# Content vs Context



## Jiehfeng (Jul 19, 2018)

From the comments:


			
				quantumperception said:
			
		

> Neurolinguist Robert Anton Wilson gave a lecture wherein he address what Bill Burr comments on, which is content vs context. Basically, how people can say hateful/stupid things, but if they avoid offensive words, they get away with it, while someone else could have a neutral/friendly comment, but use the wrong word, and it becomes offensive. He used the example: "San Francisco has become a Mecca for homosexual migration" vs "San Francisco is full of fags". The first has no bad words, but implies homosexuals are migratory creatures, and links them with Islam- a link neither group would appreciate. The second uses the wrong word, but is otherwise just factual. I've heard other great examples of this concept, and a recent was one "As a CIS white male, I believe our gender-normative relationships deserve more consideration than others, as we are able to procreate" vs "Let fags marry; what's the problem? Are you afraid that you might be queer, and its too much temptation?" The first is actually against gay  marriage, but avoids buzz words that are deemed offensive, and actually goes out of the way to use the "appropriate" words. The second again uses bad words, but is actually in support of gay marriage. The particular words do not make it hatespeech in my mind- it is the context/meaning behind the words. Living in the South, I know a few open-minded red-necks, who use words now deemed offensive, but are generally supportive of the groups that those words are meant to target. They might call Obama "colored", but in the context of praising him. They might say "queer", but they genuinely support gay equality. I get what they are trying to say, even if they are not quite as eloquent as others. And all too often, those who are good with language use it to disguise their hateful intent. Context over content, people- don't be fooled.



I really like what's said in both of these. This thread would've been in the off topic section, but just to be safe, it's here. Let's not get too serious like the other threads here.


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## Song of storms (Jul 19, 2018)

There are billions of people in this world that live normal lives and have internet access but are very, very dumb. Meaning that tricking them is incredibly easy. A lot of people will be enraged when you say "I really liked the book 'The n**** of the Narcissus'" but won't bat an eye when someone else says "people of color should be given less rights". There's this belief that, as long as you don't include any cuss words, your opinion is legit.


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## Jiehfeng (Jul 19, 2018)

DFdDFdefefecAADDFAADFGE said:


> There are billions of people in this world that live normal lives and have internet access but are very, very dumb. Meaning that tricking them is incredibly easy. A lot of people will be enraged when you say "I really liked the book 'The n**** of the Narcissus'" but won't bat an eye when someone else says "people of color should be given less rights". There's this belief that, as long as you don't include any cuss words, your opinion is legit.



Of course after the cuss words theory, there are many more factors that also render people to either immediately disagree or agree with something without plainly reviewing statements. There are so many of them, it all has to do with their assumptions, prejudices, and conditioning. More on that later though, right now it's about cuss words, and yes, it sadly does happen. An immediate mention of one is enough to block all of the person's mind from reviewing said statements and sorely make their judgements based on that, or being largely influenced by that indirectly.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 19, 2018)

Is mecca necessarily an Islamic concept? 100 years ago maybe but most things I have read from people since, assuming they are not quite literally talking about the various Muslim rites and rituals, would put it on par with a phrase like all roads lead to Rome, when in Rome, all the tea in China or any number of others on lists like http://www.cct-seecity.com/en/2016/07/english-idioms-the-world-and-its-places/ .


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## Jiehfeng (Jul 19, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Is mecca necessarily an Islamic concept? 100 years ago maybe but most things I have read from people since, assuming they are not quite literally talking about the various Muslim rites and rituals, would put it on par with a phrase like all roads lead to Rome, when in Rome, all the tea in China or any number of others on lists like http://www.cct-seecity.com/en/2016/07/english-idioms-the-world-and-its-places/ .



The word has its relations to an actual place in an Islamic country, but I doubt it's an Islamic concept. "A place with a strong appeal for the enthusiast" doesn't really sound like a concept any religion or culture can try to own, it's too broad of a concept for that. Thanks for that list, I very much like it.


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## Taleweaver (Jul 19, 2018)

Jiehfeng said:


> I really like what's said in both of these. This thread would've been in the off topic section, but just to be safe, it's here. Let's not get too serious like the other threads here.


So...not get serious in a matter that's in itself serious? Okay...I can do that! 

