AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
We are intolerant of many things as a society, like crimes. If it’s not already on the list, we should definitely add “lying to the American people about the children your boss is putting in cages.” That doesn’t seem like a very slippery slope to me.
I really didn't think we'd still be talking about the Sanders thing. She was asked to leave and she left, she's not part of a protected group or class. The only noteworthy thing about the entire situation is the tantrum the president had about it, which has less to do with consumerism and more to do with his perceived persecution when he or his followers face even minor criticisms or consequences. It's just more of the same spastic outrage over a non-thing.
I'm more interested in what sort of services are denied a physician who works for Planned Parenthood or a public defender assigned a case where they get to defend a minority from a rape charge. I'm sure ACLU lawyers get a lot of shit from everyone because they represent some pretty awful people at least once in a while and are doing so specifically for first amendment reasons.
People are still denied service for being black and openly "Muslim free" business groups have been a thing for a while. Obvious protected groups.
To me it doesn't seem like there is much of a grey area, doctors and lawyers have jobs that require they do them to the best of their ability regardless of personal views. It might start getting a little fuzzy when you start talking about Enron lawyers or anti-vaccination doctors who are intentionally participating in the harm of others.
Edit: Harm like bombing an abortion doctor or revenge killing a lawyer is pretty unethical, and I think almost everyone in our society has agreed on that.
In his suit, Kessler asked that Gasapo be held responsible for the actions that might stem from her words.
“This is an opportunity to bring civility back to our community,” said Kessler.
This is a neo Nazi responsible for the Unite the Right rally, which attacked counter protests and clergy while chanting Nazi slogans, ending in a terrorist attack that killed one.
He sued one of the protesters for being mean to him in court AND WON ($5, but still) and claims it's "restoring civiliity".
So let's turn those hypotheticals around. Those of you that have been asking how far is too far to exclude someone or otherwise be incivil. How far is too far the other way around? Would you critize someone for kicking Kessler out?
In his suit, Kessler asked that Gasapo be held responsible for the actions that might stem from her words.
“This is an opportunity to bring civility back to our community,” said Kessler.
This is a neo Nazi responsible for the Unite the Right rally, which attacked counter protests and clergy while chanting Nazi slogans, ending in a terrorist attack that killed one.
He sued one of the protesters for being mean to him in court AND WON ($5, but still) and claims it's "restoring civiliity".
So let's turn those hypotheticals around. Those of you that have been asking how far is too far to exclude someone or otherwise be incivil. How far is too far the other way around? Would you critize someone for kicking Kessler out?
I get what you're saying, and there's some truth to the principle of it I guess. I do think that the judgement encourages people to stay anonymous when they decide to beat up Nazi's though, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. This ruling was basically the Nazi arguing that if someone says mean things to him, he might get violent which isn't his fault. To which I think the best answer is, "go fuck yourself."
Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge tells me that the judicial system is kind of fucked up sometimes.
Edit: No, the judge ruled that Kessler is a public figure. He isn't part of a protected group, he can get the fuck out on grounds of being an openly racist piece of trash that threatens violence.
In his suit, Kessler asked that Gasapo be held responsible for the actions that might stem from her words.
“This is an opportunity to bring civility back to our community,” said Kessler.
This is a neo Nazi responsible for the Unite the Right rally, which attacked counter protests and clergy while chanting Nazi slogans, ending in a terrorist attack that killed one.
He sued one of the protesters for being mean to him in court AND WON ($5, but still) and claims it's "restoring civiliity".
So let's turn those hypotheticals around. Those of you that have been asking how far is too far to exclude someone or otherwise be incivil. How far is too far the other way around? Would you critize someone for kicking Kessler out?
Treat Kessler like the troll he is. One stupid ruling from a judge doesn't invalidate anything we've been saying.
Fascists will always find sympathizers somewhere. That just means it's all the more important for the rest of us to shun them and their ideology.
I'll have to admit, though, intolerance seems like it would be a poor weapon against intolerance. It seems like a poor weapon in general.
As someone who was born during a totalitarian military regime and now lives in a democratic republic, I can tell you that intolerance can be the BEST weapon against intolerance.
Without intolerance, the perpetrators of state violence and the murder and siapearence of over 30.000 citizen, would have never seen justice. It was people who took to the streets to demand justice that made their incarceration possible, people refusing service to pro-mlitary dicatorship, and most of all, fucking civility when human rights are on the line.
There were people here who called that time the "dirty war", and the people told them in loud and clear terms, "fuck off". We refused to be tolerant of the intolerant, and we refused to say that all violence is just violence and therefore bad. We would still be under a totalitarian regime, being kidnapped at night by deathsquads because of our political affiliations.
And those things that you say dont work, did work, we regained democracy and we saw the dictators behind bars. Intolerance is the silver bullet against opression and violence promoted by a fascist or proto-fascist state. Like the US has now.
I'd like to learn more about this if possible
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'll have to admit, though, intolerance seems like it would be a poor weapon against intolerance. It seems like a poor weapon in general.
As someone who was born during a totalitarian military regime and now lives in a democratic republic, I can tell you that intolerance can be the BEST weapon against intolerance.
Without intolerance, the perpetrators of state violence and the murder and siapearence of over 30.000 citizen, would have never seen justice. It was people who took to the streets to demand justice that made their incarceration possible, people refusing service to pro-mlitary dicatorship, and most of all, fucking civility when human rights are on the line.
There were people here who called that time the "dirty war", and the people told them in loud and clear terms, "fuck off". We refused to be tolerant of the intolerant, and we refused to say that all violence is just violence and therefore bad. We would still be under a totalitarian regime, being kidnapped at night by deathsquads because of our political affiliations.
And those things that you say dont work, did work, we regained democracy and we saw the dictators behind bars. Intolerance is the silver bullet against opression and violence promoted by a fascist or proto-fascist state. Like the US has now.
I'd like to learn more about this if possible
About the regime itself, the fight to bring the dictators to justice or the rewritting of history in foreign media claiming it a "war" of some sort, when it was the state murdering civilians?
I cant find english sources for the "escraches", wich is how former military members were outed and protested against during democracy.
For how the Military Junta fell, they were broke and without popular support after the Falklands war, and the memory of the Cordobazo was still pretty fresh.
(1969, this is not from the same process but it set a precedent that lives to this day - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordobazo#Popular_uprising )
FANTOMAS on
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
Yeah it's very frustrating how wikipedia skips right over that
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
"The demonstrations end outside the escrachado’s homes where eggs are tossed at his door, red paint is thrown at his façade, slogans are written on the walls and yellow footprints are painted on the sidewalks.[24] The doorstep can be washed and the stains on the house and pavement can be erased, but the ‘social marks’ now worn by the escrachado will remain.[25] Typically, the effects are felt by the represor the following days: ‘That’s when the baker won’t sell him bread, the taxi won’t pick him up, the newspaper won’t come to his house.’"
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
"The demonstrations end outside the escrachado’s homes where eggs are tossed at his door, red paint is thrown at his façade, slogans are written on the walls and yellow footprints are painted on the sidewalks.[24] The doorstep can be washed and the stains on the house and pavement can be erased, but the ‘social marks’ now worn by the escrachado will remain.[25] Typically, the effects are felt by the represor the following days: ‘That’s when the baker won’t sell him bread, the taxi won’t pick him up, the newspaper won’t come to his house.’"
Thanks for the history lesson, it really put things in perspective. I need more mental preparation if this is where we're headed.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Most of the contemporary culture’s discussion of civility, toleration, and allied notions, both here and elsewhere, has focused on the other to whom civility might be extended and on society at large. Central questions have included whether various classes of people deserve to have civility extended to them, and on the hypothesized effects on politics more broadly of either doing so or not doing so: whether it would lead to a “slippery slope,” whether it would invigorate allies or targets more, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with these questions, but I think that they leave something important out, something which has come to seem increasingly important to me.
An analogy will help. Consider forgiveness. Sometimes people deserve to be forgiven, and you would wrong them by not doing so. Sometimes they don’t--sometimes it would be wrong for a person to even ask. Sometimes forgiving someone can be expedient for social reasons; sometimes it can be a mistake. These can all be important consideration. But these reasons focus on the person being forgiven, and on the other people in the background. What they do not take account of is the forgiver themself.
Sometimes we forgive people for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they deserve to be forgiven. We forgive people for our own sakes. We find that the anger we carried is toxic, exhausting. We can find our entire perspective shifting with nothing at all changing about the person themselves. We can find this happening with someone who definitely does not deserve to be forgiven, but then we forgive them anyway, because forgiving them is a good thing we do to ourselves.
I think that at least sometimes civility can be the same way. Even if some people do not deserve to be treated civilly (making no real judgment on this), it can be the case that being civil toward them anyway is good for our hearts and minds. It can involve the exercise and strengthening of capacities of deliberate self-control, compassion, fairmindedness.
The last of those in particular--cultivation of fairmindedness--has been on my mind due to a recent tempest in a teapot that some of you may have followed. Robin Hanson, a libertarian type at George Mason, wrote a tongue-in-cheek article advocating for the redistribution of sex to the sexually disadvantaged. The idea was that this would show us how wrong redistribution is, in general--just as sexual envy is not a good reason to redistribute sex, monetary envy is no reason to redistribute money. And backing up either plan with the implicit threat of violence (if you don't do it, the disadvantaged will take matters into their own hands) just makes it more abhorrent. He wrote this, tastelessly, in the immediate aftermath of an incel killing. Ross Douthat then took the same basic premise and ran with it in the NYT op ed page, this time putting a social Catholic spin on it as opposed to the earlier right-libertarian one.
