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Denying essential humanity to anyone is always and everywhere unacceptable. "Unattractive men are animals, not human beings" isn't provocative, it's totally bey
by millstone 10y ago
Denying essential humanity to anyone is always and everywhere unacceptable. "Unattractive men are animals, not human beings" isn't provocative, it's totally beyond the pale.
If the essay called an ethnic or religious group animals, would you still link to it and characterize it as "interesting" and "provocative?"
- cLeEOGPw 10y agoIn the context of the article, "animal" is meant to be understood as "something having non-human features". An ugly guy has both human and "non-human" features, so a mind is split in those both directions, and the split evokes the feeling of creepiness. Just because you feel bad about something it doesn't mean it's false.
- brhsiao 10y agoThere is actually a distinct writing style that is meant to provoke, closely related to trolling, and should be recognized. Suppose I were writing a rant about obesity being unhealthy and visually jarring. I then decide, for comedic dramatic flair, to write "fat people should be eradicated from the gene pool," knowing full well it will anger the reader—who in turn cluelessly gets angry. I'd argue that that doesn't make me deplorable, it makes the joke on the reader. In the grand scheme of things, my gene pool comment obviously isn't serious, even if the rest of my rant is. Being provoked by people trying to provoke you is the conversational version of slipping on a banana peel, and is itself funny, albeit only ever so slightly.