The left has been speaking Smug for decades; it was only a matter of time until your average forum-poster begain picking bits of it up. Keep in mind that Smug is a unique dialect in that it doesn't have any unique words; it just takes existing words and gives them new, exciting, and misleading meanings.
A popular Smug word you've probably been seeing is "community". The Smug word "community" has a few differences from the English word.
Smug "communities" can think, can speak, can have feelings, can have desires, can do favors, can apologize, can have their minds changed, can make decisions, and can even have rights.
For speakers of Smug, "communities" are actually individuals. Therefore, the following forum posts would actually make sense:
The Starcraft community needs to admit it was wrong about Starcraft 2.
Starcraft is a computer game, and many players initially expressed doubt about its upcoming sequel.
It's time that I contributed something special to the community.
Yeah, that sounds awfully warm and fuzzy. You couldn't actually be contributing something to individuals.
I want to let the community decide which avatar I use.
Again, it's such a loving phrase, and using the words "individuals" or "users" would just be mean.
Are there other Smug words that you have noticed recently?
Don't allow leftists to play games with definitions! Some of the libertarian-leaning leftists at this forum will try to redefine "left-wing" back to its original defition (Third Estate, limited government, free-markets, laissez-faire reforms, etc.). Fine! We non-leftists can't stop them from using their own personal definitions; they can use whatever labels they want to describe any concept they want.However, they have the audacity to then use their personal definition of "left-wing" (remember, the original definition, which is no longer valid) to prove that modern leftists are more libertarian than modern rightists! They will say that libertarianism is "inherently leftist" (again, using the original, no longer valid definition), and use that to insist that we should prefer and side with modern leftists over modern rightists.
Question their motives.
:"Society should..." = You are hereby obligated to...
And I will remain skeptical about sc2 until I actually play it.
Oh, I'm very skeptical of it too! I'm shocked that they would include multiple-building-selection in a competitive game; it's like auto-aim for first-person shooters.
Ok, I can't edit my previous post... it just keeps refreshing the page when I hit send. I was going to add:
Yeah, those on the left love to pull that trick. They correctly realize that saying, "I will force you and everyone else to pay for this" would expose them for the scummish control freaks they are, so instead they say "society [or the community] needs to pay for this".
Sick.
I think I've been beginning to understand Smug. These are a few Orwellian words that are used rather frequently:
<i>Sharing.</i> This means, in English, a combination of haggling, bribery, and extortion taking place behind closed doors at political capitals. "Sharing," in most contexts, is extolled as a virtue, except when it is voluntary.
<i>Accountability.</i> This means requiring people to give an account for who they spend their money or live their lives. I suspect that advocates of "accountibility" secretly do not enjoy filling at tax returns or renewing their driver's licenses, but they do not hesitate to to demand added "accountability" for others nor do they see the need for people to be accountable for how they spend other people's money.
<i>Democracy.</i> This means the majority vote having the final say. Their is no subject off-limits to the voting public, and sacred to the individual. Leftist typically paint the authors of the Constitution as favoring democracy, when they actually disparaged it. <i>Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.</i> James Madison, the Father of the U.S. Constitution. Democracy usually involves "making your voice heard" by whatever means possible; <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.african.american/msg/c8668bd3662b0fa5">click here for an example.</a> Moreover, anybody who expresses views contrary to the Left is said to be "bad for democracy", implying that "voting is good, so long as only my vote counts".
Smug indeed!
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
ami gi, you have to remember that majority rule is freedom; individual choice is slavery.
Ego:ami gi, you have to remember that majority rule is freedom; individual choice is slavery.
That's sarcasm...right?
Coming from me it is!
Oh come on, guys. Even if we accepted methodological individualism (unless it's advanced extremely moderately, I don't; my kickball team can have features which cannot be coherently explained through the properties and desires of the individuals who compose it), we could still say that the Starcraft community needs to reconsider something, as long as we took it in the statistical sense: most/many members of the Starcraft community took a stance contrary to the stance that they should have taken, so they should reconsider. Holism doesn't require that we say that the community exists separate from its members.
Donny with an A:Holism doesn't require that we say that the community exists separate from its members.
Holism doesn't require that we say that the community exists separate from its members.
While I dislike using these words if I can avoid it, I think it's fine until we hit the issue of rights or obligations.
When a community gains certain rights over the individuals within it by vice of large numbers, or when the individual within a community is obliged to sacrifice something for the greater good, or when one community has more rights than another (again by vice of numerical superiority), then we have the problems. I imagine many people are easily tricked when these commonly accepted words are used against them, and so I prefer to immunise myself against it by avoiding them where possible. It's a bit like the concept of E-Prime.
I agree that groups of individuals "have features which cannot be coherently explained through the properties and desires of the individuals who compose it". Your kickball team can be smaller than my kickball team. However, your team can't "think", it can't "reconsider", and it can't "apologize". Individuals do.
The left loves to use language to personify groups (especially warm-and-fuzzy words like "community") because it helps them frame the argument that groups have rights and feelings.
Donny with an A: Holism doesn't require that we say that the community exists separate from its members.
A community exists seperate from its members, because it only includes its members for the time they spend acting in the interests of the group, and only to the extent that the members behavior is governed by the group. And the degree to which dissent within the group can constitute a contributing factor to the group itself is questionable.
But prerequisite to all that is the fact that any group can only be created through the opinions of those who define it.
Individuals extend themselves in a very limited fashion into a group. The group does not consciously absorb them, nor does it act without the action of those individuals being extended into the group.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
I think a community does does exist in the sense of people having commonalities, interests and consensus about issues. It's similar to (other) institutions.