What shocked me was not the articles--which were interesting enough in conception, but extremely shallow in execution. What shocked me was the response by some well established "thought leader" types on the left. A number of people took the articles deadly seriously, and argued that they showed how conservatives view women as property, to be handed out to spoiled violent men. I recall at least a couple of the Lawyers Guns and Money Bloggers taking this line, as well as Jeet Heer, though I made no kind of of systematic survey. But of course, this was the exact opposite of the point. The point, such as it was, was that redistributing sex is creepy and bad, so we should think of sex as sacred (Douthat) or we should think of redistribution as generally wrong (Hanson). And this was very, very obvious.
How could such a basic error have happened not just in one, but in several "intellectuals" readings of these pieces? I think it's pretty clear that the commentators were so hot and bothered about the apparent chance to call out some conservatives for ~~supporting Literally Gilead~~ that their brains went on vacation. And maybe many, or even most, conservatives do support Literal Gilead! Maybe Douthat and Hanson themselves support literal Gilead, in other venues and writings. But they weren't doing it here, and a controlling preoccupation with the general sins of conservatives, how bad and creepy they are as a whole, lead to these commentors making themselves, in a very basic and factual way, stupid. There is a certain kind of partisan fervor that I can't help but think is just brain poison.
So, I think that just we can forgive people who do not deserve to be forgiven--not for them, but for us--I also think we can be civil to people who do not deserve civility--not for them, but for us.
To be clear, this is not intended to supplant or supercede considerations of broader social effects, or desert. It would be ridiculous to lecture survivors of a military dictatorship about civil resistance. I bring this up not because it is the only consideration, but because I think it is an important consideration--and one which I have seen entirely absent from the broader cultural conversation. I think that one of the values of civility is not what it does to others, but what it does to ourselves.
For my own sake I see no need to be "civil", in this case blindly accept business from fascists or spend my money with no thought as to where it goes. No one is making things worse for themselves by deciding that I will not stay at Trump's hotels or buy his daughter's clothing while they continue to advocate separating children from their parents and putting them in cages.
Sometimes forgiveness isn't warranted. Sometimes deciding to ignore any and all transgressions in the name of being the better person only makes one lesser.
Most of the contemporary culture’s discussion of civility, toleration, and allied notions, both here and elsewhere, has focused on the other to whom civility might be extended and on society at large. Central questions have included whether various classes of people deserve to have civility extended to them, and on the hypothesized effects on politics more broadly of either doing so or not doing so: whether it would lead to a “slippery slope,” whether it would invigorate allies or targets more, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with these questions, but I think that they leave something important out, something which has come to seem increasingly important to me.
An analogy will help. Consider forgiveness. Sometimes people deserve to be forgiven, and you would wrong them by not doing so. Sometimes they don’t--sometimes it would be wrong for a person to even ask. Sometimes forgiving someone can be expedient for social reasons; sometimes it can be a mistake. These can all be important consideration. But these reasons focus on the person being forgiven, and on the other people in the background. What they do not take account of is the forgiver themself.
Sometimes we forgive people for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they deserve to be forgiven. We forgive people for our own sakes. We find that the anger we carried is toxic, exhausting. We can find our entire perspective shifting with nothing at all changing about the person themselves. We can find this happening with someone who definitely does not deserve to be forgiven, but then we forgive them anyway, because forgiving them is a good thing we do to ourselves.
I think that at least sometimes civility can be the same way. Even if some people do not deserve to be treated civilly (making no real judgment on this), it can be the case that being civil toward them anyway is good for our hearts and minds. It can involve the exercise and strengthening of capacities of deliberate self-control, compassion, fairmindedness.
The last of those in particular--cultivation of fairmindedness--has been on my mind due to a recent tempest in a teapot that some of you may have followed. Robin Hanson, a libertarian type at George Mason, wrote a tongue-in-cheek article advocating for the redistribution of sex to the sexually disadvantaged. The idea was that this would show us how wrong redistribution is, in general--just as sexual envy is not a good reason to redistribute sex, monetary envy is no reason to redistribute money. And backing up either plan with the implicit threat of violence (if you don't do it, the disadvantaged will take matters into their own hands) just makes it more abhorrent. He wrote this, tastelessly, in the immediate aftermath of an incel killing. Ross Douthat then took the same basic premise and ran with it in the NYT op ed page, this time putting a social Catholic spin on it as opposed to the earlier right-libertarian one.
What shocked me was not the articles--which were interesting enough in conception, but extremely shallow in execution. What shocked me was the response by some well established "thought leader" types on the left. A number of people took the articles deadly seriously, and argued that they showed how conservatives view women as property, to be handed out to spoiled violent men. I recall at least a couple of the Lawyers Guns and Money Bloggers taking this line, as well as Jeet Heer, though I made no kind of of systematic survey. But of course, this was the exact opposite of the point. The point, such as it was, was that redistributing sex is creepy and bad, so we should think of sex as sacred (Douthat) or we should think of redistribution as generally wrong (Hanson). And this was very, very obvious.
How could such a basic error have happened not just in one, but in several "intellectuals" readings of these pieces? I think it's pretty clear that the commentators were so hot and bothered about the apparent chance to call out some conservatives for ~~supporting Literally Gilead~~ that their brains went on vacation. And maybe many, or even most, conservatives do support Literal Gilead! Maybe Douthat and Hanson themselves support literal Gilead, in other venues and writings. But they weren't doing it here, and a controlling preoccupation with the general sins of conservatives, how bad and creepy they are as a whole, lead to these commentors making themselves, in a very basic and factual way, stupid. There is a certain kind of partisan fervor that I can't help but think is just brain poison.
So, I think that just we can forgive people who do not deserve to be forgiven--not for them, but for us--I also think we can be civil to people who do not deserve civility--not for them, but for us.
To be clear, this is not intended to supplant or supercede considerations of broader social effects, or desert. It would be ridiculous to lecture survivors of a military dictatorship about civil resistance. I bring this up not because it is the only consideration, but because I think it is an important consideration--and one which I have seen entirely absent from the broader cultural conversation. I think that one of the values of civility is not what it does to others, but what it does to ourselves.
This is all fine and good, but it doesn't apply in Crisis Mode. If we were talking about personal relationships with people, your point about forgiveness might be valid. It's just a smokescreen when you extend it to fascism.
As for those sexual redistribution articles, they're laughable in their wrongheadedness. You don't starve to death from lack of sex, or have to live under a bridge or on a street corner begging. Your "shock" from the response of people on the left to these articles just seems like more hand wringing, and the response to how others choose to voice their disagreement with an article that is bad and wrong is just your standard tone policing and Both Sidesism. Civility and fair play and social acceptance do not extend to fascists, white supremacists, or their supporters, and I feel like all of this is well-tread ground in this and other threads.
I think in the frame of personal interaction putting on the kid gloves on and exercising civility is fine. Most folks don't respond well if you just call them a horrible fuck straight to their face, and if they are getting uncivil about it, and are clearly a lost cause, maintaining your civility is like the best way to troll them.
In the frame of ethical consumerism take those kid gloves off and put on the glass dipped handwraps.
This company supports horrible policy? Fuck buying their products, or patronizing their establishments.
This individual is directly responsible or covering for policy creating concentration camps on American soil? They can get the fuck out of my business... you know if I could afford to have a business, or was in charge of who my Corp does business with.
This actually leads into a specific issue we're kinda leaving to the wayside. Working in a moral vacuum. Sometimes you have to accept you don't own the business you work for, and that you're gonna have to serve folks you don't really want to. Like in the Red Hen situation, if the owner didn't give a shit, but an employee felt they could not serve this person is it incumbent upon them to quit their job, hurt themselves in a way literally no one will notice or give even a particle of shit about, and stick to their guns, or is it acceptable for them to tamp down their personal feelings and keep working? This gets even foggier in the internet age when you can be working for a company for years before you realize the customers your company is contracting with or offering services to.
The Red Hen thing only happened because all the servers and the owner felt the same way. It's quite possible that every last one of them will lose their job/business for this, because it has made them a target. If just the workers felt that way, they'd probably just spit in her food when the boss wasn't looking.
For my own sake I see no need to be "civil", in this case blindly accept business from fascists or spend my money with no thought as to where it goes. No one is making things worse for themselves by deciding that I will not stay at Trump's hotels or buy his daughter's clothing while they continue to advocate separating children from their parents and putting them in cages.
Sometimes forgiveness isn't warranted. Sometimes deciding to ignore any and all transgressions in the name of being the better person only makes one lesser.
Forgiveness doesn't start until the misdeeds stop.
For my own sake I see no need to be "civil", in this case blindly accept business from fascists or spend my money with no thought as to where it goes. No one is making things worse for themselves by deciding that I will not stay at Trump's hotels or buy his daughter's clothing while they continue to advocate separating children from their parents and putting them in cages.
Sometimes forgiveness isn't warranted. Sometimes deciding to ignore any and all transgressions in the name of being the better person only makes one lesser.
Forgiveness doesn't start until the misdeeds stop.
Sometimes forgiveness will never be merited, and the only just response is to damn both the presence and memory of those who have offended.
It's kinda a problem if you are forgiving someone who is going to keep hurting you or others. That isn't moving on, it is enabling the abuse.
This is a Thing that rape and domestic violence survivors deal with, so I just want to point out for the record: if someone has hurt you, you are NOT responsible for preventing them from hurting others. That's on them and them alone.
+10
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I think that at least sometimes civility can be the same way. Even if some people do not deserve to be treated civilly (making no real judgment on this), it can be the case that being civil toward them anyway is good for our hearts and minds. It can involve the exercise and strengthening of capacities of deliberate self-control, compassion, fairmindedness.
There has been altogether too much fairmindness and compassion extended to people who have none to give. This isn’t a conflict between two equal sides, where we need to learn how to get along with the butter side down folk. The distinction between the side that says “stop hurting people” and the side that says “stop getting mad at us for hurting people” is not arbitrary.
Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed.
