8 ms·

None of this is particularly surprising, but it is sobering to hear it from the horse's mouth. Insane racist sexists didn't win this election for Trump; dogma d

None of this is particularly surprising, but it is sobering to hear it from the horse's mouth. Insane racist sexists didn't win this election for Trump; dogma did. One can no longer openly discuss certain extremely important topics (is there something inherently wrong with Islam as a belief system? Is Black Lives Matter doing good or bad things? Are women really paid less than men for performing the same work?) without risking their career and social life. Not because one is an awful person for asking awful questions. On the contrary, these are conversations we need to be having rationally and deeply, learning and growing from having them. No, the threat of ruin comes from the religion of moral sanctimony we've allowed to flourish within our society. If you question the dogma of social justice, you will be lynched on social media and branded a bigot, a racist, a sexist, and so on. Pretty sure those of us who aren't members of the church are just really fucking tired of this behavior, and unfortunately it's that very fatigue which seems to be one of the factors which drove people to vote for a truly awful leader.

therpe1 10y ago
What's so strange is that over and over I hear comments about Islam (from the President, no less), comments about BLM and many, many comments about women working. What's striking is the nature of these comments. Recently the Utah GOP chairman wrote a letter arguing that woman shouldn't work, that they belong in the home and this is what's "best for everybody." He was forced to resign. [1] I wonder is this the sort of thing you're talking about? > If you question the dogma of social justice, you will be lynched on social media and branded a bigot, a racist, a sexist, and so on. Did you ever consider that maybe the people nobly questioning the dogma actually are bigots, racists and sexists? Honestly that would jive much more with the evidence from Sam's experiment. And if this is the case then there's simply two deeply incompatible value systems at work here. The idea that people might have a some sort of reasonable discussion about whether women should be allowed to work or whether BLM is protesting "appropriately" while cops murder citizens with impunity is kinda... dumb? [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/02/20/gop-official-utah-resigns-after-criticizing-equal-pay-bill/98155140/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/...
panic 10y ago
Why are those the extremely important topics that need discussion? What about the people who are actually being hurt every day in America (drug addicts, prisoners, trans people, poor people...)?
- camdenlock 10y ago
  They're questions with profound societal significance, and they're even more important now because of how little we've been able to discuss them openly. The dam is bursting, in other words. I don't understand your second question, but I'd be happy to reply to it if you could clarify a bit.
  - panic 10y ago
    OK, let me put it another way: there are billions of billions of billions of possible questions we could be asking. Most of them are not things that people talk about, and that people would be confused about if you brought them up. Why are the specific questions you mention worth discussing?
    - spaethnl 10y ago
      What a bizarre response? The parent is suggesting that there are other topics that people feel are important and want to discuss, and your dismissive response seems to be, "We have all of these other things to discuss that I think are important, without justification, we don't have much more room for what you want to discuss, so you need to justify it for me." Why is anything worth discussing? Because people think it is! It should be self-evident! Enough people mis-understand enough things that we got this new incompetent president; maybe we aught to discuss what they want more so that we can all be on the same page? I agree with you; the things you mention are worth talking about, but so are many things that are shouted down and we have room to talk about them all.
- azrazalea 10y ago
  Just like "Black Lives Matter" doesn't mean "Only Black Lives Matter" their statement doesn't mean those are the only extremely important topics that need discussion.
mikeash 10y ago
I don't get this idea that we can't talk about these things. Right now the entire national government is run by people who have no trouble talking about these things, and much worse. Not only can you openly discuss them, but you can successfully get elected President while doing so. You can't say, "We can't even discuss this stuff. That's why Trump won." The very idea contradicts itself.
- camdenlock 10y ago
