A reason to keep hope

[brush]

7 hours ago, MickeyRay said:

It's kind of annoying me that op is being so defensive. You're not being attacked as a person, but we are instead trying to adjust the way that we use language in order to draw attention to and deconstruct the assumption as male as neutral. 

What? He can't defend himself from an objection raised against him? I mean, we're in the philosophy forums after all.

[gughok]

12 minutes ago, brush said:

What? He can't defend himself from an objection raised against him? I mean, we're in the philosophy forums after all.

Some ideas don't warrant defending.

[brush]

1 hour ago, gughok said:

Some ideas don't warrant defending.

You can't know whether an idea is worth defending or not without actually exploring a defense of it.

Generally, you should always explore both sides of an argument; and in fact, you should pay particular attention to the opposing side to help overcome biases you may have.

That some philosophical positions shouldn't even be explored is totally in opposition to the spirit of philosophy.

Edited February 24, 2016 by brush

[gughok]

4 hours ago, brush said:

You can't know whether an idea is worth defending or not without actually exploring a defense of it.

Generally, you should always explore both sides of an argument; and in fact, you should pay particular attention to the opposing side to help overcome biases you may have.

That some philosophical positions shouldn't even be explored is totally in opposition to the spirit of philosophy.

Sure, explore the idea. Consider both sides. Give it a fair treatment. And if one side falls apart as dreadfully damaging and discriminatory to half the population, make no further attempt to defend it. An idea which has been demonstrated a failure robustly deserves no defense.

[pecado]

On 24/2/2016 at 4:39 AM, MickeyRay said:

It's kind of annoying me that op is being so defensive. You're not being attacked as a person, but we are instead trying to adjust the way that we use language in order to draw attention to and deconstruct the assumption as male as neutral. 

 

 

Even if you specifically don't buy it, or don't think you should have to because a lot of people don't, let me just point out that if you send an academic philosophy paper to a journal with male/neutral pronouns then most if not all will make you change them. 

Sincerely, I could say the same about you. You exploded because I did not use the language as you like. And you are not being attacked as a person, I was only trying to inspire hope for my fellows, and you degenerated my words, implying that I was fomenting misogyny with my language. I did not do that, and I am arguing trying to show you that. Indeed, it is annoying to be blamed and accused "indirectly" of being offensive against women.

You may adjust your language as you like, so do I. You try to draw attention to an issue, I am trying to do that too. Strangely, when you do it you are the sacred defenders of the unquestionable truths, and when I do it, I am only an annoying intransigent person.

I really doubt that what you say about the journals is true, but if it is, that does not make your "arguments" more convincing, and if you are trying to imply that as a philosopher I am forced to adopt those modifications to the language, then you are completely wrong. Philosophy and academia are different things, and the academia has a lot of problems, which I, as a philosopher, am not willing to indulge. If some specific journal rejects an article only for that reason, I would be glad to never publish there, as I would not want to be associated with a "philosophical" journal that obligates you to embrace its morality and political correctness.

 

On 24/2/2016 at 9:32 AM, sidebysondheim said:

I think it is blatantly more than "kind of". I think it is downright worrying that one would more strongly desire to continue using a particular pronoun in their writing than attempt to build inclusivity among a marginalized population. Face it, this isn't about prescriptivist vs. descriptivist linguistics, clarity of speech, or any intellectual debate about what's in the extension of "archaic". It's simply about the fact that we live in a patriarchal society where women are given a lower normative-value than men, and any and all possible remnants of that should be altered to try and make society more inclusive. Since it doesn't seriously affect the readability (as opposed to say the example, "bt l0l l@ngge b wt 1t b3, l3ts n0 grmmr') or meaning of one's work, why be so adamant to stick to it? It may very well be the case that only "some feminists" care about it, and the complement set of feminists are apathetic. But that seems like a weird reason to be passionately against the change, instead of being for it.

You are right, I would more strongly desire to possess and use liberty of expression and liberty of thought, before attempting to build "inclusivity" among a marginalised population, because I am sure that that "inclusivity" can not exist if those liberties are suppressed.

