And today brings another entirely ridiculous post on Harry's Place about Pennyred (I don't want to link there, since yesterday links there were taking people to a malware site).
Pennyred wrote a long and interesting rebuttal to the first post on her blog. At one point she said that calling her a "silly cow" was sexist. HP contributor Marcus did not respond to her other points but decided to write a post about how working class northern people use silly cow all the time, and that only middle class liberals get offended about things like that.
What a
bizarre argument. Why on earth is the use of certain language not sexist just because northerners supposedly use it? That is very strange. I believe that thinking that foreigners should go away and stop taking our jobs is a belief that is held by some working class people. Am I wrong to disagree with them because I'm middle class? Is it not racist because they're working class?
But I guess HP have always made these ridiculous arguments. As
frightened mentioned on the comments to my previous post they argued years ago that being anti-war was wrong because anti-war activists eat Brushetta or something.
I haven't read Harry's Place for years. But coming back to it, I am so surprised that people who see themselves as being champions of reason make such unthinking, irrational arguments.
ETA: Perhaps HP are being anti-marxist false consciousness when they make arguments like this. Perhaps they think that the notion that the working classes have bad ideas due to false consciousness is patronising, and something that Bruschetta eating liberals think. Therefore saying that any language working class people use is good is a response to that? Maybe? It would be a ridiculously irrational response, but it might explain it.