Can you go too far? Sure, and the movie I’m quoting has some nuanced things to say about that. But we’re nowhere near too far. We’re way on the other end of the spectrum, where what we desperately need is the moral courage to confront and defeat evil in order to protect those people who DO deserve our compassion, our fairmindedness, and our aid.
I could give a flying fuck about criticisms of the NYT op-ed page. This is about kids in cages and all the other real people being hurt here. When the metaphorical war is over we can look back and decide if now’s the time to forgive and be civil. Right now we need to tell them, loudly and rudely and at every opportunity, that their behavior is not acceptable. The only alternative is accepting it.
For my own sake I see no need to be "civil", in this case blindly accept business from fascists or spend my money with no thought as to where it goes. No one is making things worse for themselves by deciding that I will not stay at Trump's hotels or buy his daughter's clothing while they continue to advocate separating children from their parents and putting them in cages.
Sometimes forgiveness isn't warranted. Sometimes deciding to ignore any and all transgressions in the name of being the better person only makes one lesser.
Forgiveness doesn't start until the misdeeds stop.
Sometimes forgiveness will never be merited, and the only just response is to damn both the presence and memory of those who have offended.
I didn't say it starts when the misdeeds stop
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Most of the contemporary culture’s discussion of civility, toleration, and allied notions, both here and elsewhere, has focused on the other to whom civility might be extended and on society at large. Central questions have included whether various classes of people deserve to have civility extended to them, and on the hypothesized effects on politics more broadly of either doing so or not doing so: whether it would lead to a “slippery slope,” whether it would invigorate allies or targets more, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with these questions, but I think that they leave something important out, something which has come to seem increasingly important to me.
An analogy will help. Consider forgiveness. Sometimes people deserve to be forgiven, and you would wrong them by not doing so. Sometimes they don’t--sometimes it would be wrong for a person to even ask. Sometimes forgiving someone can be expedient for social reasons; sometimes it can be a mistake. These can all be important consideration. But these reasons focus on the person being forgiven, and on the other people in the background. What they do not take account of is the forgiver themself.
Sometimes we forgive people for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they deserve to be forgiven. We forgive people for our own sakes. We find that the anger we carried is toxic, exhausting. We can find our entire perspective shifting with nothing at all changing about the person themselves. We can find this happening with someone who definitely does not deserve to be forgiven, but then we forgive them anyway, because forgiving them is a good thing we do to ourselves.
I think that at least sometimes civility can be the same way. Even if some people do not deserve to be treated civilly (making no real judgment on this), it can be the case that being civil toward them anyway is good for our hearts and minds. It can involve the exercise and strengthening of capacities of deliberate self-control, compassion, fairmindedness.
The last of those in particular--cultivation of fairmindedness--has been on my mind due to a recent tempest in a teapot that some of you may have followed. Robin Hanson, a libertarian type at George Mason, wrote a tongue-in-cheek article advocating for the redistribution of sex to the sexually disadvantaged. The idea was that this would show us how wrong redistribution is, in general--just as sexual envy is not a good reason to redistribute sex, monetary envy is no reason to redistribute money. And backing up either plan with the implicit threat of violence (if you don't do it, the disadvantaged will take matters into their own hands) just makes it more abhorrent. He wrote this, tastelessly, in the immediate aftermath of an incel killing. Ross Douthat then took the same basic premise and ran with it in the NYT op ed page, this time putting a social Catholic spin on it as opposed to the earlier right-libertarian one.
What shocked me was not the articles--which were interesting enough in conception, but extremely shallow in execution. What shocked me was the response by some well established "thought leader" types on the left. A number of people took the articles deadly seriously, and argued that they showed how conservatives view women as property, to be handed out to spoiled violent men. I recall at least a couple of the Lawyers Guns and Money Bloggers taking this line, as well as Jeet Heer, though I made no kind of of systematic survey. But of course, this was the exact opposite of the point. The point, such as it was, was that redistributing sex is creepy and bad, so we should think of sex as sacred (Douthat) or we should think of redistribution as generally wrong (Hanson). And this was very, very obvious.
How could such a basic error have happened not just in one, but in several "intellectuals" readings of these pieces? I think it's pretty clear that the commentators were so hot and bothered about the apparent chance to call out some conservatives for ~~supporting Literally Gilead~~ that their brains went on vacation. And maybe many, or even most, conservatives do support Literal Gilead! Maybe Douthat and Hanson themselves support literal Gilead, in other venues and writings. But they weren't doing it here, and a controlling preoccupation with the general sins of conservatives, how bad and creepy they are as a whole, lead to these commentors making themselves, in a very basic and factual way, stupid. There is a certain kind of partisan fervor that I can't help but think is just brain poison.
So, I think that just we can forgive people who do not deserve to be forgiven--not for them, but for us--I also think we can be civil to people who do not deserve civility--not for them, but for us.
To be clear, this is not intended to supplant or supercede considerations of broader social effects, or desert. It would be ridiculous to lecture survivors of a military dictatorship about civil resistance. I bring this up not because it is the only consideration, but because I think it is an important consideration--and one which I have seen entirely absent from the broader cultural conversation. I think that one of the values of civility is not what it does to others, but what it does to ourselves.
This is all fine and good, but it doesn't apply in Crisis Mode. If we were talking about personal relationships with people, your point about forgiveness might be valid. It's just a smokescreen when you extend it to fascism.
As for those sexual redistribution articles, they're laughable in their wrongheadedness. You don't starve to death from lack of sex, or have to live under a bridge or on a street corner begging. Your "shock" from the response of people on the left to these articles just seems like more hand wringing, and the response to how others choose to voice their disagreement with an article that is bad and wrong is just your standard tone policing and Both Sidesism. Civility and fair play and social acceptance do not extend to fascists, white supremacists, or their supporters, and I feel like all of this is well-tread ground in this and other threads.
As I said, I didn't put forward that post as giving the ~only~ relevant concern, when it comes to civility. I just think it is one legitimate concern. I haven't seen anyone describe it yet, so I thought I would. It is consistent with what I said that "crisis mode" is in effect, and so this concern is largely secondary. I don't think so, but the ideas are independent.
You also missed the point with the redistribution of sex example--though, to be fair, everyone else seems to have as well, so that may be a problem on my end.
The point was not that Hanson or Douthat were right. Nor did I take issue with the ~tone~ of the responses. I did not say that people were too mean to them, nor did I say they deserved to be treated better. What I took issue with was the ~content~ of the responses. The critics performed shockingly badly on a relatively objective and basic reasoning task. I wondered how this could have happened jointly to each of these several independent and fairly successful professional readers and writers. It would be surprising for even one to hit publish on something that badly confused, let alone several all at once. My explanation was that negative partisanship can be brain poison. In their eagerness to dunk on Hanson and Douthat for being Gilleadean creeps, the critics momentarily allowed themselves to become distressingly stupid, without maintaining the self-awareness to see what was going on.
Because we do not want--for our own sakes--to drink a bunch of brain poison, this gives us some reason to avoid indulging in too much negative partisanship, at least in certain forms. This is a purely self-regarding concern, about not wanting to put oneself in a position to experience fits of stupidity like the one I described. Importantly, this reason is independent of whether the negative stereotypes are justified or accurate, and it is also independent of whether the people in question are good guys or bad guys, whether they are affording us the same concern, and all that. If they're drinking the brain poison, all the worse for them; no need to join.
Whatever weight you ultimately give this concern, it is not already well-tread ground in this thread. This thread has been focused on other issues, mostly involving either 1) pragmatic calculations about influencing people or 2) moral assessments of how any bad treatment in this case is justified and deserved. This issue is orthogonal to both of those.
+4
Options
ShivahnUnaware of her barrel shifter privilegeWestern coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderatormod
I may not be understanding the exact content of the responses to the articles, but given that the articles were published on the heels of an attack, not the first one, from a group of people espousing exactly that kind of rhetoric, it seems kind of reasonable to discuss that group as a group, and their thoughts and machinations as distilled pretty clearly from the general cloud of misogyny.
I have seen you talk about this before, and didn't think much of it, other than noting it, but I don't think that the responses, as described, are inherently incorrect, unless it really was a "THIS IS WHAT LITERALLY EVERY CONSERVATIVE BELIEVES" sort of thing.
I think that at least sometimes civility can be the same way. Even if some people do not deserve to be treated civilly (making no real judgment on this), it can be the case that being civil toward them anyway is good for our hearts and minds. It can involve the exercise and strengthening of capacities of deliberate self-control, compassion, fairmindedness.
There has been altogether too much fairmindness and compassion extended to people who have none to give. This isn’t a conflict between two equal sides, where we need to learn how to get along with the butter side down folk. The distinction between the side that says “stop hurting people” and the side that says “stop getting mad at us for hurting people” is not arbitrary.
Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed.
Can you go too far? Sure, and the movie I’m quoting has some nuanced things to say about that. But we’re nowhere near too far. We’re way on the other end of the spectrum, where what we desperately need is the moral courage to confront and defeat evil in order to protect those people who DO deserve our compassion, our fairmindedness, and our aid.
I could give a flying fuck about criticisms of the NYT op-ed page. This is about kids in cages and all the other real people being hurt here. When the metaphorical war is over we can look back and decide if now’s the time to forgive and be civil. Right now we need to tell them, loudly and rudely and at every opportunity, that their behavior is not acceptable. The only alternative is accepting it.
Obama was wrong. We can boo and vote.
I hope you've got rudeness to spare, because I don't think I can hold up my end
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I may not be understanding the exact content of the responses to the articles, but given that the articles were published on the heels of an attack, not the first one, from a group of people espousing exactly that kind of rhetoric, it seems kind of reasonable to discuss that group as a group, and their thoughts and machinations as distilled pretty clearly from the general cloud of misogyny.
I have seen you talk about this before, and didn't think much of it, other than noting it, but I don't think that the responses, as described, are inherently incorrect, unless it really was a "THIS IS WHAT LITERALLY EVERY CONSERVATIVE BELIEVES" sort of thing.
