Well I'll be proudly labelled a "_____ denier" denier.
This pejorative term does nothing for anyone making any argument. It weakens your position because you're attempting to rely on emotions and psychology to make your case instead of... well, making your case!
It predictably has the reverse effect of your intention. Those who disbelieve you strengthen in their resolve because now not only do they disagree with you on a factual basis, but they also believe themselves to have been unfairly characterised in a pejorative way for their position. Dumb move, you had one obstacle, now you're made yourself have two.
If Christians went around calling Muslim's "Christ-deniers" instead of Muslims, how well do you think that would help tensions and resolution?
To me it's primitive and ineffective behaviour, and I lose respect for those who resort to it.
The unanswered question in some peoples' minds is the cause, not the effect. Like if you called people "forest fire deniers" for questioning whether it was arson or not.
The cause of increasing mean tempretures is well known, it's due to the increase in the insulating properties of the atmosphere, primarily (at the moment) from increased CO2 (along with water vapor, methane, other smaller changes).
We know the makeup of the atmosphere has changed from having "libraries" of atmospheric samples.
The source of increased CO2 is also known, we humans through industrial activity have mined many many billions of tonnes of fossil fuels (coal, oil) and released an excess of that gas into the atmosphere.
This is a change that is distinctly over and above natural variations in atmospheric makeup.
> If Christians went around calling Muslim's "Christ-deniers" instead of Muslims, how well do you think that would help tensions and resolution?
We could ask both of them to scientifically prove their faith and we’ll go with the successful one?
That’s facetious, of course, but it illustrates why this isn’t a valid comparison: religious faith is by definition dealing with things which cannot be measured scientifically while human-caused climate change has been the scientific consensus for half a century and has been rigorously tested using a wide variety of independent lines of evidence. Saying someone is denying that is valid because it’s a testable claim which can be rationally examined and independently confirmed, whereas a personal religious statement cannot because the successful religions in the modern era have evolved not to make claims which can be evaluated scientifically.
They’re called science denier, which isn’t much different, and “flat earther” has a significantly negative connotation as well. I think the term matters less than pushing things into the appropriate context: leave religion a person choice but reinforce the secular world as following rational principles.
I don't call them a science denier - which is about the most self-contradictory term anyone could come up with.
Science is the process of questioning and doubting prior science. You're not "denying science" to question science.
I call them "flat-earthers", as that's something that is usefully descriptive of their views and that they themselves seem happy to be called.
That is, it's a name that doesn't also necessarily insult them, which as I see it serves no useful purpose for anyone and simply causes antagonism and less of an ability to successfully communicate.
Which, by the way, is the only working solution to disagreement.
This type of response is called tone policing, which is often used against feminism or anti-racism advocates, who insist people use nice language while they are being denied basic existence:
We've tried raw science and data for more than 100 years when the oil industry correctly predicted our current levels of CO2, and then kept doing business as usual. We knew something was up around 1821, and had a firm grasp of the situation by 1861 (one eight six one):
Gladly. The response pretends to address the argument, but instead relies on another pejorative label rather than substantive commentary. It also tries to smear the original poster with an association to anti-feminist and anti-antiracist critics (while, I might add, conveniently recharacterizing those movements as merely calling for the use of “nice language”, and therefore apparently beyond criticism).
1. Tone policing is not a pejorative, it's just what they're doing. Saying "please sound nicer" IS tone-policing. If people don't like being told they're tone policing (lol), they should stop tone policing. Problem solved.
2. Association to racism and anti-feminism. Whether you choose to admit it or not, there IS a strong association between all of these. They didn't claim the original commentator was one, but they pointed out their argument is used by them, which is true.
And, the association is real and well understood. That doesn't mean it's a perfect association, like everyone who denies climate change hates women or something, but certainly the odds are higher. Because, generally, those beliefs stem from the same place. Conservative beliefs. Again, not all, but there ARE strings tying those together and they're not made up.
3. Lack of substantive commentary. Sorry, there isn't any to be provided. "Climate denier sounds bad" isn't really an argument, you can't disprove that. They're just noting that bending over backwards is ONLY really awarded to the most privileged. Meaning, nobody asks a climate denier to "sound nicer" when talking about the government. Just like nobody asks a racist to sound nicer in their racism, but if you call out a racist you could very well be told to sound nicer as to not scare them off. As if they're on the cusp of realization (lol).
More disingenuousness (or, perhaps, just lack of careful reading?).
1. The term “tone policing” was used here as a pejorative, discussion-terminating label. The response tagged the OP with that label and then did nothing to explain why this arbitrary tag mattered. The clear purpose was to discredit via name-calling.
2. Any association you perceive to exist to feminism and antiracism is irrelevant to this discussion. And you’re doing it again, by the way - lumping everyone under a label of “conservative beliefs” which nobody asked for. (I don’t fit that label at all, yet I agree with the criticism in the original post.)
3. “There isn’t any [substantive commentary] to be provided” almost perfectly encapsulates what is so grating and deficient about the rhetorical style and worldview on display in the response. “My position is so obviously right and self-evident that anyone who could dare to disagree with me shall be named and shamed, and not engaged with.” Had you paid some attention to the overall context of this discussion, you might have noticed, e.g., that one criticism of the label is that it’s being used against people who don’t deny climate change. Let that sink in.
> The term “tone policing” was used here as a pejorative, discussion-terminating label
Again, not a label, but an action. And it's not up for debate whether this was tone policing or not - it was, by the definition of tone policing. You could argue that it "ended the conversation" but I disagree. If you, or others, crumble and fold at even the slightest hint of critic I don't know what to tell you. I don't have that problem so maybe it's something you're doing, I don't know.
