Breaking Glass Ruling.
On the Breaking Glass thread, Barnabus62 said:
Using a group name to talk about group responsibility is a perfectly normal and reasonable thing. It is cumbersome to always qualify. "Xgroup drinks tea. Well, not all of them, Mary likes a coffee, John prefers energy drinks, Hazel drinks mostly water, Eric...."
¹National affiliation is technically by choice, though circumstance doesn't always allow easy change.
²Yes, group appellations can be used in a personal way; it is the staple of the lazy comedian, but not allowing them makes conversation tedious.
IMO, this is a highly variable thing. Members of a voluntary group,¹ especially one in which individuals can affect direction, have a shared responsibility. Saying Britain does X or the Tories do Y is about that shared responsibility. In general,² it should not be necessary to qualify that with the exceptions within that group as long as it is framed properly. For example: America doesn't like black people is an accurate statement that is not personal. Americans don't like black people is borderline. It is accurate, it is not personal, but it could be construed as such.The boundary is clear. Vigorous criticisms of political policies and actions in any nation are open territory to any Shipmate. Lumping all citizens of that nation together in such criticisms is out of bounds.
Using a group name to talk about group responsibility is a perfectly normal and reasonable thing. It is cumbersome to always qualify. "Xgroup drinks tea. Well, not all of them, Mary likes a coffee, John prefers energy drinks, Hazel drinks mostly water, Eric...."
¹National affiliation is technically by choice, though circumstance doesn't always allow easy change.
²Yes, group appellations can be used in a personal way; it is the staple of the lazy comedian, but not allowing them makes conversation tedious.
This discussion has been closed.

Comments
The line between robust criticism of policies or attitudes of some people in a country and slamming everyone in that country is one that we've reminded people of many times before. It shouldn't have surprised anyone who's been around here for a while that with the way that thread had been developing another reminder of that line was issued.
It’s a lazy and unnecessary over-generalization that’s almost sure to be taken personally and that gets in the way of what might otherwise be a valid and worthwhile point. It’s a good way to make sure people argue more on how you said something than consider what you’re actually trying to say.
Using the blanket term does not negate the membership of components of that group that are the targets of discussion. Saying America/Americans don't like black people is not dismissing that black people are Americans. That is a simplistic or myopic interpretation.
And it is NOT a generalisation. It is assigning group responsibility to the group. Which is not only correct, it is normal speech.
NP was using Republicans in the normal, conventional general sense. LC reacted in a personal way.
Which is unreasonable? A? B? A and B?
Understanding that not every, single person in a group think and acts the same way is important. But so is understanding that every, single member shares at least some responsibility towards that groups collective behaviour. It is this which easily gets lost in these discussions. And it is this which I am concerned about.
I don't think that every member is responsible for the actions of the majority of a group. That is wrong thinking and wrong blaming. Should I not remain part of the group and attempt to heal the attitudes or actions from within? If I were to withdraw from the group, I would be unable to initiate such reforms.
Of course group responsibility is normally only used when blasting a group of whom one is not a member. That is where the heat comes from.
I want to know who made LB my very own personal morality police.
The idea of belonging to a group, especially a political group, is to further the aims of the group. One might only like one or two positions, but the rest come along. I disagree. IME, the more conservative the group, the less internal division is tolerated. But division is fairly much the hallmark of lefty parties. That is part of the reason that smaller groups control the larger electorate.
And it is not "blasting" to discuss the deficiencies.
There is a long and painful history on the Ship of nation-related comments in particular being misinterpreted and the result going nuclear very quickly. Thinking carefully about how "you" may be interpreted (general or personal) and about whether a statement can be fairly said to refer to all those of a particular nationality (especially when made by those of another nationality) is part of our general culture of mutual respect and in no way prevents the substantive debate being robust.
This "pond war" principle can safely be extended to other generalisations.
I did not intend to provoke anyone, and most particularly not a shipmate who I know and have kind regards for because of her generous support of me in the past. I have damaged a relationship with someone I don't actually know. But the ship being what it is, we know the persona of others, and I have transgressed in a fit of pique which lasted not just a moment but for several posts and response. I don't know how long, but probably several hours. I am truly sorry for offence, and I want to say it publicly. I am sorry @Lamb Chopped. And I mean it.
Not intending to violate a procedure, like accidentally driving a car through a red light, does not matter, as the offence is made out by the action of doing the driving not by the intent. I take this episode as instructing me to be more careful. That noted, I have done this same thing in past (I'm not expecting any others to recall, but I internally know that I have), and seem to understand that I lack to capacity in an online forum to not be stupid about it periodically. Because I value the dialogue is part of it. None of this is an excuse, and it has nothing to do with trying to explain away my responsibilities. Rather it is my explanation for how I got us here. I am sorry to have affected others as well.
Another perspective which I have developed over many years is that I like having friends with whom I disagree. It enriches my life to have connections to such people. For what that's worth.
If you'd be so kind, please help me understand why it's the responsibility of others not to feel attacked when you take it upon yourself to attack them?