*warning in advance: attempt will fail*

To my own embarrasment, I had to learn on the workfloor that context often trumps content. Or like a former boss used to say to me "you were right...but it was the way you wrote it" after getting in trouble over sending out a mail concerning a certain issue. This was more advanced that simply avoiding offensive buzz-words, but it had to do with social connections, high horses and (I learned on hindsight) powerplay. Erm...the thing is, and neurolinguists know this as no other, that you need to establish rapport. Rapport is...erm... say, breaking the ice. That...whatever it is that you do that makes you separate from strangers. Something that'll say to the other "I'm one of you!" rather than "I'm an outsider". The thing that separates friends from strangers.

Ever wondered why your friends can make comments that you'll laugh at, whereas the same words from someone else can make you furious? That's not simply the buzz-words, but also (mainly) because you "know" your friend isn't evil.

<note: gotta finish this post later...gotta go>
EDIT: okay...where was I? 

Ah, yes...rapport. The thing is: the better you maintain rapport, the more you can get away with things. But it's also possible to break rapport. The usage of words that have a strong emotional undertone with the listener is one of those (words like "fag", "n****" or "nazi"). I can go about how to create these strong undertones (that's called 'anchoring'), but the point of it all is that words like these tend to have them with the general public.

It's risky to use these when among those whom you've got rapport (aka: friends), but it's worse when you don't have rapport. That's what, in a more technical way, what Bill Burr is saying. As a comedian, you're not talking to someone, but to an entire crowd. You can establish rapport with crowds, and when you've got a good audience they'll help you (a room where everyone's laughing out loud works much better than when it remains dead silence), but you can't help it if someone in row 7 sits there with crossed arms, a frown and "that guy is NOT funny!" on his face has his own opinion.

Either way: perhaps the best way (and most likely the fastest way) to get labeled as a public enemy/hater/whatever is to just use one of these words without abundant use of irony signals (winks, smileys, whatever the medium of communication is).

So the comment in the OP is pretty spot on: you often aren't attacked for your _opinion_, but rather than using these "buzzwords". That's because it instantly puts the speaker in a label, and it's extremely hard to "just hear the message". I mean...I don't know about you, but if Adolf Hitler reincarnated and made a speech about the importance about doing something about climate change, then my guts immediately tell me something's up. It simply cannot be that Hitler would endorse saving the planet (even though I'm _actually_ sort of in favor of, y'know...maintaining this planet in a working condition). Even though it would be sort of logical, and most people (including me) on a rational level simply have no idea what Adolf's stance on that matter would be. We just _assume_ the worst because we "know" the speaker is terrible...quite often, just because he uses words we're conditioned to reject.

...and you probably noticed that I'm using "we" quite a lot. Truth is that the people who have been labeled usually aren't necessary evil, corrupt or whatever we accuse them of. Since the #metoo movement, I've seen quite some accusations for behavior that was not that long before seen as flirting. that causes this group to grown and they have their own opinion on this whole "being labeled" thing.


Okay...I'll wrap up this rant with something I once heard before I got interested in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). It sort of summarizes the topic as well. And frankly: it's just to darn true NOT to share it 

"Diplomacy: the art of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that he'll look forward to the trip."


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## Jiehfeng (Jul 20, 2018)

Taleweaver said:


> So...not get serious in a matter that's in itself serious? Okay...I can do that!
> 
> *warning in advance: attempt will fail*
> 
> ...



Waiting for it to finish! 

This rapport you speak of does help in Customer Service no doubt, but that too doesn't always help when trying to convey a potentially offensive message. You may make it sound like you're one of them, make it sound like the person who you are speaking to is your friend, but if he gets the plain message you're trying to convey here, that 'tactic' won't help here, he may still get mad at you.

You can salad-dress the message however much you want, but the more you do it, the more the original message you were trying to convey is lost. That in turn gives the other person the opportunity to interpret the message even more easily to his liking, and depending on his mood; whether he is in the mood to get offended or laugh at a joke, he will bend the message to himself accordingly. 

As long as the original message is properly absorbed by the other person whether there was diplomacy in the message or not, a slightly intelligent person will react in the 'intended way' so to speak. It is with idiots that you can say anything to them in any sort of way and it may take months for them to realize what you actually told them...


