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Dawkins has tweeted about Walter Palmer, but I'm having trouble parsing his tweet. Is he defending Palmer, or what?

Richard Dawkins wrote:

‏@RichardDawkins 5 hours ago
Walter Palmer has paid the price & is Feeding Frenzy Witch Of The Week. But all trophy hunters are bad, & elephant & rhino poachers worse.

Wildeblood wrote:

Dawkins has tweeted about Walter Palmer, but I'm having trouble parsing his tweet. Is he defending Palmer, or what?

Richard Dawkins wrote:

‏@RichardDawkins 5 hours ago
Walter Palmer has paid the price & is Feeding Frenzy Witch Of The Week. But all trophy hunters are bad, & elephant & rhino poachers worse.

Seems to me it reads like this:
"Walter Palmer has paid the price": image related to going to prison is paying the price, which isn't defending him, but stating he's hurting now.

" & is Feeding Frenzy Witch Of The Week.": he is currently the designated victim of the public.

" But all trophy hunters are bad, & elephant & rhino poachers worse.": he is bad, and others too.

I'm sure that depending on our culture, we read this differently

I took that pretty much as Day described it..

He's claiming that Palmer is evil, but the people doing this kind of thing should have been satisfied with tutting and shaking their heads for a bit instead.

Day wrote:

" & is Feeding Frenzy Witch Of The Week.": he is currently the designated victim of the public.

This is the bit I'm having trouble with. The implication is that Palmer is the victim of a witch-hunt. The witch-hunt metaphor is usually used when the victim is innocent and undeserving of the attention being directed at them. It's a phrase normally used defensively. And the feeding frenzy metaphor is normally used pejoratively, to imply mass hysteria, or copy-cat affected interest rather than genuine interest. It's another defensive phrase.

The minimizing false dichotomy of the second sentence (rhino poachers are worse than lion poachers) is just typical Dawkins' mischief-making. It's true in a literal sense, but is false in its implication (that people are wrong to be concerned about a lion poacher), and like all Dawkins' half-truths it's irrelevant to the issue present.

Day wrote:

I'm sure that depending on our culture, we read this differently

Maybe.

Wildeblood wrote:

Day wrote:

" & is Feeding Frenzy Witch Of The Week.": he is currently the designated victim of the public.

This is the bit I'm having trouble with. The implication is that Palmer is the victim of a witch-hunt. The witch-hunt metaphor is usually used when the victim is innocent and undeserving of the attention being directed at them. It's a phrase normally used defensively. And the feeding frenzy metaphor is normally used pejoratively, to imply mass hysteria, or copy-cat affected interest rather than genuine interest. It's another defensive phrase.

I read it differently: a victim isn't necessarily innocent. So I would wait for other signs that this is the meaning of the writer.
I like to read between the lines, but with such sort sentences, I play it prudently.

Wildeblood wrote:

The minimizing false dichotomy of the second sentence (rhino poachers are worse than lion poachers) is just typical Dawkins' mischief-making. It's true in a literal sense, but is false in its implication (that people are wrong to be concerned about a lion poacher), and like all Dawkins' half-truths it's irrelevant to the issue present.

Oh. This I totally disregarded. I mean, this is so totally outside the scope of the reasoning (We can judge Palmer's acts without needing to compare them to others' acts) that I automatically discard it as uninteresting garbage.
I understand that it is mischief, I just won't lose time/thoughts on a useless dead-end. I agree I miss things sometimes (oftentimes would say my wife) because of that, and those are mainly hints that somebody is of bad faith.

Wildeblood wrote:

Dawkins has tweeted about Walter Palmer, but I'm having trouble parsing his tweet. Is he defending Palmer, or what?

Richard Dawkins wrote:

‏@RichardDawkins 5 hours ago
Walter Palmer has paid the price & is Feeding Frenzy Witch Of The Week. But all trophy hunters are bad, & elephant & rhino poachers worse.

I think this is badly written. Walter Palmer is toast and the heat on him is going to last a lot longer than a week. The dude is a one man international incident.
Also All trophy hunters are NOT bad. The Nobel peace prize for instance. I rather like that one and hunting for it makes the world a better place HAZZAH!