Also if you're going to try "modest proposaling" things, maybe don't do it right after someone goes on a vicious rampage in favor of eating babies. Just saying. If you're doing satire, it has to be much more extreme than anything your target would actually support. Those articles weren't.
Most of the contemporary culture’s discussion of civility, toleration, and allied notions, both here and elsewhere, has focused on the other to whom civility might be extended and on society at large. Central questions have included whether various classes of people deserve to have civility extended to them, and on the hypothesized effects on politics more broadly of either doing so or not doing so: whether it would lead to a “slippery slope,” whether it would invigorate allies or targets more, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with these questions, but I think that they leave something important out, something which has come to seem increasingly important to me.
An analogy will help. Consider forgiveness. Sometimes people deserve to be forgiven, and you would wrong them by not doing so. Sometimes they don’t--sometimes it would be wrong for a person to even ask. Sometimes forgiving someone can be expedient for social reasons; sometimes it can be a mistake. These can all be important consideration. But these reasons focus on the person being forgiven, and on the other people in the background. What they do not take account of is the forgiver themself.
Sometimes we forgive people for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they deserve to be forgiven. We forgive people for our own sakes. We find that the anger we carried is toxic, exhausting. We can find our entire perspective shifting with nothing at all changing about the person themselves. We can find this happening with someone who definitely does not deserve to be forgiven, but then we forgive them anyway, because forgiving them is a good thing we do to ourselves.
I think that at least sometimes civility can be the same way. Even if some people do not deserve to be treated civilly (making no real judgment on this), it can be the case that being civil toward them anyway is good for our hearts and minds. It can involve the exercise and strengthening of capacities of deliberate self-control, compassion, fairmindedness.
The last of those in particular--cultivation of fairmindedness--has been on my mind due to a recent tempest in a teapot that some of you may have followed. Robin Hanson, a libertarian type at George Mason, wrote a tongue-in-cheek article advocating for the redistribution of sex to the sexually disadvantaged. The idea was that this would show us how wrong redistribution is, in general--just as sexual envy is not a good reason to redistribute sex, monetary envy is no reason to redistribute money. And backing up either plan with the implicit threat of violence (if you don't do it, the disadvantaged will take matters into their own hands) just makes it more abhorrent. He wrote this, tastelessly, in the immediate aftermath of an incel killing. Ross Douthat then took the same basic premise and ran with it in the NYT op ed page, this time putting a social Catholic spin on it as opposed to the earlier right-libertarian one.
What shocked me was not the articles--which were interesting enough in conception, but extremely shallow in execution. What shocked me was the response by some well established "thought leader" types on the left. A number of people took the articles deadly seriously, and argued that they showed how conservatives view women as property, to be handed out to spoiled violent men. I recall at least a couple of the Lawyers Guns and Money Bloggers taking this line, as well as Jeet Heer, though I made no kind of of systematic survey. But of course, this was the exact opposite of the point. The point, such as it was, was that redistributing sex is creepy and bad, so we should think of sex as sacred (Douthat) or we should think of redistribution as generally wrong (Hanson). And this was very, very obvious.
How could such a basic error have happened not just in one, but in several "intellectuals" readings of these pieces? I think it's pretty clear that the commentators were so hot and bothered about the apparent chance to call out some conservatives for ~~supporting Literally Gilead~~ that their brains went on vacation. And maybe many, or even most, conservatives do support Literal Gilead! Maybe Douthat and Hanson themselves support literal Gilead, in other venues and writings. But they weren't doing it here, and a controlling preoccupation with the general sins of conservatives, how bad and creepy they are as a whole, lead to these commentors making themselves, in a very basic and factual way, stupid. There is a certain kind of partisan fervor that I can't help but think is just brain poison.
So, I think that just we can forgive people who do not deserve to be forgiven--not for them, but for us--I also think we can be civil to people who do not deserve civility--not for them, but for us.
To be clear, this is not intended to supplant or supercede considerations of broader social effects, or desert. It would be ridiculous to lecture survivors of a military dictatorship about civil resistance. I bring this up not because it is the only consideration, but because I think it is an important consideration--and one which I have seen entirely absent from the broader cultural conversation. I think that one of the values of civility is not what it does to others, but what it does to ourselves.
This is all fine and good, but it doesn't apply in Crisis Mode. If we were talking about personal relationships with people, your point about forgiveness might be valid. It's just a smokescreen when you extend it to fascism.
As for those sexual redistribution articles, they're laughable in their wrongheadedness. You don't starve to death from lack of sex, or have to live under a bridge or on a street corner begging. Your "shock" from the response of people on the left to these articles just seems like more hand wringing, and the response to how others choose to voice their disagreement with an article that is bad and wrong is just your standard tone policing and Both Sidesism. Civility and fair play and social acceptance do not extend to fascists, white supremacists, or their supporters, and I feel like all of this is well-tread ground in this and other threads.
As I said, I didn't put forward that post as giving the ~only~ relevant concern, when it comes to civility. I just think it is one legitimate concern. I haven't seen anyone describe it yet, so I thought I would. It is consistent with what I said that "crisis mode" is in effect, and so this concern is largely secondary. I don't think so, but the ideas are independent.
You also missed the point with the redistribution of sex example--though, to be fair, everyone else seems to have as well, so that may be a problem on my end.
The point was not that Hanson or Douthat were right. Nor did I take issue with the ~tone~ of the responses. I did not say that people were too mean to them, nor did I say they deserved to be treated better. What I took issue with was the ~content~ of the responses. The critics performed shockingly badly on a relatively objective and basic reasoning task. I wondered how this could have happened jointly to each of these several independent and fairly successful professional readers and writers. It would be surprising for even one to hit publish on something that badly confused, let alone several all at once. My explanation was that negative partisanship can be brain poison. In their eagerness to dunk on Hanson and Douthat for being Gilleadean creeps, the critics momentarily allowed themselves to become distressingly stupid, without maintaining the self-awareness to see what was going on.
Because we do not want--for our own sakes--to drink a bunch of brain poison, this gives us some reason to avoid indulging in too much negative partisanship, at least in certain forms. This is a purely self-regarding concern, about not wanting to put oneself in a position to experience fits of stupidity like the one I described. Importantly, this reason is independent of whether the negative stereotypes are justified or accurate, and it is also independent of whether the people in question are good guys or bad guys, whether they are affording us the same concern, and all that. If they're drinking the brain poison, all the worse for them; no need to join.
Whatever weight you ultimately give this concern, it is not already well-tread ground in this thread. This thread has been focused on other issues, mostly involving either 1) pragmatic calculations about influencing people or 2) moral assessments of how any bad treatment in this case is justified and deserved. This issue is orthogonal to both of those.
I think you're missing three important facts though:
1. There ARE people who are championing mandatory sex redistribution, especially among the incel community. And these pieces are coming out in the wake of a major incel terror attack in North America. So "tongue-in-cheek" parroting their claims to a wider audience isn't really "tongue-in-cheek," so much as publicly articulating the hateful ideas of a terrorism-inducing ideology.
2. Even if it still is "tongue-in-cheek," that aspect is not discernible by people on either side of the political spectrum. "Enforced monogamy" and "sexual redistribution" are becoming more common talk amongst the Alt-Right, even if it's because they're reading these "tongue-in-cheek" pieces incorrectly.
3. Public statements are, and should be, held to a higher standard of clarity, because you better damn well know that some people are going to misunderstand it when you have thousands of listeners/readers. It's a fricking elementary fact for anybody in a profession that involves public speaking. A professor cannot expect that a lecture of 2000 undergrads is going to pick up their subtle sarcasm about sex differences in hyenas. That's not going to fly, and everybody with half a brain damn well knows it.
One cannot espouse Nazi ideology, while the Nazis are marching and the Nazis are citing one's writing as support, and then claim it's all "tongue-in-cheek." "I was being sarcastic, when I said exterminate all the Jews! How was I supposed to know that people were going to take it seriously?!" I don't know, maybe don't make sarcastic public statements about how we should exterminate all the Jews! Is that even really that big a loss for you, that sarcastic quipping was the only way you could express yourself? Would the world have ended if you had just been straight in your writing? Or at least, would whatever harm that ensued be less than all the Jews being exterminated, cuz that was the die you were playing with just there!
Edit: And frankly, I'm not sure this is a political issue at all. The day after 9/11 was not the day to be publicly musing about whether US imperialism had caused unending misery in the Middle East. It may be true, but if you're talking like that on the streets of New York, I'm pretty comfortable with saying that you were inviting whatever unfortunate consequences befell you. It's not a matter of truth or politics; it's about exercising some discretion in how you present your point, how you choose your audience, and timing. The fact that these statements are political and fall somewhere on the highly-polarized American political spectrum is just cover for the fact that the authors exercised about as much discretionary thought as your average high-school teenager who says something astoundingly insensitive in the wake of a major tragedy. Who, by the way, are going to get berated for being dumbass teenagers and take it, instead of cowardly shielding themselves behind the wall of "Political oppression! The Left is oppressing free speech! Look at how reactionary and hateful they are!"
For my own sake I see no need to be "civil", in this case blindly accept business from fascists or spend my money with no thought as to where it goes. No one is making things worse for themselves by deciding that I will not stay at Trump's hotels or buy his daughter's clothing while they continue to advocate separating children from their parents and putting them in cages.
Sometimes forgiveness isn't warranted. Sometimes deciding to ignore any and all transgressions in the name of being the better person only makes one lesser.
Forgiveness doesn't start until the misdeeds stop.
Sometimes forgiveness will never be merited, and the only just response is to damn both the presence and memory of those who have offended.
True, fascism certainly is one of those times where it'd merited. However, people can overcompensate for what's done to them - vengeance is a powerful drug that never leaves satisfaction. It's important to be able to tell the difference between that and justice.
