[FRIAM] anthropological observations

[uǝlƃ ☣]

Excellent! Thanks for that qualifier. A remaining question is: When you state your CONCLUSION without a subjective qualifier, the audience is supposed to implicitly *hear* a qualifier. But when someone on MSNBC states their conclusions without the qualifer, you hear *authoritarian* assertions.

Why should your audience have to insert the qualifier themselves, but *you* don't have to insert the qualifier when listening to others? That may be unclear. Why do you hear scientists' assertions as authoritarian, but expect the scientists to hear your assertions as lil-ole-me opinions?

I.e. why are their qualifier-less expressions any different from your qualifier-less expressions?

I suppose you could make the argument that your platform is much smaller than theirs. So, nobody could mistake what you say for authoritarian. But I'd argue that your email address and name "Prof David West" make explicit leverage of the authority that comes along with professorship, much like Dr. Oz explicitly leverages the authority of the "Dr" prefix. To boot, implicitly, the jargonal language you use (e.g. "ethnographic research mode") lends a hint of "I'm an expert because I can use these words". With no qualifiers like "my attempts at ethnographic research", which could be emphasized with further qualifiers like "my layman's attempts at ..." or whatever, it would be easy for me to *fear* you and those who talk like you.

I don't fear you, because you seem like a nice person. But I do fear those who might read your authoritative words and uncritically believe them.

On 4/14/20 9:11 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> It was not my intent to make any assertions, or claims. merely to offer completely subjective observations - "anecdotal data" as it were. Yes, there is a not-so-subliminal editorial slant behind the observations. But that slant is pretty obvious and quite familiar to those on the list:
> 
>  - I do not trust, and actually fear, government, especially the Federal Government
> - I believe the danger of a 'dictatorship-of-the left' to be far greater than from the right, and that the clown in office is a trivial to non-existent threat.
> - nothing posted, tweeted, published, aired — regardless of source — can be accepted at face value but must be deconstructed (including "scientific" material)
> I have no expertise,, certainly no authority, but do fancy an aptitude for careful observation that may or may not be of value to anyone.


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☣ uǝlƃ