The issue of the marginalization of women CAN be studied from those perspectives, and, more importantly, CAN BE QUESTIONED. I can not only doubt about the commandment of altering any "remnant" of the patriarchal society, but I can doubt about the relevance of that marginalization of women, compared to other problems of society -in example, a rich woman is more accepted and respected than a poor man-. If you consider the materialism, the marginalization of women is a consequence of capitalism, and it will not cease to exist until the capitalism stop (Karl Marx says it, literally); what you are trying to do is an ersatz egalitarian society where there is fake "inclusivity" only because the thoughts and expressions of the people are controlled in such a way that is impossible to express the contrary, yet, the poor women are as poor as the poor men, but that does not matter, as long as they both suffer the same misery of being a proletarian in the capitalism. 

And you may repudiate materialism, and your ideas would still have the problems signalled by George Orwell in 1984; you can't make a revolution degenerating the language, and forbidding any possible thought or doubt.

You call me weird because I do not follow the order of modifying my speech and my thoughts that some small and specific group of people commanded, and you may be right, it may be something strange to do, but I would still do it, specially if I do not agree with that order, and the commanders are intransigent and closed to any discussion about it. I wrote a lengthy response trying to initiate an intellectual debate about this issue, and it was completely ignored.

On 24/2/2016 at 0:00 PM, MickeyRay said:

I mean, it just sucks when people get so personally defensive about these kinds of "objections," especially because I don't consider this to be an objection at all. Its more like a blindspot or insensitivity to the marginalization of others. To get personally defensive and argue against is upsetting because it undermines the experiences of marginalization (and therefore furthers the marginalization!). And again, we weren't attacking him as a person or even his work or philosophical positions.... but his response of not even considering the feminist perspective actually was him attacking the philosophical position we were raising (one based on personal experience). 

Again, I could say the same about you, word by word:

"I mean, it just sucks when people get so personally defensive about these kinds of 'objections', especially because I don't consider this to be an objection at all".

I am not insensible to the marginalization of others. You don't know me.

To argue against something is not upsetting, and it definitively does not undermines the experiences of marginalization nor furthers the marginalization. To argue against something is simply the usual activity of philosophy. It is an element of the dialectical process that a philosopher makes to purify his believes (oops! I did it again!) confronting them with the believes and the criterion of another person, which may illuminate the philosopher and make him note something that he never noted meditating alone. This is the worth of the philosophical discussions, and you are demeaning it, by thinking that your prohibitionist conceptions are unquestionable and mandatory for everyone.

I am not attacking nor ignoring "the feminist perspective". To not blindly acquiesce with something is not to attack it. I am only acting as a philosopher, questioning the assumptions of the people, and being amazed for the reality and what I experience everyday, always something new or astonishing. Today, you dazzled me, with your consistency: while you ignore completely what is my sex, and despite all your theoretical paraphernalia about gender issues, you called me "him", which means that you just either did exactly what I did, which is using "the male as a neutral", or that you think that such a hard to tame person must be a man, because only a man would not unquestioningly agree with your feminist positions. Although this is only a commentary, because that does not matter too much, and thinking that that dismisses your feminist theories would be a fallacy.

Please realise that my attitude is just a philosophical one, and that if you want to convince me -or any rational person- about your ideas, you need to argue and discuss instead of just calling me an insensitive person.

[MickeyRay]

2 minutes ago, pecado said:

Sincerely, I could say the same about you. You exploded because I did not use the language as you like. And you are not being attacked as a person, I was only trying to inspire hope for my fellows, and you degenerated my words, implying that I was fomenting misogyny with my language. I did not do that, and I am arguing trying to show you that. Indeed, it is annoying to be blamed and accused "indirectly" of being offensive against women.

You may adjust your language as you like, so do I. You try to draw attention to an issue, I am trying to do that too. Strangely, when you do it you are the sacred defenders of the unquestionable truths, and when I do it, I am only an annoying intransigent person.

