ambiguity

Comment Of The Day: “Trevor Noah’s Critics”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Bravo: a  deft,  quirky and thought-provoking comment about “how difficult writing and reading is and how easy misunderstandings are born”—and my own careless—or not!—phrasing was the writing at issue.

Here is Zanshin’s Comment of the Day on the post, Trevor Noah’s Critics:

Jack,

In the sentence,

version 1. We should respect consistent standards and integrity instead of hypocrisy, not treat them like they are qualifications for sainthood.

I guess you meant expect instead of respect.

version 2: We should expect consistent standards and integrity instead of hypocrisy, not treat them like they are qualifications for sainthood.

And even then, I, with English as a second language, would read ‘ should expect’ firstly as “To consider likely or certain” but given the current climate that is not a given anymore. Therefore, to emphasize the (intended?) meaning of ‘expect’ as “To consider obligatory; require” the following sentence would have been clearer to me,

version 3:We should demand consistent standards and integrity instead of hypocrisy, not treat them like they are qualifications for sainthood.

Flash of insight: By pondering your sentence and rewriting it I realized that your sentence is fine but that I bracketed the sentence in a wrong way; which is made possible given the complexity of two polarities involved in this sentence:

a. consistent standards and integrity versus hypocrisy
b. [treat them with] respect versus treat them like they are qualifications for sainthood

Lets name the different parts of the sentence,

A: [should respect
B: consistent standards and integrity
C: hypocrisy
D: treat them like they are qualifications for sainthood

The bracketing I now think you meant is: { A { B_C } } versus { D }

The bracketing I understood first was: { A { B } versus { C } } versus { D }

But in bracketing the sentence in my way, ‘respect’ felt awkward once reading part D. That’s when I backtracked to A and thought-up ‘expect’. while thinking, “Just another typo by Jack and/or wrongly suggested/inserted word by the word processor.” Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: Further Observations On The NAACP’s Self-Made African-American Exec

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments
Space Teacher would have a word with you...

Space Teacher would have a word with you…

Extradimensional Cephalopod, Ethics Alarms’ mysterious, erudite, squid-like commenter, offers this fascinating, if puzzling, perspective on the Rachel Dolezal scandal. I think he’s agreeing with my conclusion that this episode exposes the absurdity and corrupting effects of the progressive obsession with race. I don’t know that this was really told to him by a “space alien elementary school teacher,” but it may well have been said by someone who self-identified as one, and if so, what difference, at this point, does it make?

Here is EC’s Comment of the Day on the post, Further Observations On The NAACP’s Self-Made African-American Exec. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Flying the Confederate Flag…”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Blogger Edward Carney, who writes about the revelations of daily life (check out his blog here) put his finger on a central issue in the Confederate flag debate in his Comment of the Day.  Flying or displaying the provocative banner sends multiple messages simultaneously, and the individual responsible for the flag  is also responsible for the consequence of all of them. Claiming that one means no offense while knowing that one of the messages is unequivocally offensive is disingenuous,  naive, or willfully rude.

Here is the Comment of the Day on the post, “Flying the Confederate Flag..”:

“I’ll say this for those citizens and politicians who insist on flying the Confederate flag at local monuments and public events: at least they can make the argument that it represents history and a set of values that is still acceptable, even laudable, today. They can make that argument, however disingenuous it may be. The same cannot be said of everyone. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“Maybe there’s only one revolution, since the beginning, the good guys against the bad guys. Question is…who are the good guys?”

—Bill Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) in the 1966 Western “The Professionals,” script by Richard Brooks, from the novel by Frank O’Roarke. He is responding to a question from the horse wrangler played by Robert Ryan, who asks why Dolworth and other Americans had fought in the Mexican revolution.

Lancaster’s casual reflection turns out to be significant, because the whole movie hinges on the problems arising from mistaking good guys for bad guys and vice versa. In ethics and in life, it is useful to remember that the people we think are wrong, misguided, ill-motivated, irresponsible and unethical often think the same of us, and might even be right. Even more disturbing is the possibility, always present, that an individual we admire, follow and look to for guidance and inspiration may be one of “the bad guys.”