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## Taleweaver (Jul 20, 2018)

Jiehfeng said:


> Waiting for it to finish!
> 
> This rapport you speak of does help in Customer Service no doubt, but that too doesn't always help when trying to convey a potentially offensive message. You may make it sound like you're one of them, make it sound like the person who you are speaking to is your friend, but if he gets the plain message you're trying to convey here, that 'tactic' won't help here, he may still get mad at you.
> 
> ...


Heh...I was writing on it when you wrote yours. 

Rapport helps either way. Of course it won't convince someone into a position that person really don't want (if the person already has a position), but even then it's more likely to end in a "let's agree to disagree" than actually getting mad.

Hmm...I'm not talking about salad-dressing, though. Hopefully the (now full) text clarifies things enough? 


To be honest, I really don't know to what degree intelligence comes into play as far as establishing report or being aware of becoming triggered by words are concerned. It's certainly not as simple as "the more intelligent someone is, the more he can oversee his/her own mental blocks and adapt to the ones others have to better convey an idea".


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## FAST6191 (Jul 20, 2018)

I was bored so I went on the ever fun ngrams viewer and books viewer
https://www.google.com/search?q="a mecca for"&tbm=bks&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1800,cd_max:1933&lr=lang_en

Seems to be a relatively new phrase (said ngram viewer goes back a bit further still and for other things I have had results) but even 100 years ago it was a general phrase.


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## Jiehfeng (Jul 20, 2018)

Taleweaver said:


> Heh...I was writing on it when you wrote yours.
> 
> Rapport helps either way. Of course it won't convince someone into a position that person really don't want (if the person already has a position), but even then it's more likely to end in a "let's agree to disagree" than actually getting mad.
> 
> ...



Yeah, more likely is key here. 

Salad-dressing as in conveying a message in a more lighthearted manner. By conveying a straightforward message in such a way that it seems friendly that then establishes a rapport as you put it.

And why isn't it that simple? Surely the more intelligent someone is, the less prejudiced and unaware he becomes, or vice versa. Such a person would be able to pick out what someone is actually saying, no matter what way or method of communication the other person uses. There can be other factors yes, that could possibly affect one's ability to spot his own blocks, but the underlying premise here is intelligence, when that is present, the higher the degree the better, the better that person gets at spotting his own faults. 



Taleweaver said:


> EDIT: okay...where was I?
> 
> Ah, yes...rapport. The thing is: the better you maintain rapport, the more you can get away with things. But it's also possible to break rapport. The usage of words that have a strong emotional undertone with the listener is one of those (words like "fag", "n****" or "nazi"). I can go about how to create these strong undertones (that's called 'anchoring'), but the point of it all is that words like these tend to have them with the general public.
> 
> ...



I wouldn't call that a rant. 

This is exactly what I don't like about what a lot of people do to be honest. To judge what someone says based on one's idea of another's personality or any other thing but the message itself, is to miss the message entirely. 
We're all conditioned to react, not to act. Whenever something happens or someone says something, we react to that immediately based on the immediate feeling we get that is a product of our own prejudices and beliefs. 
Let's say an insult is thrown at a person. Immediately that person will react by his past habits of being insulted, that's how it always goes. Just like how that person was accustomed to being insulted and reacting in a certain way, his habit is to react in the same way whenever a similar situation arises. What happens is that people don't respond to the current situation, no. They just go on repeating what they have done in the past. That's the same thing with these buzzwords. People are habituated to reacting in certain ways when these words are mentioned.

The right thing to do is to act instead. Act towards the current situation without letting your past influence your current response. That's how it should go. I believe this is the crux of all these emotional problems people have been having.