  > Right now the entire national government is run by people who have no trouble talking about these things, and much worse. You seem to be implying that such questions are inherently immoral, and that's exactly the kind of sentiment that I challenged in my original comment. You can't demonize people for wanting to ask legitimate questions and have legitimate discussions. There are difficult questions and there are bad questions. There IS a difference. This question is bad: "Why do black people think their lives matter?" This question is difficult, but not bad: "Is the Black Lives Matter movement doing good?"
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Consider that as "much worse" from the perspective of those who see these topics as bad. The people currently in power are more than happy to talk about murdering the families of terrorists and torturing suspects for information. If they were ever to express any resistance about discussing whether Islam is an inherently bad belief system, it would only be because they thought the answer was clearly "yes." When the whole national government is run by people like that, I can't understand this idea that topics such as you mention are somehow off-limits.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    > You can't demonize people for wanting to ask legitimate questions and have legitimate discussions. You also can't claim that merely asking those questions will lead to demonization or ostracism, since we recently freely elected a leader who asks such questions.
    - 10y ago
the_gastropod 10y ago
> One can no longer openly discuss certain extremely important topics (is there something inherently wrong with Islam as a belief system? Is Black Lives Matter doing good or bad things? Are women really paid less than men for performing the same work?) Some very prominent and (mostly) beloved liberals talk about these things _constantly_. Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, and Salman Rushdie for example, are very vocal about problems in Islam. They do receive some pushback from some liberals, but they're far from being "no longer [able to] openly discuss" these things. It's almost like liberals aren't a homogenous collection of people!
- cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
  It's because they are "prominent" liberal people, that's what they are known for. Not the case for average Joe.
- camdenlock 10y ago
  It's great that those prominent figures are discussing difficult questions openly. That can only result in good things for our society. However, not all of us have such luxury. For most of us, merely asking the initial questions to start a difficult/challenging conversation can have very bad consequences in the current climate. If you've got a job as a coder at a SV company, you'd better be extremely careful about starting a conversation with coworkers at lunch about how concerned you are by how acceptable honor killings seem to be in Muslim-majority societies. Starting such a conversation could get you ostracized, fired, or worse, which is unfortunate because that's precisely the kind of bad idea (honor killings) which need to be challenged, and which are of very real and very immediate importance at this time.
  - shakil 10y ago
    Work environments aren't meant to be a forum to discuss politically sensitive topics. Would you be able to discuss abortion rights or gay marriage at work? Then why is it so problematic if honor killings are a taboo topic? Also, what is your interest in honor killings, as opposed to say gun violence? Are more people being killed because of this barbaric custom, or is it because that's what the media and all Islamophobes love to bring up during any discussion of Islam? If you really wanted to educate yourself on the topic you would have easily found a source [1] with contrary information but that would burst the media bubble we are surrounded by in this country [1] https://blog.oup.com/2014/07/five-important-facts-about-honor-killings/ https://blog.oup.com/2014/07/five-important-facts-about-hono...
drewrv 10y ago
> it's that very fatigue which seems to be one of the factors which drove people to vote for a truly awful leader. I don't understand this reasoning. Why would someone who hates being unfairly called a bigot go and vote for a bigot? If I hated it when people called me a socialist, I wouldn't vote for Bernie Sanders! What seems more likely is that bigotry is fairly common and a lot of people are bigoted in ways they don't necessarily realize.
- jelly 10y ago
  Voting is anonymous, so calling people names based off who they voted for isn't a viable strategy.
maxerickson 10y ago
If you question the dogma of social justice, you will be lynched on social media lynched on social media is an unfortunate construction. Excoriated? Mocked? Humiliated? Harassed? All things that can happen on social media. Anyway, what are the arguments against building a just society? Since you call social justice a dogma, I'd ask you to separate out arguments against the concept of a just society from arguments about whether specific ideas and policies represent progress towards a just society.

