Honest question: how exactly is just using the name of a group of people (marginalised or not), without any epithets or modifiers, disrespectful or offensive? (“because some members of that group have said so” isn’t valid).
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@tripu I would take issue with some american company using the Serbian name despite never knowing or caring about Serbia in any way. It would separate Serbia from her cultural identity and traditions. I can see how someone could take issue with the ASF using their name and identity in such a way. Now, I don't know if this is the case and I would err on the side of caution when dealing with these things.
Someone naming their company or product “Serbia” is either making up a backronym (neutral meaning) or displaying at least some level of knowledge and/or appreciation for Serbia the country (positive meaning).
How could one possibly “separate [a country] from [its] cultural identity and traditions” by simply using the name of the country to designate a non-profit organisation based in the other side of the world?
How in Earth would “Serbia Vacuum Cleaners Corp.”, headquartered in Vietnam, hurt Serbian people in any meaningful way?
@tripu Emotions are a funny thing, they're not rational. It feels wrong because it does. "Serbia Vacuum Cleaners Corp." sounds appalling to me precisely because it has nothing to do with its namesake, Serbia the country, the people and the Serbian ethnic identity. It's also highly unlikely to be accidental, adding insult to injury.
“Emotions are a funny thing, they’re not rational.”
Precisely. That’s the crux of this. I think that everyone should strive to be rational in moral and political matters like these. Our instincts, biases and tastes lead us to unnecessary conflict.
“It feels wrong because it does.”
Apparently it does not feel wrong to some people. How would you persuade them, if not appealing to reason and rational arguments?
@tripu I wouldn't persuade them. I have no reason to.
I take issue with the stance that we should strive to be more rational in policy and ethics. I think that these things cannot be divorced from emotion. The very basis of morality is emotional, we don't want people doing immoral things because they scratch our emotional itch in a negative way.
Reason is grossly overrated in such matters. It was perfectly rational what Josef Mengele did. It was however, horrifically immoral.
I think we couldn’t disagree more 😆
“I wouldn’t persuade them. I have no reason to.”
Then why communicate at all? Why raise this particular issue? Just to vent a personal feeling that we know is not going to sway anyone or affect the world in any way? Why did you share your take on this?
“The very basis of morality is emotional, we don’t want people doing immoral things because they scratch our emotional itch in a negative way.”
I’d say we don’t want people to do immoral things because we have reasons to think those things are bad. Sometimes our emotional itch is triggered by the wrong stimuli (and vice versa: it overlooks reprehensible acts).
“It was perfectly rational what Josef Mengele did. It was however, horrifically immoral.”
You do realise that emotion works at least as badly here, right? As in: “to many people, it felt perfectly good what [pick your monster here] did. It was however, horrifically immoral.”
We use reason to tame and bend our instincts in a purposeful manner. That leads to more progress overall than trying to do the opposite.
@tripu All I'm trying to do is make an argument that emotions and reason are two sides of the same coin.
Our policy is at least as emotional as it is rational. Our justice system works on the bases of emotion, just look at the words thrown around there like "closure", "deserved", "guilty", "despicable", "shameful".
We have devised rational systems to contain and direct those emotions to a useful purpose, lest people take judgement into their own hands.