			
				From Osho said:
			
		

> A reaction is out of the past; a response is out of the present. You react out of the past old patterns. Somebody insults you, suddenly the old mechanism starts functioning. In the past people have insulted you, and you have behaved in a certain way; you behave in the same way again. You are not responding to this insult and this person, you are simply repeating an old habit. You have not looked at this person and this new insult—it has a different flavor—you are just functioning like a robot. You have a certain mechanism inside you, you push the button, you say, "This man has insulted me," and you react. The reaction is not to the real situation, it is something projected. You have seen the past in this man. It happened.
> Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples. A man came and spit on his face. He wiped it off, and he asked the man, "What next? What do you want to say next?" The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit on somebody's face, he will ask, "What next?" He had had no such experience in his past. He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted. Or if they were cowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe the man. But Buddha was like neither; he was not angry nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly. But just matter-of-factly he said, "What next?" There was no reaction on his part.
> Buddha's disciples became angry, they reacted. His closest disciple, Ananda, said, "This is too much, and we cannot tolerate it. You keep your teaching with you, and we will just show this man that he cannot do what he has done. He has to be punished for it. Otherwise everybody will start doing things like this."
> Buddha said, "You keep silent. He has not offended me, but you are offending me. He is new, a stranger. He must have heard from people something about me, that 'this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their track, a revolutionary, a corrupter.' And he may have formed some idea, a notion of me. He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion, he has spit on his idea of me—because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?
> ...


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## Taleweaver (Jul 23, 2018)

Jiehfeng said:


> Yeah, more likely is key here.
> 
> Salad-dressing as in conveying a message in a more lighthearted manner. By conveying a straightforward message in such a way that it seems friendly that then establishes a rapport as you put it.
> 
> And why isn't it that simple? Surely the more intelligent someone is, the less prejudiced and unaware he becomes, or vice versa. Such a person would be able to pick out what someone is actually saying, no matter what way or method of communication the other person uses. There can be other factors yes, that could possibly affect one's ability to spot his own blocks, but the underlying premise here is intelligence, when that is present, the higher the degree the better, the better that person gets at spotting his own faults.


Well...because there are different kinds of intelligence. One is good with language, another in math, yet someone else in people skills... There are obviously degrees of education, but knowing when to use what kind of knowledge isn't as easy in the actual real world as opposed to "on paper". This is also why a message can (and usually will) change, depending on the medium that's been used.

Of course, you can define intelligence as "understanding that whatever is being said/passed on usually isn't the whole story". In that case, you'd obviously be right. But then the number of intelligent people would go down. In fact: I bet that even the smartest people tend to have moments where they're being...erm...I guess "swayed" is the best description, as "manipulation" has other indications.

It's hard to think of a fitting example, but I think here's one. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, most countries (including yours and mine) took actions that loaded the burden of the debt to the innocents (tax payers) instead of the guilty party (the financial institutes). At hindsight, this was clearly wrong, and guarantees and warranties that had to be clearly negotiated just vanished (basically: tax payers got screwed...hard). A couple years after the facts, a reporter asked about this to a politician (I think it was congress, but I'm not sure). The guy sighed and admitted guilt. He said something among the following lines:
"it was the situation. We were on the brink of financial collapse, and were pressured to make a decision NOW. At that time, everyone pushed us toward that solution and we were almost powerless to resist. The worst thing was that it wasn't the first time. After 9/11, I remember that there was this enormous push to invade Iraq. On hindsight, this was a bad decision, and I vowed never to succumb to this kind of pressure again. And then the financial crash came, and the exact same thing happened."

Now...I have but my own memory on this one, but I tend to believe that this guy wasn't stupid or evil. Worse is that he was even _aware _of this "we need to be wary of the context not being right"...yet succumbed under pressure.



But back to the changing of mediums: in communicating, there are three main flaws that occur (note: NLP source material):
1) distortion. This is the main problem that Burr is talking about. Whenever he said "You fag!", it would better be written down as "You fag! " as to indicate that it was an inside joke with his friend. However, you can't speak smiley's. Whenever someone who misses this context passes this message along, based on the buzz word ("Burr is against gays because he used the word Fag!"), his words are being distorted. More specifically, the correct message would be "person X thinks Burr is against gays because he used a word", but you generally don't think that way if you know person X.
2) leaving out. Again: the whole context of in what situation used the word can be left out to create a completely different message. Leave out the fact that Burr said 'Fag' to his friend and that there's a mutual understanding, and you've got a completely different message
3) generalization: at least this one's a known one. Unfortunately, the left side tends to react a bit too strong on this one, causing stigma's and muting problems under other buzz words. If 76% of immigrants (strong note: FICTIONAL NUMBER!!!) cause problems, then revealing those numbers would cause you to be labeled a xenophobe because "there's a problem with migration" is seen as stigmatising the remaining 24% (result: the problem gets ignored).