I really doubt that what you say about the journals is true, but if it is, that does not make your "arguments" more convincing, and if you are trying to imply that as a philosopher I am forced to adopt those modifications to the language, then you are completely wrong. Philosophy and academia are different things, and the academia has a lot of problems, which I, as a philosopher, am not willing to indulge. If some specific journal rejects an article only for that reason, I would be glad to never publish there, as I would not want to be associated with a "philosophical" journal that obligates you to embrace its morality and political correctness.

 

You are right, I would more strongly desire to possess and use liberty of expression and liberty of thought, before attempting to build "inclusivity" among a marginalised population, because I am sure that that "inclusivity" can not exist if those liberties are suppressed.

The issue of the marginalization of women CAN be studied from those perspectives, and, more importantly, CAN BE QUESTIONED. I can not only doubt about the commandment of altering any "remnant" of the patriarchal society, but I can doubt about the relevance of that marginalization of women, compared to other problems of society -in example, a rich woman is more accepted and respected than a poor man-. If you consider the materialism, the marginalization of women is a consequence of capitalism, and it will not cease to exist until the capitalism stop (Karl Marx says it, literally); what you are trying to do is an ersatz egalitarian society where there is fake "inclusivity" only because the thoughts and expressions of the people are controlled in such a way that is impossible to express the contrary, yet, the poor women are as poor as the poor men, but that does not matter, as long as they both suffer the same misery of being a proletarian in the capitalism. 

And you may repudiate materialism, and your ideas would still have the problems signalled by George Orwell in 1984; you can't make a revolution degenerating the language, and forbidding any possible thought or doubt.

You call me weird because I do not follow the order of modifying my speech and my thoughts that some small and specific group of people commanded, and you may be right, it may be something strange to do, but I would still do it, specially if I do not agree with that order, and the commanders are intransigent and closed to any discussion about it. I wrote a lengthy response trying to initiate an intellectual debate about this issue, and it was completely ignored.

Again, I could say the same about you, word by word:

"I mean, it just sucks when people get so personally defensive about these kinds of 'objections', especially because I don't consider this to be an objection at all".

I am not insensible to the marginalization of others. You don't know me.

To argue against something is not upsetting, and it definitively does not undermines the experiences of marginalization nor furthers the marginalization. To argue against something is simply the usual activity of philosophy. It is an element of the dialectical process that a philosopher makes to purify his believes (oops! I did it again!) confronting them with the believes and the criterion of another person, which may illuminate the philosopher and make him note something that he never noted meditating alone. This is the worth of the philosophical discussions, and you are demeaning it, by thinking that your prohibitionist conceptions are unquestionable and mandatory for everyone.

I am not attacking nor ignoring "the feminist perspective". To not blindly acquiesce with something is not to attack it. I am only acting as a philosopher, questioning the assumptions of the people, and being amazed for the reality and what I experience everyday, always something new or astonishing. Today, you dazzled me, with your consistency: while you ignore completely what is my sex, and despite all your theoretical paraphernalia about gender issues, you called me "him", which means that you just either did exactly what I did, which is using "the male as a neutral", or that you think that such a hard to tame person must be a man, because only a man would not unquestioningly agree with your feminist positions. Although this is only a commentary, because that does not matter too much, and thinking that that dismisses your feminist theories would be a fallacy.

Please realise that my attitude is just a philosophical one, and that if you want to convince me -or any rational person- about your ideas, you need to argue and discuss instead of just calling me an insensitive person.

I did not explode. I wasn't even the person to point it out. I just wanted to talk about your response, because I'm disappointed and interested in collective vs. individual responsibility. I am not saying that as a philosopher you should be forced to do anything. I am saying that as a philosopher that you should know better. 

 

The language we use reflects, perpertuates, and performs social injustices. It's also a clear and public way to draw attention to and change linguistic (social) structures. Look at the way that drawing attention to the word "retard" has changed mindsets or what the reclaiming of queer has done. Finally, I would expect a philosopher to actually indulge the idea and read the literature we are talking about before blindly rejecting the position that we have. 

[gughok]

17 minutes ago, pecado said:

Sincerely, I could say the same about you. You exploded because I did not use the language as you like. And you are not being attacked as a person, I was only trying to inspire hope for my fellows, and you degenerated my words, implying that I was fomenting misogyny with my language. I did not do that, and I am arguing trying to show you that. Indeed, it is annoying to be blamed and accused "indirectly" of being offensive against women.

