| padib said: Calling someone any name is a lack of respect. You might say someone lacks knowledge on a topic, but to call them ignorant is an insult to them, and not a judgement on their knowledge. I personally like this place because people are discouraged from insulting other people, and I think it much better represents how real life works. If you say I lack knowledge on a topic to my face, I won't be mad. If you tell me I'm ignorant, I may want to punch you. I don't see why it should be any different on the internet. |
ignorant adj. lacking knowledge or awareness in general
That's all. That's what it means. To get mad at the word and not at what the word means is cognitive dissonance in terms of how we use language. That's not "calling you a name" when the word isn't inherently mean-spirited. Calling someone "dumb" or "stupid" or "an idiot" is inflammatory because those are disparaging terms. "Ignorant" is not disparaging (neither was the particular word I got banned for). Otherwise, if you knew a lot about a topic and I said "you're intelligent", that's "calling you a name" as well. But instead of elaborating on how you know such much, I'd just settle for calling you intelligent. Same goes for ignorant.
Excerpt from this blog post: http://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/paul/ignorance-is-not-stupidity/
"In my opinion many people don't understand ignorance and take offense if you say they are ignorant about such and such. In fact being ignorant just means that you don't know something – it's not derogatory or a statement of blame. And it definitely does not mean that someone is stupid. However, time and again I see ignorance equated with stupidity."
Now, before you consider punching me in the face if I called you ignorant....because you said 2+2 = 5 for example, stop for a second and think about what the term means. Then you think "oh, he's correct". That's what the mods should have done when they banned me. But nope, like I said in my original post, we have to coddle to people's sensitivities, which apparently are the same as a 12 year old's.
The above argument is what I essentially pleaded to the mod to make him understand that my banning was unjustified, but apparently people take offense to easily on this site and it's those people who determine what anybody can say on this forum. Hence why I said that "toning down" isn't gonna work.
