The fallout from Trump's war on Harvard will long outlast his presidency
The fallout from Trump's war on Harvard will outlast his term
cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/195619
From BBC News via this RSS feed
You're viewing a single thread.
"Harvard's got to behave themselves," he told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. "Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect, and all they're doing is getting in deeper and deeper and deeper."
Years ago, someone on Tumblr had a comment on respect, which very much applies to Trump and his fascists:
Sometimes people use 'respect' to mean “treating someone like a person”, and sometimes they use 'respect' to mean “treating someone like an authority”.
And sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say, “If you won’t respect me, I won’t respect you”; and they mean, “If you won’t treat me like an authority, I won’t treat you like a person.”
And they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.
Yeah, I disagree with the saying “respect is earned, not given”. But that’s because I define respect as treating others like a person and with dignity.
Therefore, I believe respect should be given, and not earned.
I think that aphorism is about authority-respect rather than basic-human-decency-respect.
This thread makes me wonder how much contemporary American English is to blame for people being able to exploit ambiguities surreptitiously. Dog whistles have to start somewhere, they don't seem to be prearranged.
Words don't have meaning any more, or they mean whatever you want them to mean as long as you can use them to pummel the opposition, because that's all that really matters. It's the style of the time.
Also remember that whenever Trump talks about things being good or bad for 'America', he means himself.