I come here to discuss ideas, not to fight or witness a fight.
One cannot completely control for that. What I am talking about is keeping a reasonable balance.
Forgiven. Go in peace.
I'm not saying never worry about the perception of one's posts, just that reading posts should have the same caution.
BTW, NP is on the same side of the pond as LC
Also, there's no such thing as 'perfectly normal' when it comes to this sort of thing. All groups of people have different norms and codes of etiquette. Online discussion groups have different rules and guidelines, based on the history and dynamics of that group of people and the purpose of the group, etc. I know of plenty of other groups where it really isn't acceptable to make generalisations about a country, and they tend to be international groups. I've observed predominantly British groups making sweeping statements about the US, and predominantly American groups making sweeping statements about the UK, and anyone challenging this is not taken seriously because they are not the majority. But for international groups to work well, there needs to be a bit of sensitivity and careful wording.
The warning is much the same as many, many others that have been posted over the last 20 years or so, and as yet there have been no negative effects. It would be nice if people would stop posting anti-American things here, but I'm not holding my breath. There is no history of non-Brits repeatedly going into discussions of disastrous British elections or Brexit or the like and posting things like "How's that working for ya?" Non-Canadians don't repeatedly post blanket criticisms of Canada. Non-Australians and non-New Zealanders, ditto. But again and again and again people feel fine posting blanket criticisms of the U.S. and Americans. So I don't share your concern.
There are over 300 million Americans. We're not all the same. We're living, breathing individuals. We're coming up on a monumentally important election, one that could well determine whether or not our country becomes an authoritarian state. Anyone wishing to reserve the right to be snotty to us on the 2020 Elections thread can meet me in Hell.
With respect, Americans in general don't know much about anywhere but America, but the rest of the world has a greater level of familiarity with the US. In part because the US disproportionately affects other parts of the world.
I'm not trying to reserve the right to be snotty. I'm trying to reserve the right to discuss the problems and responsibilities of group membership. I recognise that not all people in a group are identical, but I also recognise that responsibility is broader than some are willing to accept.
How would you change it?
We definitely will not revoke the defence against the destructive effects of pond wars and similar. You can forget about that. And we definitely will not have policies confined to any particular nation.
You know our commandments, guidelines and FAQs. How would you modify them?
If you want to say something about group responsibility, why not just do that, and skip the gross generalization which you clearly recognize could be easily construed as a personal attack. You say qualifications are cumbersome, but even if people don’t take offense, you’re probably going to have to come up with more nuanced statements than that in any reasonable discussion, so it really doesn’t seem that you’ll have saved yourself any trouble by omitting them at the start.
The problem with your own argument is writ large in what you have chosen to turn into a footnote.
Are you seriously arguing that people ought to just casually move countries in order to not get caught up in a sweeping generalisation on a message board?
Attempting to compare nationality and residency with, say, deciding to resign from the local club when it does something nasty just does not work.
Respectfully: why do *you* have to school everyone on everything? (Hyperbole, but fairly accurate.)
When Alan says "our experience here," that encompasses two decades of periodic anti-American posts. Lots of things have changed, but not that.
First, you're not dealing with "Americans in general" here. You're dealing with Americans who are more educated and better informed than the general American populace. So you've again made a generalization about Americans that doesn't apply to those of us posting here.
Second, being well informed about the US doesn't entitle someone to be obnoxious to Americans.
You want to mount an argument for who's responsible for the policies of the Republican party or of any one of a number of shitty things going on in the U.S., go right ahead. But don't expect anyone to simply "accept" it.
Yes, at least the more vocal posters here are better informed than the average American. But still not as well as the reverse.
They are the one person in this thread you need to be talking to, so if you could respond to them, that would be lovely.
That might be more my own sensitivities, though.
I think I am pretty close to finished with this thread. Partly because it is already devolving into tangents, but mostly because we are not seeing the same things here. And I'm not sure there is a right or wrong in that.
Yes, I think you should drop it. There is no enthusiasm at Host or Admin level to change policies or their application. And to judge by this thread you are the only Shipmate who believes a case can be made for doing so.
Black Americans use the N word of each other also. It doesn't give you the right to.
Sure, US culture has issues around black people, as part of the legacy of slavery.
Referring to that issue in a way that tells American Shipmates how they feel about black people is not only presumptuous and likely to get people's backs up, but also over-simplifies.
There is, of course, a significant difference between finding someone amusing as a performer on television, and being happy about them marrying your daughter. I think looking at how white people interact with ordinary black people that they meet in their day-to-day lives is a rather better indicator than whether they enjoy black entertainers on TV.
For balance, this is true in the UK as well.
And yes, xenophobia is not only along colour lines, but colour cannot blend in.
Can't speak about my daughter marrying a black person, though I can speak about my daughter marrying a Filipino. I think he was afraid I would be upset. He ran away when he first saw me. I had no problem, though. He lost his father when he was five, so he always calls me Dad now.