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Zkuq on 12 May 2017
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glimmer_of_hope said:
Zkuq said:

The first statement claims that everyone that's to the left is against free speech. The second statement claims that several groups that are to the left are against free speech. 'Several groups' does not cover everyone that's to the left. First, it doesn't cover individual people. Second, there are left-leaning groups that aren't against free speech. What you're claiming (indirectly) is that 'all' and 'several'  are the same thing. It's quite comparable to claiming that 'all' and 'some' are the same thing.

All Canadians love hockey, All Americans love baseball. Do they? No! But in the eyes of the person who says that, they are meaning the vast majority does. So is that how we are going to live life? "98.8465382046364362634803332% Canadians love hockey, and don't you dare just say Canadians love hockey because you are wrong" If I turn that around and say "98.8465382046364362634803332% Canadians love hockey" people are going to laugh and say "your right all canadians love hockey" Thats what I mean by saying the same thing!! 

So clearly when I say "what does the left have against freedom of speech" Clearly it does not mean 100% It just means the vast majority in my opinion.

You don't seem to understand the importance of context. If you say 'Canadians love hockey', no one's going to object most of the time because, like you said, it's understood as a generalization. But if there's a Canadian that doesn't like hockey in the room, they might just point out you're wrong. Most of the time, you're probably OK saying all Canadians love hockey because most Canadians really do love hockey (or at least I'm assuming so). However, saying all Canadians love hockey, which you used in your example, is an even stronger statement because it contains the word 'all' containing extra information. You didn't just cut it short, you actually gave (false) extra information. In a discussion, there's probably a slightly higher chance that someone might point out your error even if they're not a Canadian who doesn't like hockey.

Anyway, that went a bit off-topic, I suppose, although it did have a point. Getting back to context now. When you say 'the left are against free speech', it similar to provoking the Canadians that don't love hockey, only there's evidently even more leftists who don't oppose free speech because they're being quite loud about your generalization. They didn't like being lumped together in your generalization because it makes them look bad, whether you intended it that way or not. Context is funny like that, and in political contexts, it would be wise to choose your words very carefully. Or, conversely, not choosing your words carefully can be extremely stupid in a political context unless you want to create a shitstorm.