Sometimes not having a path to forgiveness can backfire, as well. If someone is regretful, and wants to repent yet sees it as pointless they're going to double down as a matter of survival because there are no options for them to pursue the right thing. Or they might not know the right path to earn that forgiveness, it's not our society is good with that on the whole.
I hope you've got rudeness to spare, because I don't think I can hold up my end
This is puzzling, if what ICE has done doesn't motivate you to participate - what will?
Civility and tolerance are not unlimited in society, people have logical limits to what they can take before lashing out. Both as an ethical matter and survival.
Harry Dresden on
0
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
“Just kidding” (which I don’t remember Douthat saying anyway) is the constant refuge of scoundrels in this day and age. Trump didn’t mean that it was just a joke jeez can’t you take a joke you snowflake? It’s what they say to try and get away with saying terrible shit.
The content of the responses to fascism is pointless. You’re not going to logically dissuade a fascist or incel.
The fact that people have stopped trying is a good thing, not “brain poison”.
And that people have started to point out that those specific issues aren't acceptable to polite society, means that they're less likely to be emboldened.
Yeah, I know that's a slippery slope, and that a couple decades ago, homosexuality was included in the social pariah contexts of what is socially acceptable.
But open tolerance of all ideas has lead to the most outwardly racist/sexist/mysoginistic bigot in my four and a half decades, and emboldened the rest of these assholes. Because it's not about their feelings, or how they deal with themselves. It's about what they want to do to others. And that's the difference.
If a homosexual incel group started up tomorrow, I'd expect them to be treated no differently to the hetero incels. Broadcasting a message that subjugates or diminishes someone else, deserves to be met with scorn, whereas a message seeking equality, should not.
The content of the responses to fascism is pointless. You’re not going to logically dissuade a fascist or incel.
The fact that people have stopped trying is a good thing, not “brain poison”.
If a homosexual incel group started up tomorrow, I'd expect them to be treated no differently to the hetero incels. Broadcasting a message that subjugates or diminishes someone else, deserves to be met with scorn, whereas a message seeking equality, should not.
I kinda know a guy who's sorta like a gay incel on another forum and I'm concerned about his mental health. He kinda ends up like a gay homophobe.
“Just kidding” (which I don’t remember Douthat saying anyway) is the constant refuge of scoundrels in this day and age. Trump didn’t mean that it was just a joke jeez can’t you take a joke you snowflake? It’s what they say to try and get away with saying terrible shit.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
For my own sake I see no need to be "civil", in this case blindly accept business from fascists or spend my money with no thought as to where it goes. No one is making things worse for themselves by deciding that I will not stay at Trump's hotels or buy his daughter's clothing while they continue to advocate separating children from their parents and putting them in cages.
Sometimes forgiveness isn't warranted. Sometimes deciding to ignore any and all transgressions in the name of being the better person only makes one lesser.
Forgiveness doesn't start until the misdeeds stop.
Sometimes forgiveness will never be merited, and the only just response is to damn both the presence and memory of those who have offended.
True, fascism certainly is one of those times where it'd merited. However, people can overcompensate for what's done to them - vengeance is a powerful drug that never leaves satisfaction. It's important to be able to tell the difference between that and justice.
Sometimes not having a path to forgiveness can backfire, as well. If someone is regretful, and wants to repent yet sees it as pointless they're going to double down as a matter of survival because there are no options for them to pursue the right thing. Or they might not know the right path to earn that forgiveness, it's not our society is good with that on the whole.
I hope you've got rudeness to spare, because I don't think I can hold up my end
This is puzzling, if what ICE has done doesn't motivate you to participate - what will?
Civility and tolerance are not unlimited in society, people have logical limits to what they can take before lashing out. Both as an ethical matter and survival.
I don't really trust myself to do harm without overdoing it. I haven't physically lashed out at anybody in 20 years, 12 mentally. I don't think I could actually harm anybody, but I think I could easily destroy my self-respect by crossing lines that people with more common sense and better consciences can clearly see. Plus, have you ever seen someone this narcissistic who didn't look like an idiot when trying to neg others? It took me 20 minutes to write this post and this was the best I could come up with; how effective do you really think I'll be in making a moral stand against corruption?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Most of the contemporary culture’s discussion of civility, toleration, and allied notions, both here and elsewhere, has focused on the other to whom civility might be extended and on society at large. Central questions have included whether various classes of people deserve to have civility extended to them, and on the hypothesized effects on politics more broadly of either doing so or not doing so: whether it would lead to a “slippery slope,” whether it would invigorate allies or targets more, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with these questions, but I think that they leave something important out, something which has come to seem increasingly important to me.
An analogy will help. Consider forgiveness. Sometimes people deserve to be forgiven, and you would wrong them by not doing so. Sometimes they don’t--sometimes it would be wrong for a person to even ask. Sometimes forgiving someone can be expedient for social reasons; sometimes it can be a mistake. These can all be important consideration. But these reasons focus on the person being forgiven, and on the other people in the background. What they do not take account of is the forgiver themself.
Sometimes we forgive people for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they deserve to be forgiven. We forgive people for our own sakes. We find that the anger we carried is toxic, exhausting. We can find our entire perspective shifting with nothing at all changing about the person themselves. We can find this happening with someone who definitely does not deserve to be forgiven, but then we forgive them anyway, because forgiving them is a good thing we do to ourselves.
I think that at least sometimes civility can be the same way. Even if some people do not deserve to be treated civilly (making no real judgment on this), it can be the case that being civil toward them anyway is good for our hearts and minds. It can involve the exercise and strengthening of capacities of deliberate self-control, compassion, fairmindedness.
The last of those in particular--cultivation of fairmindedness--has been on my mind due to a recent tempest in a teapot that some of you may have followed. Robin Hanson, a libertarian type at George Mason, wrote a tongue-in-cheek article advocating for the redistribution of sex to the sexually disadvantaged. The idea was that this would show us how wrong redistribution is, in general--just as sexual envy is not a good reason to redistribute sex, monetary envy is no reason to redistribute money. And backing up either plan with the implicit threat of violence (if you don't do it, the disadvantaged will take matters into their own hands) just makes it more abhorrent. He wrote this, tastelessly, in the immediate aftermath of an incel killing. Ross Douthat then took the same basic premise and ran with it in the NYT op ed page, this time putting a social Catholic spin on it as opposed to the earlier right-libertarian one.
What shocked me was not the articles--which were interesting enough in conception, but extremely shallow in execution. What shocked me was the response by some well established "thought leader" types on the left. A number of people took the articles deadly seriously, and argued that they showed how conservatives view women as property, to be handed out to spoiled violent men. I recall at least a couple of the Lawyers Guns and Money Bloggers taking this line, as well as Jeet Heer, though I made no kind of of systematic survey. But of course, this was the exact opposite of the point. The point, such as it was, was that redistributing sex is creepy and bad, so we should think of sex as sacred (Douthat) or we should think of redistribution as generally wrong (Hanson). And this was very, very obvious.
How could such a basic error have happened not just in one, but in several "intellectuals" readings of these pieces? I think it's pretty clear that the commentators were so hot and bothered about the apparent chance to call out some conservatives for ~~supporting Literally Gilead~~ that their brains went on vacation. And maybe many, or even most, conservatives do support Literal Gilead! Maybe Douthat and Hanson themselves support literal Gilead, in other venues and writings. But they weren't doing it here, and a controlling preoccupation with the general sins of conservatives, how bad and creepy they are as a whole, lead to these commentors making themselves, in a very basic and factual way, stupid. There is a certain kind of partisan fervor that I can't help but think is just brain poison.
So, I think that just we can forgive people who do not deserve to be forgiven--not for them, but for us--I also think we can be civil to people who do not deserve civility--not for them, but for us.
To be clear, this is not intended to supplant or supercede considerations of broader social effects, or desert. It would be ridiculous to lecture survivors of a military dictatorship about civil resistance. I bring this up not because it is the only consideration, but because I think it is an important consideration--and one which I have seen entirely absent from the broader cultural conversation. I think that one of the values of civility is not what it does to others, but what it does to ourselves.
This is all fine and good, but it doesn't apply in Crisis Mode. If we were talking about personal relationships with people, your point about forgiveness might be valid. It's just a smokescreen when you extend it to fascism.
As for those sexual redistribution articles, they're laughable in their wrongheadedness. You don't starve to death from lack of sex, or have to live under a bridge or on a street corner begging. Your "shock" from the response of people on the left to these articles just seems like more hand wringing, and the response to how others choose to voice their disagreement with an article that is bad and wrong is just your standard tone policing and Both Sidesism. Civility and fair play and social acceptance do not extend to fascists, white supremacists, or their supporters, and I feel like all of this is well-tread ground in this and other threads.
As I said, I didn't put forward that post as giving the ~only~ relevant concern, when it comes to civility. I just think it is one legitimate concern. I haven't seen anyone describe it yet, so I thought I would. It is consistent with what I said that "crisis mode" is in effect, and so this concern is largely secondary. I don't think so, but the ideas are independent.
You also missed the point with the redistribution of sex example--though, to be fair, everyone else seems to have as well, so that may be a problem on my end.
The point was not that Hanson or Douthat were right. Nor did I take issue with the ~tone~ of the responses. I did not say that people were too mean to them, nor did I say they deserved to be treated better. What I took issue with was the ~content~ of the responses. The critics performed shockingly badly on a relatively objective and basic reasoning task. I wondered how this could have happened jointly to each of these several independent and fairly successful professional readers and writers. It would be surprising for even one to hit publish on something that badly confused, let alone several all at once. My explanation was that negative partisanship can be brain poison. In their eagerness to dunk on Hanson and Douthat for being Gilleadean creeps, the critics momentarily allowed themselves to become distressingly stupid, without maintaining the self-awareness to see what was going on.