Jiehfeng said:


> This is exactly what I don't like about what a lot of people do to be honest. To judge what someone says based on one's idea of another's personality or any other thing but the message itself, is to miss the message entirely.
> We're all conditioned to react, not to act. Whenever something happens or someone says something, we react to that immediately based on the immediate feeling we get that is a product of our own prejudices and beliefs.
> Let's say an insult is thrown at a person. Immediately that person will react by his past habits of being insulted, that's how it always goes. Just like how that person was accustomed to being insulted and reacting in a certain way, his habit is to react in the same way whenever a similar situation arises. What happens is that people don't respond to the current situation, no. They just go on repeating what they have done in the past. That's the same thing with these buzzwords. People are habituated to reacting in certain ways when these words are mentioned.


What can I say? It's been studied, and the actual content of what someone says is but 7% of the total. The circumstances, who said it, tone and those factors take the remaining 93%. Unfortunately, that number (which I've seen in more than one source) barely mentioned communication over the (written) internet.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 23, 2018)

"Surely the more intelligent someone is, the less prejudiced and unaware he becomes, or vice versa."
Leaving aside the points Taleweaver was making (of which there is much truth contained within) and dodging the discussion of general trends have you ever tried talking an intelligent person out of religion or "something they were raised to believe"?


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## Jiehfeng (Jul 23, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> "Surely the more intelligent someone is, the less prejudiced and unaware he becomes, or vice versa."
> Leaving aside the points Taleweaver was making (of which there is much truth contained within) and dodging the discussion of general trends have you ever tried talking an intelligent person out of religion or "something they were raised to believe"?



Yes I have. If they're hard on their conditioning and religion and don't really consider the facts presented at all, I then say they aren't very intelligent to the point where conditioning is also possible to drop easily. 
When I say intelligence, I of course don't mean knowledge. The distinction is that knowledge was once created by an intelligent person and then passed on from person to person, and just that information is called knowledge. Intelligence is like the capacity to see into things and problems with your own eyes, similar to common sense. Another distinction, it isn't intellectuality; where you can be a great scholar or someone big, but you're really throwing borrowed words from other people around that you've studied.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 23, 2018)

There is that way but I have seen it manifest differently in others.

One time I was speaking to a super religious medical doctor. Guy was a great doctor and could pull off doctor logic all day long with a good enough memory and thought process/overview of the various systems involved to make him one of the better ones. With that said he could switch it off in a moment and go to things said training (or indeed my not medic but still science background) would say are ludicrous (not quite psychic surgery level but not far off) and seemingly not suffer any dissonance.

Similarly I agree rote memory is not intelligence but the ability to recall "relevant" data and comprehend situations (even if it is just within their own framework) then is and I have seen that as well.


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## Jiehfeng (Jul 23, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> There is that way but I have seen it manifest differently in others.
> 
> One time I was speaking to a super religious medical doctor. Guy was a great doctor and could pull off doctor logic all day long with a good enough memory and thought process/overview of the various systems involved to make him one of the better ones. With that said he could switch it off in a moment and go to things said training (or indeed my not medic but still science background) would say are ludicrous (not quite psychic surgery level but not far off) and seemingly not suffer any dissonance.
> 
> Similarly I agree rote memory is not intelligence but the ability to recall "relevant" data and comprehend situations (even if it is just within their own framework) then is and I have seen that as well.



Such a guy has a sharpened and skillful mind to be able to do things like that, but again I don't think that's intelligence. To me, intelligence is something that comes from a source that is anything but the mind. Take a child for example who hasn't learnt much and you can see him/her figure out various things on his/her own accord, that kind of intelligence is what I'm talking about. The mind is always composed of the past, intelligence is something here and now that just comes out of nowhere that applies to the current situation without any help from the past. Skills like that are nice to have though.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 23, 2018)

The concept described in that definition is at best a cool party trick if it is left at that. In some psychology circles that would be called fluid intelligence (typically contrasted with crystallised intelligence).
I reckon that is something that can be if not taught then the baseline a person has refined and improved.


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