> Any association... is irrelevant
I was explaining the context, because yes that does matter.
> I don't fit that label
As I've said, it's not all inclusive or perfect. I don't even know why I bother writing careful if people are just gonna ignore it and lie about my intentions anyway.
> My position is so obviously right and self-evident
Again, if you actually read what I wrote I never said, implied, or even kind of implied this. What I said is that there's no argument to be had because these are just emotions.
I can't tell someone they aren't sad, or tell someone they aren't happy. That's not an argument, that's nothing. If you say you're some emotion about something then that's that, that's not a position that can be argued for or against.
I would receive this comment much easier if you were more honest. It's frustrating when I go through the effort to plainly explain my position and then someone like you can roll in and just... make things up. If you want to argue with made-up arguments then talk to a chatbot. I'm a person, you can't force an argument I didn't make on me because I don't accept it.
Your arguments are shifting like sand, and I think it’s because you don’t really want to discuss the crux of the issues I’ve raised. To simplify, I’m harping on two themes:
1. I think that labeling and stigmatizing are deficient forms of discourse. I am using these words to refer to the practice of attaching a loaded, in-group buzzword (such as “tone policing” or “privileged”) to a person or their ideas in a disqualifying or self-executing manner. I am also referring to the practice of smearing a person or their ideas by linking them to some other stigmatized group or idea.
The reason I think these techniques are deficient is that they have no chance of persuading people who are not already “in the fold”, and thus are not efforts at dialogue at all. They also tend to inflame, which is unproductive.
2. You (the generic “you”) don’t get to place your own ideas or beliefs beyond question. You don’t get to presume the correctness of your beliefs, and then use the fact that your opponent disagrees with you as proof that they are disqualified or worthy of stigma. You may think this works in your own mind, but others who do not share your beliefs will not accept it. So when you (the individual “you”) say “it's not up for debate whether this was tone policing or not,” you are wrong because you don’t get to decide what is up for debate. (It’s actually kind of ironic that you said this, because I actually don’t think the original post was an example of so-called “tone policing”.)
I think these two rhetorical tactics, and what I perceive as a certain kind of smug arrogance underlying them, have been very damaging to public discourse in recent years. I would go so far as to say that they are largely responsible for the world having to suffer a first Trump administration, and now possibly a second.
> If Christians went around calling Muslim's "Christ-deniers" instead of Muslims, how well do you think that would help tensions and resolution?
They'd probably laugh a bit; Muslims consider Jesus to be a legitimate prophet, just not the last.
That aside, religious stuff like "was Jesus the Messiah?" isn't quite the same as "is climate change happening". Some of the fervor around it may be religious-like, but the core facts are... facts.
Stop trying to lump a heterogenous collection of people with various views, opinions and concerns into a single term whereby you can conveniently dismiss them.
They have the common feature of, being glad to trade our lives for money. It's a helpful and useful label for people standing in the way of efforts to save our ecology and civilization.
That's what words are for. Nobody is going to stop because you're upset at being correctly labelled.
I mean when people are ignoring facts, to the point that its probably going to hurt people, I feel like I'm justified in trying to know who they are, like "transphobe", "racist", "ableist", "climate change denier". I'm aware that JK Rowling and Graham Linehan probably have various views, opinions and concerns, but neither of them want me and my friends to exist
I'm not dismissing the views of people who don't agree with climate change because two people are transphobic. I'm dismissing their views on climate change because of the wealth of scientific evidence we have that climate change is a thing that humans have caused
The problem is "people who disagree with climate change" is too poorly defined to be useful.
This is the pattern: group A comes up with a label for their enemy. They make some progress on getting everyone else to hate that group. Then group B comes along and decides to piggyback on that label for their own slightly different enemy. Rinse and repeat until you get this frankenbullshit:
> The report defined climate deniers as those who say that the climate crisis is not real or not primarily caused by humans, or claim that climate science is not settled, that extreme weather is not caused by global warming or that planet-warming pollution is beneficial.
Eventually, the label becomes useless for actually understanding what a person thinks because there are so many OR clauses in it. Despite this, people still use it for making actual judgements. The net result is the social climate today, where everyone righteously hates everyone.
A-fucking-men. That's our single largest development of the last 20 years or so: not smartphones, not AI, not social media. We developed the confident, decisive, emotional, and wrong use of fuzzy bullshit labels that mean something slightly different to everyone using them.
People are too busy being pious and righteous to be precise enough to actually communicate a point.
Frankly, the belief that massive increases in fossil fuel emissions have no appreciable impact on the Earth's climate is risible. People have a right to believe what they want, but we also have a right to ridicule and deride people for holding delusional beliefs.
Mainstream beliefs should be able to stand up to scrutiny and you're allowed to challenge them. But your challenge should have some basis in reality. If you constantly deny decades of accumulated evidence because it's mainstream orthodoxy, you're going to find yourself aligning with the flat-earthers and holocaust deniers.
This pejorative term does nothing for anyone making any argument. It weakens your position because you're attempting to rely on emotions and psychology to make your case instead of... well, making your case!
It predictably has the reverse effect of your intention. Those who disbelieve you strengthen in their resolve because now not only do they disagree with you on a factual basis, but they also believe themselves to have been unfairly characterised in a pejorative way for their position. Dumb move, you had one obstacle, now you're made yourself have two.
If Christians went around calling Muslim's "Christ-deniers" instead of Muslims, how well do you think that would help tensions and resolution?
To me it's primitive and ineffective behaviour, and I lose respect for those who resort to it.