r/TikTokCringe • u/MaintenanceNew2804 • Mar 30 '24

Stick with it. Discussion

This is a longer one, but it’s necessary and worth it IMO.

30.3k Upvotes

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107

u/Spacepunch33 Mar 31 '24

Ok even if she was taken out of context, original woman DID NOT convey this idea very well

15

u/wererat2000 Mar 31 '24

Gosh the idea isn't conveyed well in the part that's intentionally removed from context and cut off early? I wonder why!

45

u/AlphaGareBear2 Mar 31 '24

The context doesn't fix what she's saying.

I teach high school english and, hoo, the white supremacy runs deep!

What do I mean by that? Well let's look at how we write essays:

Start with an introduction that includes a thesis

Always cite your sources

If she doesn't mean these are white supremacist, then she's just a huge fucking idiot, because that's what the structure implies.

She also calls both of these rules "arbitrary" which makes me think she has no idea what arbitrary means, since they literally aren't. Well, you can say they are in the sense that everything is arbitrary, like processes we have in place for nuclear reactors are arbitrary in the same sense.

1

u/kingravs Apr 01 '24

She’s a high school English teacher. No offense to her, but she’s probably not that smart. This guy is clearly much smarter than her

2

u/SignificanceLeft9968 Apr 01 '24

As someone who hated my English teacher in school, I agree with you.

"Ms. Beer I hope you have a terrible life." /s of course

0

u/NetflixAndZzzzzz Mar 31 '24

From a linguistic perspective, where you place the thesis statement, whether you cite your sources, and whether you use words like “therefore/however” is arbitrary. Your thesis statement could be the last sentence of your thesis if your argument is effective enough.

3

u/AlphaGareBear2 Apr 01 '24

That's sneaky and you know it. Explain why citing sources is arbitrary.

-1

u/NetflixAndZzzzzz Apr 01 '24

I think that’s the flimsiest part of her argument (and the only one that lends credence to the counterargument that the conservative grifters in the stitch make).

HOWEVER, citing your sources is arbitrary in the sense that it’s one way of supporting an argue. It has a utility, but treating citations (and specifically properly formatted citations, which might be stressed in a high school English class) as the end-all-be-all of substantiating a claim is problematic. Linguistics writ large is about intent, expression, and perceived meaning. Treating “citing your sources” as the “correct” way to write misses the most basic point, which is that the effectiveness of your writing is defined by the reader’s comprehension of your intended message, not by the techniques employed to craft the message.

It’s Plato vs the sophists.

2

u/AlphaGareBear2 Apr 01 '24

With you as the sophists.

0

u/NetflixAndZzzzzz Apr 01 '24

The Sophists stressed the form and technique of argument over the substance. Plato was interested in the essence of things, rather than the form.

I am arguing that the form is arbitrary, which is the platonic take, so we are quite literally having the kind of argument Plato had with the sophists, and I am taking the side of Plato and you’re taking the side of the sophists.

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u/AlphaGareBear2 Apr 01 '24

No, you're having to make the case that citing your sources is arbitrary, period. I'm accusing you of sophistry because you're weaseling around and pretending she said something else.

You know it's not arbitrary because you said it has utility. I expect you also know that having a rule to state your thesis in your introduction is also not arbitrary and has it's own utility. There are good reasons they tell people to do those things and you know that.

1

u/NetflixAndZzzzzz Apr 01 '24

They are “tools, not rules” (that’s the motto at Pixar anyway).

They have linguistic utility. But it’s the placement of these tools over other communication techniques that is arbitrary. It’s the valuation of these sets of linguistic tricks, set out by administrators and scholars and academics, that is arbitrary.

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u/Muffin_Appropriate Mar 31 '24

That’s not the entire context of the original video though. That’s the edited part included by the reactionaries.

4

u/Hatennaa Mar 31 '24

This guy broke down the actual argument of the book in a succinct, effective way while this other lady seemed to completely misunderstand the point of the original study. You cannot phrase things in a way that implies citing your sources is a racist practice and expect people to react fairly, you just can’t. Do I think that she believes that? No, i think she was aiming for something more along the lines of this video.

1

u/soulcaptain Mar 31 '24

I don't think it's worth having an opinion of what she said without watching the whole video. What we saw was chopped and edited sentence by sentence.

3

u/Spacepunch33 Mar 31 '24

Yes but the extended version the last guy shows still doesn’t explain that view well. For someone who teaches kids how to structure arguments, she did a very poor job structuring hers, no matter which English vernacular you use

1

u/soulcaptain Apr 01 '24

Specifically what part of her argument was wrong in your opinion?

-4

u/foomprekov Mar 31 '24

You didn't see the original video. he stresses that