You may adjust your language as you like, so do I. You try to draw attention to an issue, I am trying to do that too. Strangely, when you do it you are the sacred defenders of the unquestionable truths, and when I do it, I am only an annoying intransigent person.

I really doubt that what you say about the journals is true, but if it is, that does not make your "arguments" more convincing, and if you are trying to imply that as a philosopher I am forced to adopt those modifications to the language, then you are completely wrong. Philosophy and academia are different things, and the academia has a lot of problems, which I, as a philosopher, am not willing to indulge. If some specific journal rejects an article only for that reason, I would be glad to never publish there, as I would not want to be associated with a "philosophical" journal that obligates you to embrace its morality and political correctness.

 

You are right, I would more strongly desire to possess and use liberty of expression and liberty of thought, before attempting to build "inclusivity" among a marginalised population, because I am sure that that "inclusivity" can not exist if those liberties are suppressed.

The issue of the marginalization of women CAN be studied from those perspectives, and, more importantly, CAN BE QUESTIONED. I can not only doubt about the commandment of altering any "remnant" of the patriarchal society, but I can doubt about the relevance of that marginalization of women, compared to other problems of society -in example, a rich woman is more accepted and respected than a poor man-. If you consider the materialism, the marginalization of women is a consequence of capitalism, and it will not cease to exist until the capitalism stop (Karl Marx says it, literally); what you are trying to do is an ersatz egalitarian society where there is fake "inclusivity" only because the thoughts and expressions of the people are controlled in such a way that is impossible to express the contrary, yet, the poor women are as poor as the poor men, but that does not matter, as long as they both suffer the same misery of being a proletarian in the capitalism. 

And you may repudiate materialism, and your ideas would still have the problems signalled by George Orwell in 1984; you can't make a revolution degenerating the language, and forbidding any possible thought or doubt.

You call me weird because I do not follow the order of modifying my speech and my thoughts that some small and specific group of people commanded, and you may be right, it may be something strange to do, but I would still do it, specially if I do not agree with that order, and the commanders are intransigent and closed to any discussion about it. I wrote a lengthy response trying to initiate an intellectual debate about this issue, and it was completely ignored.

Again, I could say the same about you, word by word:

"I mean, it just sucks when people get so personally defensive about these kinds of 'objections', especially because I don't consider this to be an objection at all".

I am not insensible to the marginalization of others. You don't know me.

To argue against something is not upsetting, and it definitively does not undermines the experiences of marginalization nor furthers the marginalization. To argue against something is simply the usual activity of philosophy. It is an element of the dialectical process that a philosopher makes to purify his believes (oops! I did it again!) confronting them with the believes and the criterion of another person, which may illuminate the philosopher and make him note something that he never noted meditating alone. This is the worth of the philosophical discussions, and you are demeaning it, by thinking that your prohibitionist conceptions are unquestionable and mandatory for everyone.

I am not attacking nor ignoring "the feminist perspective". To not blindly acquiesce with something is not to attack it. I am only acting as a philosopher, questioning the assumptions of the people, and being amazed for the reality and what I experience everyday, always something new or astonishing. Today, you dazzled me, with your consistency: while you ignore completely what is my sex, and despite all your theoretical paraphernalia about gender issues, you called me "him", which means that you just either did exactly what I did, which is using "the male as a neutral", or that you think that such a hard to tame person must be a man, because only a man would not unquestioningly agree with your feminist positions. Although this is only a commentary, because that does not matter too much, and thinking that that dismisses your feminist theories would be a fallacy.

Please realise that my attitude is just a philosophical one, and that if you want to convince me -or any rational person- about your ideas, you need to argue and discuss instead of just calling me an insensitive person.

Obstinacy under the guise of philosophical caution is a really frustrating thing to observe.

First, nobody "exploded" at you. One person said she agreed with you, save your use of the masculine generic. You asked why, we explained in moderated terms, and you resisted with complete denial.

