This is a US site, patronised seemingly by mostly non-Candians. My purpose is to contextualize who and what the subtext of this phrase's use in Canada within the context of this Canadian story.
> All of these supposed "dog whistle" call-outs do not feel constructive to me. I would never have though the parent comment was deriding Indians (and still don't).
The point of a literal dog-whistle is that the intended audience (dogs) can hear and understand the whistle perfectly, while other people do not hear anything at all.
Figuratively, a dog-whistle phrase leaves room for debate (like this), and provides cover for people to say unsavory things while still being able to deny the meaning. Well-meaning folks can say things like "I would never have though the parent comment was deriding Indians" because that is the whole point of the dog-whistle in modern rhetoric.
The analogy holds well here as well. You can wade into any right wing space in Canada and you will hear the phrase "low trust society' and "high trust society". It is ALWAYS used in the context of immigrants (low trust) and white Canadians (high trust). It is almost always used in reference to Indian immigrants specifically.
The whole point of a dog whistle is that you can take them at face value and see nothing explicitly wrong with the statement. Is it possible that this commenter simply blundered into this phrasing without understanding that it is used specifically against Indian immigrant cultures by the extreme right? Yes. Do I believe that they happened on the exact same particular phrasing and argument that anti-Indian/anti-immigrant groups use was made by pure coincidence? No.
If OP did blunder into their statement, they can easily reply and correct their true intent. If I accidentally used a racially loaded statement that signals allegiance with certain groups, I would absolutely want someone to point it out so I can clarify.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. How should someone discuss those topics without tripping a dog whistle alarm? That is my issue with that sort of discourse, it fences off things that have literal meanings and makes them verboten.
Use your own words, and understand what other phrases mean if you are using phrasing that you picked up somewhere else. Its totally fine if you don't pick up on someone else using controversial 'dog-whistle' phrasing, that's kinda the point of a dog whistle. Don't hide your meaning in implications.
If you think that high levels of Indian immigration are causing a conflict between dominant Canadian culture that relies on "high-trust" transactions because the immigrants come from a "low-trust" group that take advantage of it, then say that (or whatever it is that you actually believe). Phrasing it like OP has, leaves room for multiple interpretations. It is possible that they think this is a transition from high to low trust that Canada is making entirely independently of immigration policy. Because they chose to use ambiguous phrasing preferred by a specific polity, we are forced to interpret for ourselves.
In short: say what you mean clearly in plain language. "[this] cancellation policy only really works in a high-trust society, which at least one prominent nation seems to be backsliding on" is not clear or using plain language.
I guess I still struggle with what amounts to the opposite of "assume positive intent" which can make communicating significantly less productive. I do generally agree with the preference for plain and direct language.
> For those not living in the true north (Canada), 90% of the time, this is dog-whsitle phrasing preferred by the Canadian right wing to complain about Indian immigrants.
I'm not sure I have assumed ill intent. I didn't say anyone was categorically wrong or racist. I simply pointed out that they are using phrasing mostly used by people who dislike Indian immigration.
If that is not what they intended, I have left plenty of room for them to say they are not part of that group, and the phrasing was coincidental, or that they did not understand that the phrase is a reference to the superiority of one culture over another.
> My purpose is to contextualize who and what the subtext of this phrase's use in Canada within the context of this Canadian story.
The story occured in Canada, but not about Canada. The story doesn't mention Indian immigrants, gp didn't mention them either, or even allude to them[1]. Assuming you are against bigotry, it's ironic that you're the one to introduce the anti-Indian meme to this thread with your recontextualization, where most people were thinking of economic power imbalances and contracts.
Just because a phrase is coöpted by bigots doesn't mean it becomes anathema. Context is important, IMO, you misapplied the context and took the threed off topic. If on the other hand you're trying to propagate anti-immigrant concepts in an unrelated thread and/or make people hate language-policing, congratulations.
1. IMO, The allusion is to the US, where the political wing aligned with nativism is leading the charge to undermine societal trust.
