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Old 06-05-2015, 03:14 PM   #29
it
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Posts: 772
I would say the pretense is on the other foot: When making an artifical distinction for arbitrary reasons that aren't consequentially meaningful, we are pretending that the same behavior and actions consequences or objects can be treated as distinct and often incomparable because we name them differently.

The words we choose don't particularly have that power, and we do choose them - there isn't a matter of defining something as something it is simply not - it is a matter of defining it in a way that maximizes the understanding of the meaning it carries (Unless you worship the magical sky dictionary, in which case I am sorry and meant no disrespect towards your beliefs).

Digging into why we define things differently provides a more accurate understanding, as more often then not doing so to account for variables that aren't meaningful to the subject matter demonstrate how those variables are meaningful to us elsewhere (Such as defining a loaded term of sexual violence in a distinct way that might illustrate the assumptions that sexual agency is inherit to males or our outlook of gender roles and victimhood).
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