Second, we're not here to reinvent the wheel, so I'm not going to type up an essay. Here you go:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Rationale

https://www.academia.edu/1597246/The_extinction_of_masculine_generics

https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/elliechestnutthesis.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148068580921132

http://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Gastil_1990.pdf

http://www.bustle.com/articles/96831-supposedly-generic-uses-of-man-are-not-actually-generic-says-survey-so-here-are-6-words

This is what I could find in ten minutes. That's all it took: ten minutes and google. I don't think this is at all an exhaustive list.

 

[knp]

People who care about this do realize that the norms of politeness are different in different languages, and different grammatical structures may require different solutions. The masculine generic may be fine in Spanish; this is what is polite in English. For an example going the opposite direction: English only has one form of "you"; but that doesn't make it any more polite if I walk into Spanish-speaking classrooms calling all of my professors "tu" rather than "usted."

[pecado]

On 25/2/2016 at 6:41 PM, gughok said:

Sure, explore the idea. Consider both sides. Give it a fair treatment. And if one side falls apart as dreadfully damaging and discriminatory to half the population, make no further attempt to defend it. An idea which has been demonstrated a failure robustly deserves no defense.

Or just describe the person defending the other side as an obstinate in disguise, ignore all of his arguments, send him to read, and rest assured that you are right because you did not permit any doubt about your believes.

Now, seriously, your criterion to dismiss ideas is, as @brush said, against the spirit of philosophy. Let me share you this quote from Stuart Mill's essay on liberty:

"[To control the expression of opinion] is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in or opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind".

And this longer quote from the same essay:

"We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate.

First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions, that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience".

I was not worthy of your essays, so I think I am neither worthy to write you an essay. So I give up. I only hope that these quotes inspire you to think that maybe you can be wrong 1% of the time, and that perhaps it might not be the best idea to censor languages, expressions and ideas, even if they are so dreadfully damaging and discriminatory that they mysteriously harm unwitting people if they are used in the most innocent message of hope and good desires.

[pecado]

On 24/2/2016 at 0:02 AM, feelthebern16 said:

Thanks OP for offering some perspective and lending a vision of hope, or at least trying  

 

On 24/2/2016 at 9:45 AM, bechkafish said:

@pecado, I'm sorry that your thread is being hijacked like this. I just wanted to stop in and say thank you for posting - it's been a rough application season for me, emotionally, and waking up this morning to your post helped me feel a bit less underwater.

You are welcome.

[MVSCZAR]

I really can't stand this chicken little bullshit back and forth. On the one hand, it isn't the end of the world that you used a masculine pronoun. No rational person would say this is an example of overt I discrimination. We get it, you meant well. But even as someone who is exceptionally tolerant of that and who refuses to use feminine pronouns as universals (prefering one, you, or they), your use of "he" was a little too obvious and sounded bad and exclusionary. Now we know you didn't mean it that way. Great. You're not a misogynist or a jerk or anything for using it. Just a bad writer, at least in that post. Nobody is faulting you for that nor should they. But your response is annoying and self righteous, because it does sound bad, and a *suggestion* to change a pronoun isn't some great affront to your Liberty. It isn't in itself some massive arrest of the /freedoms which built our wonderfully liberated western civilization./ It's an editing suggestion. That's all it is. Your rights aren't being stripped. This isn't some liberal plot to delegitimize dissent (and those do exist. There IS a problem with PC culture, but this is different.). It's not a slippery slope towards totalitarianism and against rationality and reason and common sense. You're not a martyr for using "him", "he", etc. 

 

@gughok gave you an excellent response. You don't have to take his suggestions. Nobody is forcing you to. Also, I worked for an academic journal as an editor, and we never sent a paper back or suggested someone use a different pronoun. I think that thats's a total exaggeration, and I don't know what the point is of pretending that that actually happens in most reputable journals. I suppose it does and should within certain AOIs, but it's not done across the board. But again, your problem is only tangentially political and primarily stylistic, and the writing we got was often by much better stylists. 