If I said that "We need to protect the German fatherland's industrial capabilities from globalists on behalf of the german folk" would you be willing to take it at face value that I want to develop Germany's industrial capacity for economic reasons? That is a possible interpretation of those literal words.
Other people would be perfectly correct to point out that the language I am using is associated strongly with certain political groups, and that it has strong implications of racial bigotry. I could then come back and clarify that I am talking about the relative merits of protectionist economic policy in the era of globalized, state supported economic segments, and not Nazi economic policy.
I pointed it out because, while the story is not about Canada the country, it is about a Canadian doing business in Canada with a Canadian business. The comment uses language and specific phrasing preferred by anti-indian immigration groups in Canada.
Is it possible that the original comment was completely unrelated... but the specific words and phrasing on a comment about a thing in Canada happening to a Canadian lead me to believe that they mean the same thing as the other people that use that exact phrasing about things happening in Canada to Canadians.
> Reductio ad absurdum doesn't really work when the subject is dog-whistles, by definition.
I was using a more globally recognizable example to illustrate it since you have already implied that you do not understand the Canadian context. It wasn't reductio ad absurdum, but just an example of the concept moved to a different domain.
> If someone says "we woke to a chaotic airport" and you go on about how "woke" is dog-whistle, I'd consider that to be an off-topic diversion, at best.
That's not what I'm doing literally or figuratively. I'm not picking on one specific word.
I am pointing out that specific phrases and ideas used to express a specific sentiment on a specific topic can have hidden meaning assigned to them by interested groups.
In this case the phrase is "... [booking.com's] free cancellation policy only really works in a high-trust society, which at least one prominent nation seems to be backsliding"
The ambiguous/suspect terms here are "high-trust society" and "prominent nation seems to be backsliding". I am not suggesting that we cannot use those terms without being suspected of anti-indian sentiment, I am suggesting that using that phrasing to convey a message on that specific topic is a pattern predominately invoked by those with anti-indian/immigrant sentiment.
Accusing anyone that uses the word "woke" of being necessarily political is reductio ad absurdum of its own sort, and I fully agree that using a single word once is an absurd way to determine political meaning. Fortunately that isn't what I said. At all.
I am leaving open that the OP truly does want to talk about changing social mores leading to businesses having to change their policies, and that this is not a comment on immigrant communities. But I am pointing out that they have used the same language and specific terminology that is used in anti-indian immigrant political discussions.
If their intent is not to target immigrants, fine, that can be clarified. If it is their intent, I would prefer that they plainly state that they think that immigrants are the cause of hypothetical future changes to policy at high-end luxury hotels.
> All of these supposed "dog whistle" call-outs do not feel constructive to me. I would never have though the parent comment was deriding Indians (and still don't).
The point of a literal dog-whistle is that the intended audience (dogs) can hear and understand the whistle perfectly, while other people do not hear anything at all.
Figuratively, a dog-whistle phrase leaves room for debate (like this), and provides cover for people to say unsavory things while still being able to deny the meaning. Well-meaning folks can say things like "I would never have though the parent comment was deriding Indians" because that is the whole point of the dog-whistle in modern rhetoric.
The analogy holds well here as well. You can wade into any right wing space in Canada and you will hear the phrase "low trust society' and "high trust society". It is ALWAYS used in the context of immigrants (low trust) and white Canadians (high trust). It is almost always used in reference to Indian immigrants specifically.
The whole point of a dog whistle is that you can take them at face value and see nothing explicitly wrong with the statement. Is it possible that this commenter simply blundered into this phrasing without understanding that it is used specifically against Indian immigrant cultures by the extreme right? Yes. Do I believe that they happened on the exact same particular phrasing and argument that anti-Indian/anti-immigrant groups use was made by pure coincidence? No.
If OP did blunder into their statement, they can easily reply and correct their true intent. If I accidentally used a racially loaded statement that signals allegiance with certain groups, I would absolutely want someone to point it out so I can clarify.
You can believe whatever you want.