Yes, I think things can be rude on the basis of their propositional content. (But not only their propositional content.) If I state that you are very unintelligent, and I say it in the presence of you or of your friends, then I am being rude. I can do it in extra-rude ways (“Said is a total fucking moron”) or in less-rude ways (“I have reason to think that Said’s IQ is probably below 90″) but however you slice it it’ll be rude.
(For the avoidance of doubt, of course I do not in fact think any such thing.)
I do, indeed, think there is nothing necessarily wrong with being rude. As I said: Sometimes being rude is a good thing, and sometimes it’s a necessary evil. All else being equal, being rude is usually worse than not being rude, but many other things may outweigh the rudeness.
I don’t see that this makes the word “rude” largely useless, and I’m not sure why it should. If you mean it makes it meaningless then I strongly disagree (I take it to mean something like “predictably likely to make people upset”, though for various reasons that isn’t exactly right). If you mean it makes it unactionable then again I disagree; it just means that acting on the knowledge that something is rude is more complicated than just Not Doing It. (If you want to upset someone, which there may be good reasons for though usually there aren’t, then rudeness is beneficial. If you don’t but other things are higher-priority for you than not upsetting people, then you weigh up the benefits and harms, as always.) If you mean something other than those and the above hasn’t convinced you that my way of using “rude” isn’t useless, then you might want to explain further.
Indeed I meant “meaningless”, or perhaps “encompassing many disparate meanings under the umbrella of one word; attempting to refer to unrelated concepts as if they are the same or closely clustered; failing to cleave reality at the joints”.
I find it quite unnatural to apply the word “rude” as you do, and, to be extra clear, will certainly never mean anything like this when I use the word.
My takeaway here is that if you tell me that something is “rude”, I have not really gained any information about what you think of the thing, nor will I take you to have made any kind of definite claim about the thing, nor even do I know whether you’re attempting to ascribe positive valence to it or negative. (This is, to my mind, an unfortunate consequence of using words in strange ways, though of course you are free to use words as you please.)
I suppose I will have to remember, should you ever describe my comments as “rude” henceforth, to reply with something like—“Ok, now, what actually do you mean by this? ‘Rude’, yes, which means what…?”.
I am confused. (And also, apparently, confusing, which I regret.)
If I say something is rude then you learn that in my opinion it is likely to upset or offend a nontrivial fraction of people who read it. (Context will usually indicate roughly which people I think are likely to be upset or offended.)
How is that no information? How have I made no definite claim?
(It is true that merely from the fact that I call something rude you cannot with certainty tell whether I am being positive about it or negative. The same is true if I call something large, ingenious, conservative, wooden, complex, etc., etc., etc. I don’t see how this is a problem. For the avoidance of doubt, though, most of the time when I call something rude I am being negative about it, even if I think that the rudeness was a necessary evil.)
My use of the word “rude” doesn’t seem to me particularly nonstandard or strange. It’s more or less the same as definition 5a in the OED, which is “Unmannerly, uncivil, impolite; offensively or deliberately discourteous”. (The OED has lots of definitions, because “rude” does in fact have lots of meanings. It can e.g. sometimes mean “unrefined” or “vigorous”.)
Clearly you are dissatisfied with my usage of the word “rude”. Perhaps you might tell me yours; it is still not clear to me either what it is or why it might be better than mine. From what you say above, it seems that you want it used in such a way that “X is rude” strictly implies “X is morally wrong”, but if that’s really so then I’m unable to think of any meaning that does this while coming anywhere near the specificity that “rude” usually has. (At least for those who have moral systems not entirely based around not giving offence, which I am pretty sure includes both of us.)
Yes, I think things can be rude on the basis of their propositional content. (But not only their propositional content.) If I state that you are very unintelligent, and I say it in the presence of you or of your friends, then I am being rude. I can do it in extra-rude ways (“Said is a total fucking moron”) or in less-rude ways (“I have reason to think that Said’s IQ is probably below 90″) but however you slice it it’ll be rude.
(For the avoidance of doubt, of course I do not in fact think any such thing.)
I do, indeed, think there is nothing necessarily wrong with being rude. As I said: Sometimes being rude is a good thing, and sometimes it’s a necessary evil. All else being equal, being rude is usually worse than not being rude, but many other things may outweigh the rudeness.
I don’t see that this makes the word “rude” largely useless, and I’m not sure why it should. If you mean it makes it meaningless then I strongly disagree (I take it to mean something like “predictably likely to make people upset”, though for various reasons that isn’t exactly right). If you mean it makes it unactionable then again I disagree; it just means that acting on the knowledge that something is rude is more complicated than just Not Doing It. (If you want to upset someone, which there may be good reasons for though usually there aren’t, then rudeness is beneficial. If you don’t but other things are higher-priority for you than not upsetting people, then you weigh up the benefits and harms, as always.) If you mean something other than those and the above hasn’t convinced you that my way of using “rude” isn’t useless, then you might want to explain further.
Indeed I meant “meaningless”, or perhaps “encompassing many disparate meanings under the umbrella of one word; attempting to refer to unrelated concepts as if they are the same or closely clustered; failing to cleave reality at the joints”.
I find it quite unnatural to apply the word “rude” as you do, and, to be extra clear, will certainly never mean anything like this when I use the word.
My takeaway here is that if you tell me that something is “rude”, I have not really gained any information about what you think of the thing, nor will I take you to have made any kind of definite claim about the thing, nor even do I know whether you’re attempting to ascribe positive valence to it or negative. (This is, to my mind, an unfortunate consequence of using words in strange ways, though of course you are free to use words as you please.)
I suppose I will have to remember, should you ever describe my comments as “rude” henceforth, to reply with something like—“Ok, now, what actually do you mean by this? ‘Rude’, yes, which means what…?”.
I am confused. (And also, apparently, confusing, which I regret.)
If I say something is rude then you learn that in my opinion it is likely to upset or offend a nontrivial fraction of people who read it. (Context will usually indicate roughly which people I think are likely to be upset or offended.)
How is that no information? How have I made no definite claim?
(It is true that merely from the fact that I call something rude you cannot with certainty tell whether I am being positive about it or negative. The same is true if I call something large, ingenious, conservative, wooden, complex, etc., etc., etc. I don’t see how this is a problem. For the avoidance of doubt, though, most of the time when I call something rude I am being negative about it, even if I think that the rudeness was a necessary evil.)
My use of the word “rude” doesn’t seem to me particularly nonstandard or strange. It’s more or less the same as definition 5a in the OED, which is “Unmannerly, uncivil, impolite; offensively or deliberately discourteous”. (The OED has lots of definitions, because “rude” does in fact have lots of meanings. It can e.g. sometimes mean “unrefined” or “vigorous”.)
Clearly you are dissatisfied with my usage of the word “rude”. Perhaps you might tell me yours; it is still not clear to me either what it is or why it might be better than mine. From what you say above, it seems that you want it used in such a way that “X is rude” strictly implies “X is morally wrong”, but if that’s really so then I’m unable to think of any meaning that does this while coming anywhere near the specificity that “rude” usually has. (At least for those who have moral systems not entirely based around not giving offence, which I am pretty sure includes both of us.)