 

Also, you're posting this in a thread filled with a bunch of tense and anxious wanna-be philosophers with intellectual blue balls, myself included. What do you expect to happen? 

 

I'm not going to make any claim about you or your character or intentions, and I'll defend you against any accusations against your character. But, if you're wanting to have an actual discussion, we should have it, so long as you don't pretend that this is something it isn't. And also, so long as you don't hide behind that Orwellian nightmare bullshit. This isn't that conversation. That's too easy. 

Edited February 26, 2016 by MVSCZAR

[iamtheother]

There's also the risk that @pecado just really likes sophistry, and is under some kind of pretension that Philosophy is done in a vacuum.

[notorious_biv]

Internets will be internets. 

[notorious_biv]

Everyone here is a bundle of nerves. And, no, I'm not just saying that because I'm a physicalist.  Anyway, how I see it, this forum  is good for two things: sharing information and commiserating. So, here's to the misery! Good luck, everybody! And - pssst - hit me up if you have any info re: Pitt HPS. 

[matchamatcha]

On 29/02/2016 at 3:30 AM, notorious_biv said:

Everyone here is a bundle of nerves. And, no, I'm not just saying that because I'm a physicalist.  Anyway, how I see it, this forum  is good for two things: sharing information and commiserating. So, here's to the misery! Good luck, everybody! And - pssst - hit me up if you have any info re: Pitt HPS. 

I emailed their department secretary, and she said that decisions will be sent out this week.

I'm guessing that still means rejection unless someone turned down their offer (who turns down their Pitt HPS offer?!?!?!), but at least we'll be notified by the end of this week.

[notorious_biv]

9 hours ago, matchamatcha said:

I emailed their department secretary, and she said that decisions will be sent out this week.

I'm guessing that still means rejection unless someone turned down their offer (who turns down their Pitt HPS offer?!?!?!), but at least we'll be notified by the end of this week.

Thanks! I've only seen one acceptance on grad cafe, but then again there's usually only a few.

[Kratistos]

What do you guys think of men using ,"he" and women using "she" each time one of them uses an abstract example. This way girls won't need to abide to the standard male pronoun. At the same time, it will be easier for guys to simply use he. Most guys don't have a mysognist intent in mind but rather just use it since they are male themselves.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Kratistos

[ExponentialDecay]

OP, on the off-chance you do get into graduate school, a word of advice: if you receive a criticism that is tangential or even parallel to the point you are trying to argue, say thank you and move the fuck on. Otherwise you'll die of thirst while standing your ground in a seminar. What you don't want to happen is wasting your time and effort arguing about what is, where your thesis is concerned, an irrelevant trifle, and end up looking like an idiot in the process. Here, you took somebody's off-hand, innocuous remark and blew it up into some big stink because your ego was hurt or you have too much time on your hands or whatever it is. In real life/academia, people will manufacture these innocuous remarks because they want you to react in this way, because they want to make you look stupid or angry, or to derail the conversation, or whatever else. In the end, nobody will care who was right or who started it, because the argument had no substance in the first place - they will judge you on your behavior. Because these spats never show anyone to advantage, it's essential that you can stop yourself from engaging in them. This shit destroys careers. You really got to learn to let it go.

[MickeyRay]

Yeah I'm still trying to figure out if the original position is worthy to take into consideration. It does seem like at least two people have gotten acceptances from almost every single continental school... Which means continental programs will probably have to go a lot farther down their lists as people keep getting more and more prestigious last minute offers. And these waitlists are usually like 1 or 2 people... So maybe I still have a chance at my lowest tier school? 

 

...maybe I'm just procrastinating on the friggen job search... 

[Establishment]

3 hours ago, ExponentialDecay said:

In real life/academia, people will manufacture these innocuous remarks because they want you to react in this way, because they want to make you look stupid or angry, or to derail the conversation, or whatever else. In the end, nobody will care who was right or who started it, because the argument had no substance in the first place - they will judge you on your behavior.

EH... If the context as you described obtains, it seems clear that the person who manufactured an innocuous remark aiming to make you look stupid or angry is the one who's going to get judged and not the victim who got baited. To do otherwise is pretty victim blaming.