I often do. But I don't create eccentric definitions for words to make my arguments more emotionally resonant at the cost of being accurate.
Excuse me?!? Where the bejesus did you see me "create eccentric definitions for words"?!? I have systematically stuck strictly to the definition of oppression
that you posted upthread. If you've now decided the definition is eccentric,
that's on you.
The definition I posted upthread? You mean where I said "The term oppression is used to indicate an exercise of unjust and abusive power or authority by one person or group over another. It is not used to indicate mutual hostilities between parties."
Yes! For about the ninetieth time, yes!
Or do you mean the one in the link to the Cambridge dictionary which defines it as <snip>
No, obviously. Why would I cooperate with your attempt to change your definition after you already posted it and I accepted it?
Both definitions I provided refer to an exercise of institutional power by one person or group over another
Where are you getting that? Our agreed definition didn't say "institutional power"; it said "power". What is the point of trying to retroactively insert "institutional" into the definition other than to rationalize a double standard that lets wrongdoing on one side off the hook?
, not just people fighting over something.
That's right, a rapist and a rape victim are "just people fighting over something". It's like when you implied rapes, kidnappings and murders were "Fighting, strife, insurrection, resisting occupation, resisting colonization". Why do you keep doing that?
I asked you "What definition of the term 'oppression' do you use, and how do you decide who is oppressing whom?" You haven't given me an answer except to say you were using common definitions.
That is a falsehood. I have told you exactly what definition I'm using. If you're forgetting how our discussion has gone because I'm responding slowly, my apologies -- a lot on my plate.
A quick
Google search yields several common definitions including
-
prolonged cruel or
unjust treatment or control
-the state of being subject to unjust treatment or control.
Palestinians have been targeting Israeli noncombatants for murder for decades. That is prolonged, cruel, and unjust.
-historical and organized patterns of mistreatment
So are you proposing that Palestinian war crimes against Israeli civilians aren't historical, or aren't organized, or aren't mistreatment?
-a combination of prejudice and institutional power that creates a system that regularly and severely discriminates against some groups
And as we have recently been told, "plagiarism" means "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own,
plus power".
-when a person or group in a position of power controls the less powerful in cruel and unfair ways
So do you feel cutting the throat of the adjacent rider on a bus fails to control her? Do you feel it isn't cruel? Do you feel it's a fair way to control her? Or are you arguing that the attacker with the knife is less powerful than the rider with her throat cut?
-Unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power especially by the imposition of burdens
Are you arguing that taking a child across a border and holding him prisoner in some tunnel he can't be rescued from is not burdensome on him?
-oppression entails a state of asymmetric power relations characterized by domination, subordination, and resistance, where the dominating persons or groups exercise their power by restricting access to material resources and by implanting in the subordinated persons or groups fear or self-deprecating views about themselves…. Oppression, then, is a series of asymmetric power relations between individuals, genders, classes, communities, nations, and states.
So are you arguing that when a girl at a music festival is raped by a terrorist, he doesn't restrict access to material pepper spray she would need in order to ward him off, but allows her go get some and come back with it before he continues the rape? Or are you arguing he doesn't implant any fear in her while he's holding her down and stripping off her clothes? Or that he doesn't dominate her and subordinate her? Or that she doesn't try to resist his penetration of her? Or are you perhaps arguing that the two have a symmetrical power relation because she rapes him too?
The common definitions of oppression incorporate the concept of a more powerful group imposing unfair restrictions on a less powerful group.
Actually, most of the ones you quoted don't say it has to be group-on-group. Moreover, the terrorists as a group are clearly more powerful than the victims as a group. When you rape somebody and claim she's more powerful than you, the fact that she was unable to stop you from raping her proves you're a liar.
It does not describe the condition of mutual hostilities between groups,
And... there you go again. Finding an unarmed innocent bystander and slashing her to death is "mutual hostilities".
which is why I said you are using an eccentric definition.
You posted the definition; all I did was quote you and apply it.
And it appears to me you are using the term as an appeal to emotion. You want to argue that Palestinians are oppressing Israelis even though that has never happened in the modern State of Israel.
The people whose loved ones are on the posters of kidnap victims that left-wingers keep ripping down might possibly disagree with you about that.
What definition of oppression are you using, and how do you determine who is oppressing whom?
Asked and answered, repeatedly. "The term oppression is used to indicate an exercise of unjust and abusive power or authority by one person or group over another." I determine who is oppressing whom by comparing actions with that definition, using logic, instead of inserting extraneous criteria like "institutional" whenever I need to to let one side off the hook.
Believing you are making an appeal to emotion means I disagree that reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions?
That's one possibility. Another possibility is that you weren't implying there was anything wrong with making an appeal to emotion and brought up the issue for no reason. Another possibility is that you were simply being inconsistent. Explain yourself or don't, your option.
My definition aligns with the one in the
Cambridge dictionary. What dictionary are you using?
I'm not using a dictionary;
Ah.
I think I see the problem.
If you want to talk about what oppression is, and what it is not, please post the definition you are using. If it can be found in a dictionary, even better.
I have posted it many times, and so have you; and in case you've forgotten, you're the one who wanted to talk about what oppression is. Which part of
the technicalities of whether "oppression" is the right word are immaterial to the fundamental issue: the cycle of revenge the Israelis and Palestinians are caught in is deeply misrepresented by equating it with Afrikaaners mistreating black South Africans without provocation.
didn't you understand?