The main crux of this is the lunacy of fixating on one transgressor when there is a wider market doing much more damage. Fixing the poaching of endangered species is HARD, it takes effort; effort we can't be assed to give.

Kicking the living crap out of a dentist however from our keyboards; Hell, that's easy! I'll join that party. I get to feel good about myself. It has a much better chance of getting results and it's a game we can all play together. Wooo!

ClymAngus wrote:

Also All trophy hunters are NOT bad. The Nobel peace prize for instance.

Sorry.. I lost all respect for the Nobel peace prize when Obama got one for intensifying the wars Dubya started.

Diziet Sma wrote:

ClymAngus wrote:

Also All trophy hunters are NOT bad. The Nobel peace prize for instance.

Sorry.. I lost all respect for the Nobel peace prize when Obama got one for intensifying the wars Dubya started.

That's unfair. Obama hadn't shown how poor a POTUS he was going to be at the time he was given the prize. They gave him the prize immediately after he was elected.

You might have forgotten the 1974 prize to Henry Kissinger for announcing he was going to negotiate a peace treaty between Israel and its neighbours. In retrospect, forty years of peace looks suspiciously like forty years of unrest.

ClymAngus wrote:

Wildeblood wrote:

Dawkins has tweeted about Walter Palmer, but I'm having trouble parsing his tweet. Is he defending Palmer, or what?

Richard Dawkins wrote:

‏@RichardDawkins 5 hours ago
Walter Palmer has paid the price & is Feeding Frenzy Witch Of The Week. But all trophy hunters are bad, & elephant & rhino poachers worse.

...
The main crux of this is the lunacy of fixating on one transgressor when there is a wider market doing much more damage...

This is the way I see the meaning - the 'trophy hunters' to my mind are the witch hunters and the trophy is Palmer's head (reputation). Dawkins is having a dig at Palmer directly, yes, but he is also being cynical about a mob's propensity to 'join the hunt'. As Clym says, this is easy game.

Although I wouldn't have used Clyms description 'wider market', but the other remarks about elephant and rhino poachers are still pertinent (other than just being relevant to the tweet) because if the witch hunters are successful and Palmers life is ruined, a certain section of those in the hunt who pommulgate it (knowing it's wrong and doing it anyway), then walk away feeling justified; these are probably even worse (I'm thinking of public media here).

So no, not defending the human trophy, but also attacking all the trophy hunters and especially the worse ones.

I like you, Steve, but I'm pretty sure you're out on your own with that reading of both Dawkins' tweet & #WalterPalmer. Are you a "sport hunter" yourself, perchance?

Wildeblood wrote:

That's unfair. Obama hadn't shown how poor a POTUS he was going to be at the time he was given the prize. They gave him the prize immediately after he was elected.

Much the same thing, then.. he either got it for nothing, or simply for being elected. Either way, he hadn't earned it, and the Nobel committee were simply kissing his arse. Accordingly, I have no respect any more for the award.

Wildeblood wrote:

I like you, Steve, but I'm pretty sure you're out on your own with that reading of both Dawkins' tweet & #WalterPalmer. Are you a "sport hunter" yourself, perchance?

No, the only thing I shoot with is a camera (unless I'm eating roots and leaves).

But I do think that Dawkins would be disparaging of the mindless mob mentality and the media that fuels it.

Diziet Sma wrote:

ClymAngus wrote:

Also All trophy hunters are NOT bad. The Nobel peace prize for instance.

Sorry.. I lost all respect for the Nobel peace prize when Obama got one for intensifying the wars Dubya started.

<insert badge, medal, tiny metal cup, shield or other such physical manifestation of an accolade you do have respect for; here>

i read a letter that was supposed to be from Palmer on facebook today.

He is blaming his guides, says he did it all legal and relied on the guides. Permits paid etc....

not saying i agree with this or with hunting in general but there are always at least 2 sides to a story and so far we only have the one side.....

It is possible that for a quick payoff the guides took an easy option.....