Because we do not want--for our own sakes--to drink a bunch of brain poison, this gives us some reason to avoid indulging in too much negative partisanship, at least in certain forms. This is a purely self-regarding concern, about not wanting to put oneself in a position to experience fits of stupidity like the one I described. Importantly, this reason is independent of whether the negative stereotypes are justified or accurate, and it is also independent of whether the people in question are good guys or bad guys, whether they are affording us the same concern, and all that. If they're drinking the brain poison, all the worse for them; no need to join.
Whatever weight you ultimately give this concern, it is not already well-tread ground in this thread. This thread has been focused on other issues, mostly involving either 1) pragmatic calculations about influencing people or 2) moral assessments of how any bad treatment in this case is justified and deserved. This issue is orthogonal to both of those.
Maybe the folks writing the toung in cheek essays are shitty writers that often suggest shitty things, and often defend saying shitty things by saying they are just joking?
Sleep on
+9
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Most of the contemporary culture’s discussion of civility, toleration, and allied notions, both here and elsewhere, has focused on the other to whom civility might be extended and on society at large. Central questions have included whether various classes of people deserve to have civility extended to them, and on the hypothesized effects on politics more broadly of either doing so or not doing so: whether it would lead to a “slippery slope,” whether it would invigorate allies or targets more, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with these questions, but I think that they leave something important out, something which has come to seem increasingly important to me.
An analogy will help. Consider forgiveness. Sometimes people deserve to be forgiven, and you would wrong them by not doing so. Sometimes they don’t--sometimes it would be wrong for a person to even ask. Sometimes forgiving someone can be expedient for social reasons; sometimes it can be a mistake. These can all be important consideration. But these reasons focus on the person being forgiven, and on the other people in the background. What they do not take account of is the forgiver themself.
Sometimes we forgive people for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they deserve to be forgiven. We forgive people for our own sakes. We find that the anger we carried is toxic, exhausting. We can find our entire perspective shifting with nothing at all changing about the person themselves. We can find this happening with someone who definitely does not deserve to be forgiven, but then we forgive them anyway, because forgiving them is a good thing we do to ourselves.
I think that at least sometimes civility can be the same way. Even if some people do not deserve to be treated civilly (making no real judgment on this), it can be the case that being civil toward them anyway is good for our hearts and minds. It can involve the exercise and strengthening of capacities of deliberate self-control, compassion, fairmindedness.
The last of those in particular--cultivation of fairmindedness--has been on my mind due to a recent tempest in a teapot that some of you may have followed. Robin Hanson, a libertarian type at George Mason, wrote a tongue-in-cheek article advocating for the redistribution of sex to the sexually disadvantaged. The idea was that this would show us how wrong redistribution is, in general--just as sexual envy is not a good reason to redistribute sex, monetary envy is no reason to redistribute money. And backing up either plan with the implicit threat of violence (if you don't do it, the disadvantaged will take matters into their own hands) just makes it more abhorrent. He wrote this, tastelessly, in the immediate aftermath of an incel killing. Ross Douthat then took the same basic premise and ran with it in the NYT op ed page, this time putting a social Catholic spin on it as opposed to the earlier right-libertarian one.
What shocked me was not the articles--which were interesting enough in conception, but extremely shallow in execution. What shocked me was the response by some well established "thought leader" types on the left. A number of people took the articles deadly seriously, and argued that they showed how conservatives view women as property, to be handed out to spoiled violent men. I recall at least a couple of the Lawyers Guns and Money Bloggers taking this line, as well as Jeet Heer, though I made no kind of of systematic survey. But of course, this was the exact opposite of the point. The point, such as it was, was that redistributing sex is creepy and bad, so we should think of sex as sacred (Douthat) or we should think of redistribution as generally wrong (Hanson). And this was very, very obvious.
How could such a basic error have happened not just in one, but in several "intellectuals" readings of these pieces? I think it's pretty clear that the commentators were so hot and bothered about the apparent chance to call out some conservatives for ~~supporting Literally Gilead~~ that their brains went on vacation. And maybe many, or even most, conservatives do support Literal Gilead! Maybe Douthat and Hanson themselves support literal Gilead, in other venues and writings. But they weren't doing it here, and a controlling preoccupation with the general sins of conservatives, how bad and creepy they are as a whole, lead to these commentors making themselves, in a very basic and factual way, stupid. There is a certain kind of partisan fervor that I can't help but think is just brain poison.
So, I think that just we can forgive people who do not deserve to be forgiven--not for them, but for us--I also think we can be civil to people who do not deserve civility--not for them, but for us.
To be clear, this is not intended to supplant or supercede considerations of broader social effects, or desert. It would be ridiculous to lecture survivors of a military dictatorship about civil resistance. I bring this up not because it is the only consideration, but because I think it is an important consideration--and one which I have seen entirely absent from the broader cultural conversation. I think that one of the values of civility is not what it does to others, but what it does to ourselves.
This is all fine and good, but it doesn't apply in Crisis Mode. If we were talking about personal relationships with people, your point about forgiveness might be valid. It's just a smokescreen when you extend it to fascism.
As for those sexual redistribution articles, they're laughable in their wrongheadedness. You don't starve to death from lack of sex, or have to live under a bridge or on a street corner begging. Your "shock" from the response of people on the left to these articles just seems like more hand wringing, and the response to how others choose to voice their disagreement with an article that is bad and wrong is just your standard tone policing and Both Sidesism. Civility and fair play and social acceptance do not extend to fascists, white supremacists, or their supporters, and I feel like all of this is well-tread ground in this and other threads.
As I said, I didn't put forward that post as giving the ~only~ relevant concern, when it comes to civility. I just think it is one legitimate concern. I haven't seen anyone describe it yet, so I thought I would. It is consistent with what I said that "crisis mode" is in effect, and so this concern is largely secondary. I don't think so, but the ideas are independent.
You also missed the point with the redistribution of sex example--though, to be fair, everyone else seems to have as well, so that may be a problem on my end.
The point was not that Hanson or Douthat were right. Nor did I take issue with the ~tone~ of the responses. I did not say that people were too mean to them, nor did I say they deserved to be treated better. What I took issue with was the ~content~ of the responses. The critics performed shockingly badly on a relatively objective and basic reasoning task. I wondered how this could have happened jointly to each of these several independent and fairly successful professional readers and writers. It would be surprising for even one to hit publish on something that badly confused, let alone several all at once. My explanation was that negative partisanship can be brain poison. In their eagerness to dunk on Hanson and Douthat for being Gilleadean creeps, the critics momentarily allowed themselves to become distressingly stupid, without maintaining the self-awareness to see what was going on.
Because we do not want--for our own sakes--to drink a bunch of brain poison, this gives us some reason to avoid indulging in too much negative partisanship, at least in certain forms. This is a purely self-regarding concern, about not wanting to put oneself in a position to experience fits of stupidity like the one I described. Importantly, this reason is independent of whether the negative stereotypes are justified or accurate, and it is also independent of whether the people in question are good guys or bad guys, whether they are affording us the same concern, and all that. If they're drinking the brain poison, all the worse for them; no need to join.
Whatever weight you ultimately give this concern, it is not already well-tread ground in this thread. This thread has been focused on other issues, mostly involving either 1) pragmatic calculations about influencing people or 2) moral assessments of how any bad treatment in this case is justified and deserved. This issue is orthogonal to both of those.
I think you're missing three important facts though:
1. There ARE people who are championing mandatory sex redistribution, especially among the incel community. And these pieces are coming out in the wake of a major incel terror attack in North America. So "tongue-in-cheek" parroting their claims to a wider audience isn't really "tongue-in-cheek," so much as publicly articulating the hateful ideas of a terrorism-inducing ideology.
2. Even if it still is "tongue-in-cheek," that aspect is not discernible by people on either side of the political spectrum. "Enforced monogamy" and "sexual redistribution" are becoming more common talk amongst the Alt-Right, even if it's because they're reading these "tongue-in-cheek" pieces incorrectly.
3. Public statements are, and should be, held to a higher standard of clarity, because you better damn well know that some people are going to misunderstand it when you have thousands of listeners/readers. It's a fricking elementary fact for anybody in a profession that involves public speaking. A professor cannot expect that a lecture of 2000 undergrads is going to pick up their subtle sarcasm about sex differences in hyenas. That's not going to fly, and everybody with half a brain damn well knows it.
One cannot espouse Nazi ideology, while the Nazis are marching and the Nazis are citing one's writing as support, and then claim it's all "tongue-in-cheek." "I was being sarcastic, when I said exterminate all the Jews! How was I supposed to know that people were going to take it seriously?!" I don't know, maybe don't make sarcastic public statements about how we should exterminate all the Jews! Is that even really that big a loss for you, that sarcastic quipping was the only way you could express yourself? Would the world have ended if you had just been straight in your writing? Or at least, would whatever harm that ensued be less than all the Jews being exterminated, cuz that was the die you were playing with just there!
Edit: And frankly, I'm not sure this is a political issue at all. The day after 9/11 was not the day to be publicly musing about whether US imperialism had caused unending misery in the Middle East. It may be true, but if you're talking like that on the streets of New York, I'm pretty comfortable with saying that you were inviting whatever unfortunate consequences befell you. It's not a matter of truth or politics; it's about exercising some discretion in how you present your point, how you choose your audience, and timing. The fact that these statements are political and fall somewhere on the highly-polarized American political spectrum is just cover for the fact that the authors exercised about as much discretionary thought as your average high-school teenager who says something astoundingly insensitive in the wake of a major tragedy. Who, by the way, are going to get berated for being dumbass teenagers and take it, instead of cowardly shielding themselves behind the wall of "Political oppression! The Left is oppressing free speech! Look at how reactionary and hateful they are!"
