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I wish people would learn what the hundred flowers campaign was and not use such dumb and insensitive titles for their blog posts. It's like calling it "the fin
by jordigh 11y ago
I wish people would learn what the hundred flowers campaign was and not use such dumb and insensitive titles for their blog posts. It's like calling it "the final solution to the twitter problem".
- iak8god 11y agoYikes. I'm a little ashamed to admit I had to look this up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign Hopefully this blog post's author was unaware of the hundred flowers campaign. In any case it's very helpful of you to point this out so this meme doesn't get passed along by those of us ignorant of this bit of history.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Confusion 11y agoI wish people would learn that words and phrases can acquire meanings of their own, independent of original meanings, origins and associations. "Let a thousand flowers bloom" has an entirely clear and positive meaning for the vast majority of English speakers.
- jordigh 11y agoAnd Thailand does love Hitler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_imagery_in_Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_imagery_in_Thailand
- Confusion 11y agoDo you really believe Mao was the first to ever use something equivalent to the phrase 'Let a hundred flowers bloom' in any language? That thought, and that expression, has many sources older than him.
- mikeash 11y agoAs, no doubt, does "final solution." But that's really not something you'd want to use casually.
- Confusion 11y agoEndlösung is a word I would not casually use. 'Final solution' is not a phrase I have ever thought twice about.
- mikeash 11y agoI would suggest you think twice about it now, then, because if you use "final solution" then you're going to cause a significant portion of your audience to immediately think of the Holocaust. If your intent is to communicate with people rather than simply be technically correct, it's not a good phrase to use unless you actually intend that association.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoIt's also subject to many fallacies, not the least of which is the Inductive Fallacy. I wouldn't use it as part of any argument as it will likely lead you to miss important details and cannot lead you to valid conclusions.
- Confusion 11y agoWell, it's all fine and well that I learn that here now, but many other non-native English speakers will not realize/understand/feel the same thing and will never learn about it. Complaining that they are insensitive isn't going to change that and is, in fact, culturally insensitive in itself. It doesn't really make sense to me that a regular phrase like 'final solution', which has been used as a rather awkward translation of 'endlösung', would have gotten the same connotation as the word itself. I must have said "so we end up with a final solution of ..." countless times and I've never noticed a thing.
- 11y ago
- btbuildem 11y agoUnless you know about "let a hundred flowers bloom", then it immediately acquires a meaning at best sinister. Ignorance should not be an excuse for callousness.
- gherkin0 11y ago> Ignorance should not be an excuse for callousness. Oh yes, someone is callous unless she learns the sensitivities of every person and group in the world, and then avoids them all whenever posting anything on the web. Or, you know, we could just be more forgiving and understanding of each other.
- forrestthewoods 11y agoActually it is an excuse. Callousness is about intent. Someone isn't being callous if they have no idea.
- Dirlewanger 11y agoShouldn't be surprised to see so many people tripping over each other to be offended on this site. I'd think that the same diverse group would also be cognizant enough to know that not every person visiting this site is going to know the history of every ethnic group in the world. It's an blog post dude, not an insensitive advertising slogan for a new foreign market, get over yourself. Assume he didn't know any better and move on.
- seiji 11y agoPlus, Americans don't learn Chinese history outside of fireworks and dragons and ancestor worship and the silk road. Being upset about using this phrase is like an army of tumblr SJWs being annoyed when someone says gypped. Not everybody knows the complete cultural and racial history of every innocent common phrase used today, even if they come from questionable historical pasts.
- mikeash 11y agoThey said "I wish people would learn...." To say that people don't learn about it is not a sensible counter to that!
- icebraining 11y agoI don't think seiji is trying to counter your post; "Plus" is used to add to something you agree with.
- mikeash 11y agoThey're certainly not countering my post, since there isn't any of mine to reply to. Here's what I see: jordigh says he wishes people would learn about the hundred flowers campaign so they won't make such bad allusions by accident. coldtea counters this saying that it's not actually bad. seiji agrees with coldtea and attempts to offer further support by saying that people don't learn about this stuff anyway. Not so?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- festivusr 11y agoNow's your opportunity to learn, then. China isn't exactly some tiny country at the end of the world.
- eropple 11y agoThen learn when new knowledge is offered to you, and apologize if you offend (not "I'm sorry that you're offended", all too often the clarion call of people who think "SJW" is a pejorative), and be better as a person afterwards. Ain't that hard.
- nicklaf 11y agoPerhaps, but then "rip 999 of them out" doesn't just add a more sinister tinge, but also confirms the allusion for those who are aware of it. If memory of my history class serves, the quote of letting flowers bloom comes from Mao, who told people he wanted them to open up and share their political differences (ostensibly so that some kind of political dialog could follow), but with the ulterior motive of merely outing his political enemies in order to do terrible things to them. It's a shame to be discussing this instead of the article, though, since I am a huge Peter Seibel fan!
- Mz 11y agoThe fact that the comment to which you replied is the top comment of this discussion and there is so much argument below it about the phrasing of the title while the actual content of the article gets kind of ignored should be a hint that it is a poor title. It clearly demonstrates what a derail it is.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- smcl 11y agoJust to add to that, even if there wasn't such a negative connotation I think that the repetition of the phrase throughout the text is just plain awkward\ungainly
- coldtea 11y agoI wish people wouldn't take offense on behalf of other cultures they don't know much about. Nobody much considers "let a hundrend flowers bloom" (as a phrase) equivalent to the "final solution", not even in China. This includes people who know all about Mao, the cultural revolution, the power plays and the executions that happened at the time. It's actually a stock phrase in journalism and writing in general in lots of European countries (I know that's the case of its use in at least 4 countries/languages). This looks more like someone in the US, several times removed from the events (by ethnicity, nation, time, etc), delivering a paternalistic lecture on foreign history. Examples of casual use in both US and UK: http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21581984-inner-city-school-provides-plenty-hope-british-education-let-thousand-flowers-bloom http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21581984-inner-city-sc... http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/11/03/welfare-let-1000-flowers-bloom/10197cfe-8904-4797-ad3b-c1b913d9143d/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/11/03/we... http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/16/national-anthem-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leader-pick-battles-carefully http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/16/national-ant...
- iak8god 11y agoPointing out that this phrase might carry extra meaning beyond its literal interpretation != taking offense. But in any case, "Let a thousand flowers bloom, then rip 999 of them out" is much more evocative of those events than the casual uses you cite.
- forrestthewoods 11y ago"and not use such dumb and insensitive titles for their blog posts." It's reasonable to infer offense from that statement.
- coldtea 11y ago>Pointing out that this phrase might carry extra meaning beyond its literal interpretation != taking offense. That's correct, and I wouldn't mind if it was just that. But OP's "I wish people would stop" etc and calling it "dumb and insensitive titles" goes a few steps beyond "pointing out that this phrase might carry extra meaning".
- forrestthewoods 11y agoI've never heard the "hundred flowers bloom" phrase before. I've never heard of the history to which it applies. I don't know major political events of the 1950s for most places in the world. The post WW2 era was a tumultuous time. Now you aren't wrong. But I also don't think it's fair to call dumb and insensitive. It's not dumb because it's a perfectly reasonable and useful analogy. And I don't think it's fair to call it insensitive because the author almost certainly didn't know the 60 year old foreign history from which it is derived. That's not someone being callous or insensitive. It's just good old fashioned ignorance. But ignorance that's kind of ok and fine. Like, it's just totally ok for someone not to know the origin of the phrase.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y agoDid you go to a tech school or something instead of a real college / high school?
- forrestthewoods 11y agolol.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]