed out there supports also support the same things advocated for by the wild eyed out there.
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with Odums originating post. I’m simply agreeing that the email writer has a valid point.
it obviously wasn’t Rob Williams, not enough of that mixture of faux-intellectualism and whiny victimhood.
I thought odum pointing it out was funny. Sure, “earthquake machines” doesn’t pigenhole everyone at VC, but there’s certainly no shortage of zaniness over there in terms of tinfoil-hat talk.