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?
I was not attempting to change my definition. I was attempting to clarify things for you.
Oh come off it. You tried to change your definition two paragraphs after you wrote it in post #1786, when you started disappearing "power or" down the memory hole.
Years ago I realized that in certain discussions it was important to be really, really wordy because assuming that other posters could or would ask for clarification was unrealistic. I now realize that I should have gone on for a few paragraphs about the meaning of the term and included several dictionary definitions. I also realize I made a slight error in punctuation. I should have written my initial comment this way:
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.
Why do you imagine that makes any difference to the definition whatsoever? Definitions say what a word is used to mean; they do not say what a word is not used to mean. "The term triangle is used to indicate a plane figure with three straight sides and three angles; it is not used to indicate a dingo." doesn't actually add anything substantive to the part preceding the semicolon.
The term "oppression" is not used to indicate mutual hostilities, warfare, civil strife, or similar conditions in which two or more parties engage in an exchange of violent acts and aggression with each other. We have other words for mutual bloodletting. It is used when individuals in positions of power (popes, kings, emperors, dictators, etc. ), or groups in positions of power (white supremacists in the Jim Crow era, Japanese troops in Nanking in the 1930s, the Khmer Rouge, etc.), exercised their power over other individuals or groups in unjust and abusive ways.
Obviously. And the reason you keep harping on that point we both obviously already agree with appears to be as a rhetorical tactic you use to libelously pretend that I have been using it to indicate such activities, and to libelously pretend that the countless Israeli civilian victims of Palestinian war crimes over the last century were themselves engaged in mutual bloodletting, mutual hostilities, warfare, civil strife, or similar conditions in which two or more parties engage in an exchange of violent acts and aggression with each other. You are writing apologetics for terrorists. Every time you say "mutual hostilities" or some other phrase likewise minimizing Palestinian atrocities, you are de facto saying "There's no such thing as an Israeli civilian." "There's no such thing as an Israeli civilian." is a very racist thing to say.
If the Palestinian resistance against Israel had been attacking military targets instead of knifing some random woman on a bus then it would not be oppression, I would not have called it oppression, and if I had been stupid enough to call that oppression then you'd have been justified in lecturing me about mutual bloodletting. But that's not the world we're in; that random woman on the bus was not bloodletting; and you implying she was is libelous.
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?
You are misreading my posts.
The rapes, kidnapping, and murders carried out by Hamas in Israel in October were acts of terrorism and crimes against humanity. We call them that because they fit the definition of the terms 'terrorism' and 'crimes against humanity'.
IMO they were not instances of oppression because they do not fit the definition of the term 'oppression'.
Why do they not? Give your answer in terms of your original definition that I agreed to, without bringing in extraneous criteria like "institutional", or else confess that you're trying to change the definition.
You apparently think they do but you have not yet explained your reasoning.
Stop making false claims about how the discussion has gone. It's all available for anyone to check. I explained my reasoning perfectly clearly in post #1886. I systematically went through all the criteria in the agreed definition and pointed out that each one was satisfied. If you don't recognize that as an explanation, what do you think the word "explanation" means? What, was I supposed to add some extraneous criterion and pretend it was part of the definition? Was I supposed to make an appeal to have Israelis outrank Palestinians on the progressive stack?
I think at this point it is up to you to be really, really wordy in your response and to explain more fully what you mean.
Here it is again, with extra wordiness:
A. That assaults, rapes, kidnappings and murders are an exercise of power is a plain fact. Disputing that would take an extraordinary level of self-deception.
Do you dispute that?
B. That they are an exercise of "power or authority" follows by elementary logic from the fact that they are an exercise of power.
Do you dispute that?
C. This brings us to "unjust". Why are you making an issue of whether I am appealing to emotion? Don't you use words to appeal to emotions? Whether what Palestinians have done was unjust
is a moral question. All moral arguments are appeals to emotion. "Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions". Do you disagree with Hume about that -- do you think you know a way to tell right from wrong without applying your emotional moral sense? Or do you have a general objection to moral arguments -- are you suggesting we should decide what people should do without consideration of morality? Or do you perhaps disagree with my moral claims? Do you disagree that raping is unjust? Do you disagree that kidnapping noncombatants is unjust? Do you disagree that targeting noncombatants for death or grievous bodily harm is unjust?
Do you dispute that the rapes, kidnapping, and murders carried out by Hamas in Israel in October, that you called "acts of terrorism and crimes against humanity",
were unjust?
D. That leaves us with abuse. "1. the improper use of something. 2. cruel and violent treatment of a person or animal." Take your pick. That what Palestinians did to Israelis was cruel and violent is a plain fact. See A. Whether it was improper use of their power is a moral question. See C. I claim the attackers used their power improperly. Do you disagree?
Do you claim what Palestinians did to Israelis wasn't cruel and violent? Do you claim it was a proper use of their power?
I have just asked you five simple yes-or-no questions. If you intend to continue to claim the Oct. 7 attacks were not instances of oppression because they do not fit the definition of the term 'oppression', going by the above agreed definition, then
answer those five questions.
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.
The IDF and settlers have been targeting non-Jewish Palestinian non-combatants for murder and mayhem for decades. That, too, is prolonged, cruel, and unjust, and it comes on top of ethnic cleansing and theft of property.
Why did you write that? Did I claim the Israelis aren't oppressing the Palestinians?
Or do you think what you said is somehow relevant to the question of whether Palestinian treatment of Israelis has been prolonged, cruel, and unjust? Are you proposing that
it is just? That Israelis
deserve what Palestinians have been doing to them? If so, why? For going to rock concerts and riding buses, or for being born Israeli? Or are you proposing that we should analyze the question of whether Israelis have been subjected to prolonged, cruel, and unjust treatment not by checking the facts but by checking their standings in the Oppression Olympics?
-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.
I believe I have already addressed ^this^ but feel free to repost any particular points you want to discuss more fully.
That depends on you. I showed why what Palestinians have done to Israelis satisfies all the definitions you went definition-shopping for, except the one that was obviously engineered to create a double standard letting those high on the progressive stack off the hook, much like "racism = prejudice + power". If you want to rely on one or more of those definitions to claim the Palestinians don't oppress the Israelis, tell me which definition you want us to switch to and we'll discuss it more fully. If you're willing to stick with your original definition, we can move on.
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
So you don't want to talk about whether or not Palestinians are oppressing Israelis. You just want to say that they are.
Correct. Like I said from day one, 'You want to bandy words over technicalities about the definition of "oppression"? Seriously? Does it also depend on what the definition of "is" is?' They're obviously oppressing Israelis, and we've had this long debate on this dumb issue because you wanted to bandy words over technicalities about the definition of "oppression", for reasons best known to you. But the fact that it's you and not me that wanted this debate in no way alters the reality that I'm right and you're wrong, as every round in our drawn-out debate has helped confirm.
I understand why you want to say the Palestinians are oppressing the Israelis. And why you don't want to use the term 'apartheid' to describe the system of bigotry and bias that exists in Israel.
Do you? It's because progressives' double standard on just about everything related to Israel appalls me.
I do not agree with your attempt to cast Israel as the victim of oppression or name-calling.
You say "the victim" as if a victim were a Highlander. Apparently there can be only one.
