Patterico vs. Goldstein, One More Time.

Love you, Patrick, but one goes to Goldstein. Again. I know a lot of you think he’s being recalcitrant in his “intentionalist” arguments, but it cuts to the heart of everything: once you have allowed the listener or reader to layer his or her own meaning onto a word or phrase, it’s over. It’s over as a matter of principle, and as a matter of logic.

It doesn’t just mean we have to burn our copies of Huckleberry Finn, and substitute “parsimonious” for “niggardly.” It means that we never necessarily say or write what we think we are saying or writing; we are waiting for our “betters” to decode it for us.

I honestly think that it’s harder for those with a legal background to see it this way, since in this country we don’t have barristers and solicitors—just “lawyers.” Every attorney is supposed to be able to work a courtroom, and so there is a huge amount of training and thought that goes into figuring out not only how to couch something in accurate terms, but in persuasive ones. Good lawyers are always trying to second-guess how their words will be perceived.

But those of us who never see the inside of a courtroom musn’t have to walk on linguistic eggshells. We cannot.

And there is no scholar of this language or any other who can memorize not only the denotation of the words he or she uses, but the connotations each word or phrase has carried for the past millennium, and for the potential reactions to that word possible in each person who might hear or read that word.

It cannot be done.

UPDATE: Having been busted by one of my local authorities for reading a critique of something rather than they thing itself, I’ve gone back to Patterico’s original post. I continue to draw the line, however, at actually reading the Los Angeles Times.

A boy loves his dog.

Okay, Patterico:

1) A boy has a dog named Rover. At night, he typically calls the dog into the house from the field by either calling out: “Come here, boy!” or “Come here, Rover!” The dog responds to either; either is equally effective.

The boy learns at school that there is a racial history associated with the word “boy” such that black men are offended to be called “boy.” That night, he starts to call out: “Come here, boy!” when he sees Rover out in the field. But then, the boy sees a black man near Rover. The boy thinks to himself: if I yell out “Come here, boy!” that black man will be offended. But then the boy thinks: I don’t care. That’s his problem. And he yells, “Come here, boy!”

The dog and the black man come over. The black man is angry. The boy explains that he was just calling his dog. And the black man calms down and says he didn’t realize that; he hadn’t even seen the dog out there when he heard “Come here, boy!”

a) Has the boy done anything wrong? Should he have done anything differently?

b) Was the black man wrong (unreasonable) to be offended at the beginning?

If the child felt self-conscious using the term “boy,” it would come out unnaturally strained; if he can call out “boy” with the self-assurance of a kid calling his dog, the black man would know what was intended. If he cannot bring that off with the appropriate ease, he can switch to “Rover” so as to be able to call his dog effectively.

There would be no reason for the black man to come over. He could just continue on his way. If he felt strongly, he could flip the kid off. Or he could pause, watch Rover go to the boy, and realize that his fears about the intent were unjustified.

2) Same facts as #1, but before the boy calls out to the dog, the boy’s dad advises him: “Say ‘Come here, Rover!’” The dad does not want the boy to offend the black man.

Has the dad done anything wrong? Should he have done anything differently?

That’s fine, but he shouldn’t shame the kid for not following his reasoning.

3) Same facts as #1, only the boy had been preparing to call out “Come here, Rover!” and changed it to “Come here, boy!” when he saw the black man. The boy changed his phrasing, not to offend the black man per se, but to make a point about language. His thinking was: I was about to say “Come here, Rover!” but instead I will say: “Come here, boy!” By saying it this way, I am making the point that I will not have my choices limited by the reactions of others.

Has the boy done anything wrong? Should he have done anything differently?

No, it’s fine. The man will watch the dog go to the kid, and continue with his life. If he happens to think there might have been a racial slur, it won’t mar his day significantly.

4) Same facts as #3, only the boy isn’t making a point about language when he changes the call from “Come here, Rover!” to “Come here, boy!” He’s trying to make his friends laugh. He’s not trying to offend the black man, remember; it’s of no importance to him whether the black man is offended. He just wants to amuse his friends.

Has the boy done anything wrong? Should he have done anything differently?

Of course, and of course.

5) Same facts as #4, only the black man sees the dog. He hears “Come here, boy!” and knows the child might be calling his dog. But he also hears the boy’s friends laugh.

Would the black man be wrong (unreasonable) to be offended?

Define “offended.” Is this man’s entire day centered on that one word? That would be like my taking it to heart every time a reader calls me a “cunt.” I have better things to do with my time. If this guy has a job or family or friends or hobbies, he probably does as well.

6) Same facts as #1, except that this is a more real world example: we don’t know the boy’s intent. All we know is that there is a black man in the field with the dog, and the boy calls out “Come here, boy!” and the black man gets offended. Oh — and add one more fact: before the boy yells out that phrase, he turns to some friends and says: “Watch this!”

Then the black man gets offended, and the boy — wide-eyed and innocent — says he was just calling in his dog. His friends suppress giggles.

Again—I’m having trouble understanding why the black man was so interested in this boy that he cares one way or the other, or even approaches closely enough to hear the giggles. He isn’t a boy: he’s a man. He isn’t obligated to give a bunch of nearby brats this level of attention.

a) Has the boy done anything wrong? Should he have done anything differently?

b) Is the black man wrong (unreasonable) to be offended?

The kid is being a little prick, and the black man, in real life, probably shrugs and walks away, like I do when the day-laborers lined up on the street call me “puta.” (Yeah: when I was in my 20s I’d occasionally throw them the “shove it up your ass” gesture, but these days that seems like a lot of calories to expend.)

Look: one cannot keep every thing in mind at every given moment. When I was seven years old, my brother’s best friend came over. He lived across the street from us. He happened to be black. I had gotten my brother the Hair soundtrack for his birthday, and we liked to listen to it a lot. We weren’t supposed to play it around our friends because it had dirty words in it. But we did, of course, when our mother wasn’t home.

The song “Colored Spade” came on, and Clayton told me, “I don’t like this song.”

“Oh, why not?” I asked, and then immediately followed that up with “oh!” as I sort of remembered/put together the fact that the song was about race, and blackness in particular, and Clayton was black.

The natural state of a child is pretty color-blind . . . and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden, inasmuch as we can.

I don’t want to live in a world in which I’m supposed to be endlessly figuring out what everyone’s exact ethnic background is, so I can gauge my words accordingly. I mean, it worked in the barber shop in Gran Torino, but I wouldn’t care to live that way.