Actually Zac, now your on to a separate issue. We are no...

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Reply to Msg 14831

Actually Zac, now your on to a separate issue.

We are no longer talking about if Tiba was right to generalize or not. What you have now brought up in the discussion is the question of whether the terms "generalize" and "exaggerate" are synonymous to each other, as you seem to think that they are?

I don't mean to put down your high school knowledge, but at the Masters and the Ph.D. level one quickly learns that those two words are not similar, and that they indicate very different things in a debate.

For example, one can easily generalize when the generalization is supported by evidence.

I gave the example of how the majority of whites in the south before the 1950s (some would say even later) were fundamentally racist.

This is a legitimate generalization that is very well documented and supported by written evidence which shows that prior to the 1950s, most whites in the south did not want blacks in their neighborhood, blacks were constantly denied jobs because of their race, and up until the 1950s separate but equal still applied in the south.

So, the fact is that one can generalize if the evidence supports it (as it does in the DR); remember, there can always be exceptions within a generalization...those are usually understood as "the exceptions to the rule." The "exceptions" are exactly that; they are the few within the majority that don't fall under the generalized rule, or in the case of the DR, are not racist.

"Exaggeration" is a whole other level of thought.

To "exaggerate" means that one has taken an issue (subject) and stretched it beyond the scope of what can be proven.

For example, one can exaggerate by saying that all white Americans now love black people because they voted for Obama.

For this to be true, a pattern of behavior showing that whites voted for Obama because they love blacks, not because they thought that it was simply a lesser evil than voting for a feeble old man, who seem to not have a clue. For this to be true, historical data or current surveys would have to show that the majority of blacks are now no longer suffering from the color of their skin, etc. etc. etc. Hence the evidence to support this statement simply does not exist at any level--at least not yet, making it an "exaggeration." An exaggeration about the DR would be to say that "since the evidence points out that people in the DR tend to be racist, they must all want to kill all Haitians..." That would be an exaggeration based on a generalized truth.

"Exaggerations" are not "generalizations;" they are not supported by the evidence, and they are unacceptable in a debate.

The two are not the same.

Linda, May 27 2009, 6:40 PM

Topic: I got cut off by Haitian embassy in D. C.

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