May I have a quick rant please?

[Canrider]

Language is fluid, changeable, and can be adapted by a speaker to fit a particular audience. If the meaning is clear, the terminology is secondary.

 

[Andy in Sig]

think again. The original post made the point that the person was American. In response a number of people then gave us the benefit of their insight into 'Americans'. That is a response born of prejudice. And prejudice against (or, perhaps, for) a group of people on the grounds of some defining characteristic which is independent of their individual opinions, behaviour and such like is racism. Don't give me the little game which says that you can't be racist in respect of the French, Sikhs, Jews or whatever because they're not defined by the colour of their skin and the shape of their nose.

That is worthy of one observation: a lot of people who were posting on the subject of the citizens of the Great Cultural Vacuum were doing so as a result of having had experience of them (postjudice?). Prejudice can only come from people who bang on about things of which they have no experience (where's Bonj when you need him?). It's daft but probably fun, to condemn a whole culture on the basis of having had dealings with one prat but what if after a while and a lot of contact with members of that culture, you come to the general conclusion that they are mostly prats? When does your view, formed on experience, stop being a prejudice? I suppose it would then be dismissed as stereotyping.

It's nonsense to pick on somebody for what they are genetically (i.e. racism) because nobody can help how they are born but it seems to me that people are fair game culturally because a culture is what people do. I'm not saying that you can't be prejudiced against a culture but there probably comes a point when you can reasonably dismiss or condemn it. E.g. I, like most Brits, have been exposed to masses of US popular culture all my life and have met a
fair few Americans and on the whole I think there culture is crap. I'm similarly dismissive of Islamic culture in general because of the way it treats women.
But none of that is based on prejudice, rather on disappointment.

 

[bonj2]

And prejudice against (or, perhaps, for) a group of people on the grounds of some defining characteristic which is independent of their individual opinions, behaviour and such like is racism.

er... no, prejudice against a race of people on the grounds of some defining characteristic ... is racism! Not just any group!

"You're a nonce. You're a perv. You're a slot badger. You're a two pin din plug. You're a bush dodger. You're a small bean regarder. You're a una bummer. You're a nut administrator. You're a bent ref. You're The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. You're a fence vole. You're a free willy. You're a chimney bottler. You're a bunty man. You're a shrub rocketeer."
"Yes, well, you've just mentioned some of the names we have to put up with on a daily basis, and it's just another form of racism!"

Is it racism?

 

[bonj2]

I am currently disturbed by the way that the terminology 'porn' is used in the media, particularly around the visual arts - as in 'Torture porn' in relation to horror movies and the new one 'autopsy porn' in relation to silent witness (as seen in today's Guardian).

is bike porn ok?
I know what you mean though, you certainly get far too much 'operation porn' on programmes like casualty.

 

[Arch]

is bike porn ok?
I know what you mean though, you certainly get far too much 'operation porn' on programmes like casualty.

I find it much easier to watch Casualty in black and white than I did in colour...