“Is it technically fascism?” “Is it technically rape?” “Is it technically genocide?” Remarkable the smug ease with which so many people have replaced moral inquiries with semantic ones.
These definitional debates are actually debates about the acceptable threshold of moral obligation—about whether the speakers have to care. But definitions aside, the answer is always yes.
Technicalities matter, but they have to be of the same category. You can’t use a *legal* technicality to avoid *moral* concern. Of course you can use a legal technicality to avoid a legal concern.
I enjoy semantic debates, and I wish it hadn't taken me so long to realize they're appropriate for "is a hot dog a sandwich?" but not for urgent moral debates.
Lawyers don't even really use technicalities, in most places there's a sort of "spirit of the law comes first" attitude.
Technicality is more something cops and prosecutors use.
The "technically" in the question also points to a definition that was always constructed to preclude blaming the most powerful. So, any kind of appeal to technicality is already a skirting of responsibility, and now also compromises the debater.
Thanks for highlighting this. Maybe the question should not be is it technically X, but does it need to be stopped? Yes. Yes it does. Let’s get to work.
I don't think it always is, but it's often "pretty damn near" or "not technically, but the details that make it fall outside of the definition are not the important ones". Meaning that it definitely isn't the conversation people should be having at that moment (unless they're literally lawyers).
it's really a moral question disguised as semantic. "how fascist am i allowed to be?" "how much can i sexually abuse my coworkers?" "can't white world leaders kill some brown people?"
It’s clear that for many Morally Serious Persons, when their grandchildren ask them what they did during the Genocide of 2024 their answer is going to be something like “I debated the definition of ‘antisemitism’.”
This is what happens when you don’t just place the value of your life far above the life of the “other,” but you even value your *feelings* over the lives of the “other.”
"I antagonized and unfriended 400+ people in my community because they supported student protests for Palestine." True story, not me, but a formerly beloved retired ED of an arts nonprofit. Imagine burning decades of social capital for Netanyahu. Literally couldn't be me.
There is no genocide and the lying claim of one is nothing more than a modern blood libel.
Israel is defending its citizens against a murderous Islmofasicst organization, but no less so against western useful idiots who have lost their moral compass.
Yeah, it's just like blood libel!
Except for the fact that the medieval Jews accused of blood libel _didn't_ kill Christian children, whereas Israel is verifiably killing Palestinian children today.
But other than that, yeah, they're exactly the same!
Do you even hear yourself?
A) There are no idiots who are useful to an honest person.
B) Most of these yammer heads have never learned how to use a compass, never mind owned one.
I called it "spineless legalistic proceduralism" to my boyfriend and I stand by that. I don't need to wait 20 years for the verdict of history before I take a moral stance. I know cruelty and murder when I see them.
Not to put too fine a point on it, these are the kind of questions where if you have to ask, the answer is yes.
Like, even if it's really no, it's close enough that you had to ask, so you should act as if the answer is yes.
It's disgusting. One innocent life lost is to many.
If you're looking on while they keep piling the dead kids on the scales waiting for when it eventually hits some magical number that tips it into the unexceptable you have to ask yourself what the fuck is wrong with people?
Orwell knew about this from his time as a Colonial Policeman in British-controlled Burma. You see this parsing in many of his works. By 1984, he'd abandoned any pretense of cultural morality.
@contrapoints.bsky.social echoed this good point recently too. “Nooo you can’t redefine the word ‘marriage’ to include queer folks!” “What is a woman??” “Don’t call us bigots, we’re just pedants who love the English language!!1!”
Any reasonable person would conclude that, technically correct or not (tho it is), we are witnessing what is at least -ostensibly- a genocide, which is bad enough.
If that’s not enough to justify opposition in your view then you have to concede that you’re in favor of at least -some- genocide.
The stupidest part, IMO, is that a dictionary defines the words following “technical” unequivocally.
Also, anyone using “technical” this way needs to look up that word’s meaning too.
The legal definition matters in court, the moral definition matters before we get to court cuz you want to show how bad things are. If it's based on a looser definition outside of a courtroom, fine. Tho, it is genocide, sexual assault/ephibiphilia (sp) isn't better, and "almost fascism" is also bad.
