The issue is Grice’s “maxim of quantity”. It’s a linguistic model of how we speak to each other - we provide the appropriate amount of information, and no more. Providing a surplus of details “for context” immediately puts people on guard because it quite literally is suspicious.
Breaking the maxim of quantity in this way is like saying “asbestos-free cereal!” It’s a detail that wasn’t necessary for context, and so its inclusion seems intentionally designed to communicate some implicit information that we’re meant to understand.
No, you don’t need to say “all slavery is bad” when someone says “slavery is bad” because that was an unnecessary detail to add in context.
People don’t need to defend themselves to you and say “you’re right, indentured servitude and prison labor are bad, so white slavery is bad too” because they weren’t talking about those things. They were talking about slavery as it is protrayed in RDR2 and you seem to be trying to change the conversation.
Another example:
It’s like a Nazi meme saying it’s good that >Jewish< genocide has stopped… But that implies that any other genocide is of no interest and will not be criticized.
But yes defend your rassist hateful shit point telling other then black slavery is ok!
According to Grice’s “maxim of quantity”. Would that apply to black before the word slavery. The detail is already too much and says even more.
Very close, but not quite. It’s like showing up on a post sometime in the future celebrating an end of Palestinian genocide… and saying “it’s good that Jewish genocide stopped”.
That wouldn’t be wrong, it is good to stop genocide, no matter the kind. But it’s suspicious that someone felt the need to show up and say that particular thing in that particular place. That additional context seems to be placed there to implicitly communicate something in particular.
The issue is Grice’s “maxim of quantity”. It’s a linguistic model of how we speak to each other - we provide the appropriate amount of information, and no more. Providing a surplus of details “for context” immediately puts people on guard because it quite literally is suspicious.
Breaking the maxim of quantity in this way is like saying “asbestos-free cereal!” It’s a detail that wasn’t necessary for context, and so its inclusion seems intentionally designed to communicate some implicit information that we’re meant to understand.
No, you don’t need to say “all slavery is bad” when someone says “slavery is bad” because that was an unnecessary detail to add in context.
People don’t need to defend themselves to you and say “you’re right, indentured servitude and prison labor are bad, so white slavery is bad too” because they weren’t talking about those things. They were talking about slavery as it is protrayed in RDR2 and you seem to be trying to change the conversation.
Another example:
It’s like a Nazi meme saying it’s good that >Jewish< genocide has stopped… But that implies that any other genocide is of no interest and will not be criticized.
But yes defend your rassist hateful shit point telling other then black slavery is ok!
According to Grice’s “maxim of quantity”. Would that apply to black before the word slavery. The detail is already too much and says even more.
Very close, but not quite. It’s like showing up on a post sometime in the future celebrating an end of Palestinian genocide… and saying “it’s good that Jewish genocide stopped”.
That wouldn’t be wrong, it is good to stop genocide, no matter the kind. But it’s suspicious that someone felt the need to show up and say that particular thing in that particular place. That additional context seems to be placed there to implicitly communicate something in particular.