I am at something of a loss. This, and also every other subsequent response, seems to focus on how Douthat and Hanson are bad guys and deserve to be berated. But my entire point, which I have said in each post, is that this may well be true, and I’m not claiming otherwise. What I am claiming is that the particular way they were berated showed that the critics had made pretty basic and demonstrable reading comprehension mistakes. This is compatible with Douthat being absolute scum.
Adolph Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, and he was the most literal Nazi there is. It is still possible to misread Mein Kampf. Suppose someone complained that Main Kampf was a bad book because it endorsed Jewish ethnic supremacy. You would think “Hitler is an asshole, but this guy is real confused. There’s a lot to complain about in that book, and somehow he missed all of it.” Would I say this person was being “unfair” to Hitler in saying that, or that he needed to reach out to Hitler to persuade him, or that his critique should have been more polite? Not really. I would say he needs to work on his ability to read.
The only point here that seems actually responsive is 2, where you suggest that what I have claimed is obvious about these pieces of writing it is instead “not discernible” to people on any side of the political spectrum. If that were true, then it would be unsurprising that they were misread. But I’m comfortable saying that it isn’t. In fact, many people (myself included) were able to discern the intent—but also other authors, eg at the Washington post, at crooked timber, etc., who through less catastrophically bad reading skills were able to issue corrections saying “uh, guys, that’s not really what it’s about...”
Posts
I'm more interested in what sort of services are denied a physician who works for Planned Parenthood or a public defender assigned a case where they get to defend a minority from a rape charge. I'm sure ACLU lawyers get a lot of shit from everyone because they represent some pretty awful people at least once in a while and are doing so specifically for first amendment reasons.
People are still denied service for being black and openly "Muslim free" business groups have been a thing for a while. Obvious protected groups.
To me it doesn't seem like there is much of a grey area, doctors and lawyers have jobs that require they do them to the best of their ability regardless of personal views. It might start getting a little fuzzy when you start talking about Enron lawyers or anti-vaccination doctors who are intentionally participating in the harm of others.
Edit: Harm like bombing an abortion doctor or revenge killing a lawyer is pretty unethical, and I think almost everyone in our society has agreed on that.
There is no individual action that can improve society. Not a single one. Human decency is a collective effort.
https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/charlottesville-judge-awards-unite-the-right-organizer-jason-kessler-for/article_8b934487-14dd-535a-8499-fda7b9a682a2.html
This is a neo Nazi responsible for the Unite the Right rally, which attacked counter protests and clergy while chanting Nazi slogans, ending in a terrorist attack that killed one.
He sued one of the protesters for being mean to him in court AND WON ($5, but still) and claims it's "restoring civiliity".
So let's turn those hypotheticals around. Those of you that have been asking how far is too far to exclude someone or otherwise be incivil. How far is too far the other way around? Would you critize someone for kicking Kessler out?
looking for that one "guaranteed" action before one acts is a sure way to do absolutely nothing
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
I get what you're saying, and there's some truth to the principle of it I guess. I do think that the judgement encourages people to stay anonymous when they decide to beat up Nazi's though, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. This ruling was basically the Nazi arguing that if someone says mean things to him, he might get violent which isn't his fault. To which I think the best answer is, "go fuck yourself."
Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge tells me that the judicial system is kind of fucked up sometimes.
Edit: No, the judge ruled that Kessler is a public figure. He isn't part of a protected group, he can get the fuck out on grounds of being an openly racist piece of trash that threatens violence.
Treat Kessler like the troll he is. One stupid ruling from a judge doesn't invalidate anything we've been saying.
Fascists will always find sympathizers somewhere. That just means it's all the more important for the rest of us to shun them and their ideology.
I'd like to learn more about this if possible
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
About the regime itself, the fight to bring the dictators to justice or the rewritting of history in foreign media claiming it a "war" of some sort, when it was the state murdering civilians?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Argentine_coup_d'état
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War
I cant find english sources for the "escraches", wich is how former military members were outed and protested against during democracy.
For how the Military Junta fell, they were broke and without popular support after the Falklands war, and the memory of the Cordobazo was still pretty fresh.
(1969, this is not from the same process but it set a precedent that lives to this day - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordobazo#Popular_uprising )
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Got some sources, but either too shallow or too specific. The wikipedia entry is very poor.
http://statecrime.org/state-crime-research/the-outing-of-torturers-in-argentina-civil-society-and-the-ongoing-fight-against-impunity/
"The demonstrations end outside the escrachado’s homes where eggs are tossed at his door, red paint is thrown at his façade, slogans are written on the walls and yellow footprints are painted on the sidewalks.[24] The doorstep can be washed and the stains on the house and pavement can be erased, but the ‘social marks’ now worn by the escrachado will remain.[25] Typically, the effects are felt by the represor the following days: ‘That’s when the baker won’t sell him bread, the taxi won’t pick him up, the newspaper won’t come to his house.’"
Thanks for the history lesson, it really put things in perspective. I need more mental preparation if this is where we're headed.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
An analogy will help. Consider forgiveness. Sometimes people deserve to be forgiven, and you would wrong them by not doing so. Sometimes they don’t--sometimes it would be wrong for a person to even ask. Sometimes forgiving someone can be expedient for social reasons; sometimes it can be a mistake. These can all be important consideration. But these reasons focus on the person being forgiven, and on the other people in the background. What they do not take account of is the forgiver themself.
Sometimes we forgive people for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they deserve to be forgiven. We forgive people for our own sakes. We find that the anger we carried is toxic, exhausting. We can find our entire perspective shifting with nothing at all changing about the person themselves. We can find this happening with someone who definitely does not deserve to be forgiven, but then we forgive them anyway, because forgiving them is a good thing we do to ourselves.
I think that at least sometimes civility can be the same way. Even if some people do not deserve to be treated civilly (making no real judgment on this), it can be the case that being civil toward them anyway is good for our hearts and minds. It can involve the exercise and strengthening of capacities of deliberate self-control, compassion, fairmindedness.
The last of those in particular--cultivation of fairmindedness--has been on my mind due to a recent tempest in a teapot that some of you may have followed. Robin Hanson, a libertarian type at George Mason, wrote a tongue-in-cheek article advocating for the redistribution of sex to the sexually disadvantaged. The idea was that this would show us how wrong redistribution is, in general--just as sexual envy is not a good reason to redistribute sex, monetary envy is no reason to redistribute money. And backing up either plan with the implicit threat of violence (if you don't do it, the disadvantaged will take matters into their own hands) just makes it more abhorrent. He wrote this, tastelessly, in the immediate aftermath of an incel killing. Ross Douthat then took the same basic premise and ran with it in the NYT op ed page, this time putting a social Catholic spin on it as opposed to the earlier right-libertarian one.
What shocked me was not the articles--which were interesting enough in conception, but extremely shallow in execution. What shocked me was the response by some well established "thought leader" types on the left. A number of people took the articles deadly seriously, and argued that they showed how conservatives view women as property, to be handed out to spoiled violent men. I recall at least a couple of the Lawyers Guns and Money Bloggers taking this line, as well as Jeet Heer, though I made no kind of of systematic survey. But of course, this was the exact opposite of the point. The point, such as it was, was that redistributing sex is creepy and bad, so we should think of sex as sacred (Douthat) or we should think of redistribution as generally wrong (Hanson). And this was very, very obvious.
How could such a basic error have happened not just in one, but in several "intellectuals" readings of these pieces? I think it's pretty clear that the commentators were so hot and bothered about the apparent chance to call out some conservatives for ~~supporting Literally Gilead~~ that their brains went on vacation. And maybe many, or even most, conservatives do support Literal Gilead! Maybe Douthat and Hanson themselves support literal Gilead, in other venues and writings. But they weren't doing it here, and a controlling preoccupation with the general sins of conservatives, how bad and creepy they are as a whole, lead to these commentors making themselves, in a very basic and factual way, stupid. There is a certain kind of partisan fervor that I can't help but think is just brain poison.
So, I think that just we can forgive people who do not deserve to be forgiven--not for them, but for us--I also think we can be civil to people who do not deserve civility--not for them, but for us.
To be clear, this is not intended to supplant or supercede considerations of broader social effects, or desert. It would be ridiculous to lecture survivors of a military dictatorship about civil resistance. I bring this up not because it is the only consideration, but because I think it is an important consideration--and one which I have seen entirely absent from the broader cultural conversation. I think that one of the values of civility is not what it does to others, but what it does to ourselves.
Sometimes forgiveness isn't warranted. Sometimes deciding to ignore any and all transgressions in the name of being the better person only makes one lesser.
This is all fine and good, but it doesn't apply in Crisis Mode. If we were talking about personal relationships with people, your point about forgiveness might be valid. It's just a smokescreen when you extend it to fascism.
As for those sexual redistribution articles, they're laughable in their wrongheadedness. You don't starve to death from lack of sex, or have to live under a bridge or on a street corner begging. Your "shock" from the response of people on the left to these articles just seems like more hand wringing, and the response to how others choose to voice their disagreement with an article that is bad and wrong is just your standard tone policing and Both Sidesism. Civility and fair play and social acceptance do not extend to fascists, white supremacists, or their supporters, and I feel like all of this is well-tread ground in this and other threads.
It's kinda a problem if you are forgiving someone who is going to keep hurting you or others. That isn't moving on, it is enabling the abuse.
In the frame of ethical consumerism take those kid gloves off and put on the glass dipped handwraps.
This company supports horrible policy? Fuck buying their products, or patronizing their establishments.
This individual is directly responsible or covering for policy creating concentration camps on American soil? They can get the fuck out of my business... you know if I could afford to have a business, or was in charge of who my Corp does business with.
