Is name-calling ever an effective strategy?

[mia]

Why Calling Ivanka Trump A “Feckless Cunt” Misses The Mark

...What’s disappointing about Bee’s choice of words is that now we’re all fighting about the acceptability of one woman calling another woman a “cunt,” which only the most boring people find interesting. (Have you noticed? Men love to talk about how they’d never use that word as an insult toward a woman, but lordy, is it ever cute to say out loud! Louis C.K. has a whole bit about it, and everything worked out just fine for him. I’m sure I Love You, Daddy was great.) Bee’s actual point — one about how the White House’s immigration policies are ripping families apart while Ivanka is playing mom on the internet — has gotten washed out by an argument about etymology. And letting the word “cunt” be the reason you lose the Respectability Wars feels like an opportunity wasted....

...So yes, “feckless cunt” wasn’t Bee’s best work. But she has also been tasked with the unfair burden of playing nice — a burden that seems to wind up on the shoulders of women and people of color all too often. While plenty of Trump’s male supporters gleefully called Hillary Clinton a cunt, Bee has to somehow be better. The burden of respectability is boring, and, come to think of it, why should women like Bee have to bother with being respectable when the people she’s calling out on her show demand that their political opponents be jailed, make cracks about sexually assaulting women, call Mexicans rapists, defend neo-Nazis, refer to African nations as “shithole countries,” call women “fat” or “crazy,” refer to immigrants as “animals,” and, well, you know all the rest.

If you’re going to take a swing — regardless of what you say or how you say it, whether you’re right or wrong, in good or bad taste — take a real big swing. Don’t waste it on a word that in any other context would get you written off as a jerk and possibly suspended from Twitter, if that. Go nuts. Eat a dog on live television. Poop on a baby. If you already know they’re going to call for your head on a silver platter, make the fight worth it for the rest of us who have to watch this argument play out for the 50th time this month.

The issue with Bee calling Ivanka a cunt isn’t that the word is mean or that we have to play nice with a woman who has far more control over international policy than someone whose name is stamped all over a bunch of poorly sewn espadrilles ever should. Bee was punching up, the way you’d want any comedian to do; the issue, then, is that her unspecific shock-value-joke-without-even-being-a-joke isn’t worth the fight we’ve all been forced to have over it. If you want to go after someone who doesn’t play by any commonly accepted rules, going high doesn't necessarily work any better than going low. But whichever way you're going, make sure you stop to map out the route before you leave.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/scaachikoul/samantha-bee-feckless-cunt-ivanka-trump?utm_term=.mqJVEldGBE#.prZ1Ylm92Y

[Tipperary]

1. Never, imo.

Sticks and stones, ya know.

[Iggo]

2. Is throwing a punch a strategy? Or is it just throwing a punch?

This is being blown way WAY out of proportion.

[kcr]

3. The problem with this argument is it's letting them set the rules

And this argument is flawed in other ways, too. Samantha Bee DID swing big. And this is the thanks she's getting. That's what comes with swinging big. There will always be someone who thinks you did it wrong, especially if you're a woman.

The right wing will always attack. Always. Fuck 'em. All the defensive handwringing over how they will react is weak-kneed bullshit.

[RobinA]

10. I Disagree

that she swung big. I think she swung very, very small. She called Ivanka a naughty word. This differs not at all from any playground in the country where names are called daily and extra points for saying a really, really, really bad word. Name calling is not argument, it's not discussion, it doesn't make a point, and it doesn't take any particular wit or smarts. It's the last resort of the inarticulate.

[kcr]

14. Why let her word choice derail the message? This isn't a playground.

Their outrage is manufactured and fake. All the t-shirts calling Hillary Clinton the C-word shows this. Samantha Bee isn't a politician. It would be one thing if she were and you'd have a point. But protest comes in many forms, including comedy.

I repeat, this isn't a playground. Not everyone is cut out for it or has the sensibility for it and that's ok. But we can't forget how important it is, especially now in the age of Trump. I will always defend it and speak out against those who want to silence it.

[NCTraveler]

4. Yes.

Name calling has been used with great impact to oppress people.

"Is name-calling ever an effective strategy?"

You ask if it is an effective strategy. It has been used extremely effectively to give comfort to oppressors, continue systemic oppression, build hero's where none exist, etc.

Words have extreme power. Seems one group just found out about it in the most laughable of ways.

[Corgigal]

5. I'm good with punching up.

With how her precious husband treated the poor renters in Baltimore, I'm not offended. New Yorkers do nothing else but verbal. It's a stress reliever, weapons not needed.

[TimeSnowDemos]

6. Of course it is you idiot

Joking joking...

But of course name calling is WILDLY effective

Just ask Lyin Ted, Little Marco, etc. etc.

The problem is - as the article states - that you can't claim to have the high ground AND get in the gutter.

Well.

You shouldn't be able to, but then again how many times have people voted for the side calling doctors 'baby murderers' because of their 'faith'? The answer is, a lot. Etc.

America is and has long been a place that forgives its side for what it hates the other side for doing. Which is of course the depths of cynicism.

And the results - a government few like and trust - speaks for itself.

[ismnotwasm]

7. Good article

I stay out of this one here because that word isn’t one that offends me nearly as as much as say—bitch, and bitch is in daily usage. And “offend” doesn’t really describe my reaction either. The book “Cunt” is one of my favorite tabletops because there is something in the syntax that really bothered people. In that nails on a chalkboard kind of way, in that “That’s the one word I can’t stand” kind of way.

https://www.amazon.com/Cunt-Declaration-Independence-Expanded-Updated/dp/1580050751

I’m solidly in the camp that thinks calling Ivana a cunt degrades the word.

All that being said, we are at a place where name calling is losing its power, selective outrage is all the rage.

(Edit—I put in “your reaction” when I meant “my” reaction, apologies!)

[mia]

8. "...selective outrage is all the rage."

Thanks for your insights and the link.

[RobinA]

9. No

It is never an effective strategy. Combined with the fact that this particular name doesn't mean anything except as a random slur. Calling someone out should at least contain some content as to what the problem is. This is just calling somebody a nasty word that makes no particular point.

[mythology]

11. Sometimes in the short term.

But it's never the moral or intellectual strategy in my opinion. If the worst thing you can think to call Ivanka Trump is a slur against women, you either lack imagination or you are ceding the ground that says it's bad to call Valerie Jarret an ape or object to Ted Nugent referring to Clinton with the same term.

[gollygee]

12. It often is a very effective strategy

Especially when it's comedic. Humor is huge in politics and is very powerful.

[cwydro]

13. Plenty of it going on here lately

Very sad to see.

[BannonsLiver]

15. I dunno, it was pretty effective for Trump in 2016.