COMMUNITY

I would say that being a jerk, being pushy, etc. are the best ways to initiate a change, heh. As much as I hate to say it, being polite about one's issues has never solved any real problems; just fast-tracked them to being dismissed offhand. Being aggressive is key. But anyway, this isn't the point of this topic, nor is it something that I find particularly enthralling for a debate, so I'll cut myself short.

Well, to be fair it depends on the context and who you're trying to convince. So in a sense I think we'd both be right.

Whenever I think of "winning hearts and minds" I can't help but think of my my mother's "parenting rules", which also work great for training pets:

1. Actions have consequences. (i.e., be consistant)
2. The punishment should never outweigh the transgression. (i.e., "don't be a jerk about it")
3. A promise, be it reward or punishment, needs to be kept. (Not sure this one is applicable outside of parenting. I guess just speak honestly about your feelings?)

Let's clear this up:

Sean said the 'terms' do not exist in star wars.

He did NOT say the lifestyles do not exist in star wars.

Think about it, do they ever use a telephone in Star Wars? no they use a comlink.

Do they have glass in Star Wars? As far as I can tell they have transparisteel instead.

And there are alot of other things that star wars uses different words for.

Also to note that just because wookiepedia uses the words to describe the lifestyle of some in-universe characters - it does not mean those terms are used to describe that lifestyle in star wars.

What if homosexual relationships are so accepted in star wars that there is no seperate term for them. It is just one person in love with another, married to another.

It is merely a flaw of our current world to segregate people by labelling them, as my dear friend Torm likes to point out, we are all humans - there is no need to differentiate by colour and sexuality.

So star wars seems to just be succeeding where we as mankind have failed.

Stop stressing about the words because people living homosexual lifestyles DO exist in star wars, but they are so accepted that there is no NEED or DESIRE for a word to set them apart.

I would like to personally apologize to “Elikal” and anyone I may have offended. My intention was not to demean anyone but simply to help promote a community that could discuss topics in a mature fashion. When I first built the word filter list, I added a variety of terms to the word filter that have been used numerous times in derogatory messaging. There were some words added to the filter that should not have been – we corrected this today.

I apologize for the confusion that this has created but I would like to be clear that there was never any intent to limit discussion. That said, I have overstepped my boundaries in my original statement and I sincerely apologize for doing so.

-Sean

Pretty much this.

This is similar to the "colorblind" solution to race. Or like the "don't ask don't tell" solution for homosexuals in the US military. It's "tolerant" but not very "accepting".

Endgame people,

. . . endgame . . .

At long last . . .

How is that so?

I think that as long as people feel a need to seperate themselves and other by labelling them that there will always be discrimination, labelling in itself to me IS discrimination.

If we were to do away with all the labels and just BE... I beleive discrimination would be a thing of the past.

I don't see this happening in our reality, but it is certainly possible in the make-believe star wars universe.

The above poster nailed it. Just as it would be anachronistic to label, say, a nun as a lesbian or a Greek soldier as gay, it would be anachronistic (a long time ago) to do the same to the Star Wars universe. Sexuality is merely percieved differently. I have a feeling that it is much the same as most medieval or classical concepts; it is not so much, "do you like guys or girls?" but, "are you sexual or not?" A Roman would never see himself as a gay pedophile. Those concepts did not exist until modern times. He would have merely been "sexual." This debate is starting to bring me back to one of my classes, Fringes of the Middle Ages. In that class, I constantly argued against anachronistic labels of people, because a) they wouldn't have made sense to the groups being labeled; and b) it is therefore a terrible way to catergorize, because those words are so loaded with modern preconceptions and connotations which did not exist in those times, and likewise, do not exist in Star Wars.

What about positive discrimination? Celebrating cultural differences? Biological differences (e.g., professional athletes, models)? All this talk of "discrimination" often leaves out the clarifying term "negative". Some forms of discrimination are good (e.g., "fire is hot!").

For example, when my girlfriend came to the US from the philippines, should she have attempted to blend in entirely or was she correct to be proud of her heritage even as she integrated with US culture?

(Note: I am not saying "positive stereotyping", which is different and often just as damaging as "negative stereotyping".)