This actually leads into a specific issue we're kinda leaving to the wayside. Working in a moral vacuum. Sometimes you have to accept you don't own the business you work for, and that you're gonna have to serve folks you don't really want to. Like in the Red Hen situation, if the owner didn't give a shit, but an employee felt they could not serve this person is it incumbent upon them to quit their job, hurt themselves in a way literally no one will notice or give even a particle of shit about, and stick to their guns, or is it acceptable for them to tamp down their personal feelings and keep working? This gets even foggier in the internet age when you can be working for a company for years before you realize the customers your company is contracting with or offering services to.
Forgiveness doesn't start until the misdeeds stop.
Sometimes forgiveness will never be merited, and the only just response is to damn both the presence and memory of those who have offended.
This is a Thing that rape and domestic violence survivors deal with, so I just want to point out for the record: if someone has hurt you, you are NOT responsible for preventing them from hurting others. That's on them and them alone.
There has been altogether too much fairmindness and compassion extended to people who have none to give. This isn’t a conflict between two equal sides, where we need to learn how to get along with the butter side down folk. The distinction between the side that says “stop hurting people” and the side that says “stop getting mad at us for hurting people” is not arbitrary.
Can you go too far? Sure, and the movie I’m quoting has some nuanced things to say about that. But we’re nowhere near too far. We’re way on the other end of the spectrum, where what we desperately need is the moral courage to confront and defeat evil in order to protect those people who DO deserve our compassion, our fairmindedness, and our aid.
I could give a flying fuck about criticisms of the NYT op-ed page. This is about kids in cages and all the other real people being hurt here. When the metaphorical war is over we can look back and decide if now’s the time to forgive and be civil. Right now we need to tell them, loudly and rudely and at every opportunity, that their behavior is not acceptable. The only alternative is accepting it.
Obama was wrong. We can boo and vote.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I didn't say it starts when the misdeeds stop
As I said, I didn't put forward that post as giving the ~only~ relevant concern, when it comes to civility. I just think it is one legitimate concern. I haven't seen anyone describe it yet, so I thought I would. It is consistent with what I said that "crisis mode" is in effect, and so this concern is largely secondary. I don't think so, but the ideas are independent.
You also missed the point with the redistribution of sex example--though, to be fair, everyone else seems to have as well, so that may be a problem on my end.
The point was not that Hanson or Douthat were right. Nor did I take issue with the ~tone~ of the responses. I did not say that people were too mean to them, nor did I say they deserved to be treated better. What I took issue with was the ~content~ of the responses. The critics performed shockingly badly on a relatively objective and basic reasoning task. I wondered how this could have happened jointly to each of these several independent and fairly successful professional readers and writers. It would be surprising for even one to hit publish on something that badly confused, let alone several all at once. My explanation was that negative partisanship can be brain poison. In their eagerness to dunk on Hanson and Douthat for being Gilleadean creeps, the critics momentarily allowed themselves to become distressingly stupid, without maintaining the self-awareness to see what was going on.
Because we do not want--for our own sakes--to drink a bunch of brain poison, this gives us some reason to avoid indulging in too much negative partisanship, at least in certain forms. This is a purely self-regarding concern, about not wanting to put oneself in a position to experience fits of stupidity like the one I described. Importantly, this reason is independent of whether the negative stereotypes are justified or accurate, and it is also independent of whether the people in question are good guys or bad guys, whether they are affording us the same concern, and all that. If they're drinking the brain poison, all the worse for them; no need to join.
Whatever weight you ultimately give this concern, it is not already well-tread ground in this thread. This thread has been focused on other issues, mostly involving either 1) pragmatic calculations about influencing people or 2) moral assessments of how any bad treatment in this case is justified and deserved. This issue is orthogonal to both of those.
I have seen you talk about this before, and didn't think much of it, other than noting it, but I don't think that the responses, as described, are inherently incorrect, unless it really was a "THIS IS WHAT LITERALLY EVERY CONSERVATIVE BELIEVES" sort of thing.
I hope you've got rudeness to spare, because I don't think I can hold up my end
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Also if you're going to try "modest proposaling" things, maybe don't do it right after someone goes on a vicious rampage in favor of eating babies. Just saying. If you're doing satire, it has to be much more extreme than anything your target would actually support. Those articles weren't.
I think you're missing three important facts though:
1. There ARE people who are championing mandatory sex redistribution, especially among the incel community. And these pieces are coming out in the wake of a major incel terror attack in North America. So "tongue-in-cheek" parroting their claims to a wider audience isn't really "tongue-in-cheek," so much as publicly articulating the hateful ideas of a terrorism-inducing ideology.
2. Even if it still is "tongue-in-cheek," that aspect is not discernible by people on either side of the political spectrum. "Enforced monogamy" and "sexual redistribution" are becoming more common talk amongst the Alt-Right, even if it's because they're reading these "tongue-in-cheek" pieces incorrectly.
3. Public statements are, and should be, held to a higher standard of clarity, because you better damn well know that some people are going to misunderstand it when you have thousands of listeners/readers. It's a fricking elementary fact for anybody in a profession that involves public speaking. A professor cannot expect that a lecture of 2000 undergrads is going to pick up their subtle sarcasm about sex differences in hyenas. That's not going to fly, and everybody with half a brain damn well knows it.
One cannot espouse Nazi ideology, while the Nazis are marching and the Nazis are citing one's writing as support, and then claim it's all "tongue-in-cheek." "I was being sarcastic, when I said exterminate all the Jews! How was I supposed to know that people were going to take it seriously?!" I don't know, maybe don't make sarcastic public statements about how we should exterminate all the Jews! Is that even really that big a loss for you, that sarcastic quipping was the only way you could express yourself? Would the world have ended if you had just been straight in your writing? Or at least, would whatever harm that ensued be less than all the Jews being exterminated, cuz that was the die you were playing with just there!
Edit: And frankly, I'm not sure this is a political issue at all. The day after 9/11 was not the day to be publicly musing about whether US imperialism had caused unending misery in the Middle East. It may be true, but if you're talking like that on the streets of New York, I'm pretty comfortable with saying that you were inviting whatever unfortunate consequences befell you. It's not a matter of truth or politics; it's about exercising some discretion in how you present your point, how you choose your audience, and timing. The fact that these statements are political and fall somewhere on the highly-polarized American political spectrum is just cover for the fact that the authors exercised about as much discretionary thought as your average high-school teenager who says something astoundingly insensitive in the wake of a major tragedy. Who, by the way, are going to get berated for being dumbass teenagers and take it, instead of cowardly shielding themselves behind the wall of "Political oppression! The Left is oppressing free speech! Look at how reactionary and hateful they are!"
True, fascism certainly is one of those times where it'd merited. However, people can overcompensate for what's done to them - vengeance is a powerful drug that never leaves satisfaction. It's important to be able to tell the difference between that and justice.
Sometimes not having a path to forgiveness can backfire, as well. If someone is regretful, and wants to repent yet sees it as pointless they're going to double down as a matter of survival because there are no options for them to pursue the right thing. Or they might not know the right path to earn that forgiveness, it's not our society is good with that on the whole.
This is puzzling, if what ICE has done doesn't motivate you to participate - what will?
Civility and tolerance are not unlimited in society, people have logical limits to what they can take before lashing out. Both as an ethical matter and survival.
The fact that people have stopped trying is a good thing, not “brain poison”.
Yeah, I know that's a slippery slope, and that a couple decades ago, homosexuality was included in the social pariah contexts of what is socially acceptable.
But open tolerance of all ideas has lead to the most outwardly racist/sexist/mysoginistic bigot in my four and a half decades, and emboldened the rest of these assholes. Because it's not about their feelings, or how they deal with themselves. It's about what they want to do to others. And that's the difference.
If a homosexual incel group started up tomorrow, I'd expect them to be treated no differently to the hetero incels. Broadcasting a message that subjugates or diminishes someone else, deserves to be met with scorn, whereas a message seeking equality, should not.
I kinda know a guy who's sorta like a gay incel on another forum and I'm concerned about his mental health. He kinda ends up like a gay homophobe.
I don't really trust myself to do harm without overdoing it. I haven't physically lashed out at anybody in 20 years, 12 mentally. I don't think I could actually harm anybody, but I think I could easily destroy my self-respect by crossing lines that people with more common sense and better consciences can clearly see. Plus, have you ever seen someone this narcissistic who didn't look like an idiot when trying to neg others? It took me 20 minutes to write this post and this was the best I could come up with; how effective do you really think I'll be in making a moral stand against corruption?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Don't need to.
There is always someone willing to do it for them and admonish those who would dare criticize them for their "satire".
Maybe the folks writing the toung in cheek essays are shitty writers that often suggest shitty things, and often defend saying shitty things by saying they are just joking?
I am at something of a loss. This, and also every other subsequent response, seems to focus on how Douthat and Hanson are bad guys and deserve to be berated. But my entire point, which I have said in each post, is that this may well be true, and I’m not claiming otherwise. What I am claiming is that the particular way they were berated showed that the critics had made pretty basic and demonstrable reading comprehension mistakes. This is compatible with Douthat being absolute scum.
Adolph Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, and he was the most literal Nazi there is. It is still possible to misread Mein Kampf. Suppose someone complained that Main Kampf was a bad book because it endorsed Jewish ethnic supremacy. You would think “Hitler is an asshole, but this guy is real confused. There’s a lot to complain about in that book, and somehow he missed all of it.” Would I say this person was being “unfair” to Hitler in saying that, or that he needed to reach out to Hitler to persuade him, or that his critique should have been more polite? Not really. I would say he needs to work on his ability to read.
The only point here that seems actually responsive is 2, where you suggest that what I have claimed is obvious about these pieces of writing it is instead “not discernible” to people on any side of the political spectrum. If that were true, then it would be unsurprising that they were misread. But I’m comfortable saying that it isn’t. In fact, many people (myself included) were able to discern the intent—but also other authors, eg at the Washington post, at crooked timber, etc., who through less catastrophically bad reading skills were able to issue corrections saying “uh, guys, that’s not really what it’s about...”