therpe1 10y ago

What's so strange is that over and over I hear comments about Islam (from the President, no less), comments about BLM and many, many comments about women working. What's striking is the nature of these comments. Recently the Utah GOP chairman wrote a letter arguing that woman shouldn't work, that they belong in the home and this is what's "best for everybody." He was forced to resign. [1] I wonder is this the sort of thing you're talking about? > If you question the dogma of social justice, you will be lynched on social media and branded a bigot, a racist, a sexist, and so on. Did you ever consider that maybe the people nobly questioning the dogma actually are bigots, racists and sexists? Honestly that would jive much more with the evidence from Sam's experiment. And if this is the case then there's simply two deeply incompatible value systems at work here. The idea that people might have a some sort of reasonable discussion about whether women should be allowed to work or whether BLM is protesting "appropriately" while cops murder citizens with impunity is kinda... dumb? [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/02/20/gop-official-utah-resigns-after-criticizing-equal-pay-bill/98155140/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/...

panic 10y ago

Why are those the extremely important topics that need discussion? What about the people who are actually being hurt every day in America (drug addicts, prisoners, trans people, poor people...)?

camdenlock 10y ago
They're questions with profound societal significance, and they're even more important now because of how little we've been able to discuss them openly. The dam is bursting, in other words. I don't understand your second question, but I'd be happy to reply to it if you could clarify a bit.
- panic 10y ago
  OK, let me put it another way: there are billions of billions of billions of possible questions we could be asking. Most of them are not things that people talk about, and that people would be confused about if you brought them up. Why are the specific questions you mention worth discussing?
  - spaethnl 10y ago
    What a bizarre response? The parent is suggesting that there are other topics that people feel are important and want to discuss, and your dismissive response seems to be, "We have all of these other things to discuss that I think are important, without justification, we don't have much more room for what you want to discuss, so you need to justify it for me." Why is anything worth discussing? Because people think it is! It should be self-evident! Enough people mis-understand enough things that we got this new incompetent president; maybe we aught to discuss what they want more so that we can all be on the same page? I agree with you; the things you mention are worth talking about, but so are many things that are shouted down and we have room to talk about them all.
azrazalea 10y ago
Just like "Black Lives Matter" doesn't mean "Only Black Lives Matter" their statement doesn't mean those are the only extremely important topics that need discussion.

mikeash 10y ago

I don't get this idea that we can't talk about these things. Right now the entire national government is run by people who have no trouble talking about these things, and much worse. Not only can you openly discuss them, but you can successfully get elected President while doing so. You can't say, "We can't even discuss this stuff. That's why Trump won." The very idea contradicts itself.

camdenlock 10y ago
> Right now the entire national government is run by people who have no trouble talking about these things, and much worse. You seem to be implying that such questions are inherently immoral, and that's exactly the kind of sentiment that I challenged in my original comment. You can't demonize people for wanting to ask legitimate questions and have legitimate discussions. There are difficult questions and there are bad questions. There IS a difference. This question is bad: "Why do black people think their lives matter?" This question is difficult, but not bad: "Is the Black Lives Matter movement doing good?"
- mikeash 10y ago
  Consider that as "much worse" from the perspective of those who see these topics as bad. The people currently in power are more than happy to talk about murdering the families of terrorists and torturing suspects for information. If they were ever to express any resistance about discussing whether Islam is an inherently bad belief system, it would only be because they thought the answer was clearly "yes." When the whole national government is run by people like that, I can't understand this idea that topics such as you mention are somehow off-limits.
- mcphage 10y ago
  > You can't demonize people for wanting to ask legitimate questions and have legitimate discussions. You also can't claim that merely asking those questions will lead to demonization or ostracism, since we recently freely elected a leader who asks such questions.
  - 10y ago

the_gastropod 10y ago

> One can no longer openly discuss certain extremely important topics (is there something inherently wrong with Islam as a belief system? Is Black Lives Matter doing good or bad things? Are women really paid less than men for performing the same work?) Some very prominent and (mostly) beloved liberals talk about these things _constantly_. Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, and Salman Rushdie for example, are very vocal about problems in Islam. They do receive some pushback from some liberals, but they're far from being "no longer [able to] openly discuss" these things. It's almost like liberals aren't a homogenous collection of people!

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
It's because they are "prominent" liberal people, that's what they are known for. Not the case for average Joe.
camdenlock 10y ago
It's great that those prominent figures are discussing difficult questions openly. That can only result in good things for our society. However, not all of us have such luxury. For most of us, merely asking the initial questions to start a difficult/challenging conversation can have very bad consequences in the current climate. If you've got a job as a coder at a SV company, you'd better be extremely careful about starting a conversation with coworkers at lunch about how concerned you are by how acceptable honor killings seem to be in Muslim-majority societies. Starting such a conversation could get you ostracized, fired, or worse, which is unfortunate because that's precisely the kind of bad idea (honor killings) which need to be challenged, and which are of very real and very immediate importance at this time.
- shakil 10y ago
  Work environments aren't meant to be a forum to discuss politically sensitive topics. Would you be able to discuss abortion rights or gay marriage at work? Then why is it so problematic if honor killings are a taboo topic? Also, what is your interest in honor killings, as opposed to say gun violence? Are more people being killed because of this barbaric custom, or is it because that's what the media and all Islamophobes love to bring up during any discussion of Islam? If you really wanted to educate yourself on the topic you would have easily found a source [1] with contrary information but that would burst the media bubble we are surrounded by in this country [1] https://blog.oup.com/2014/07/five-important-facts-about-honor-killings/ https://blog.oup.com/2014/07/five-important-facts-about-hono...

drewrv 10y ago

> it's that very fatigue which seems to be one of the factors which drove people to vote for a truly awful leader. I don't understand this reasoning. Why would someone who hates being unfairly called a bigot go and vote for a bigot? If I hated it when people called me a socialist, I wouldn't vote for Bernie Sanders! What seems more likely is that bigotry is fairly common and a lot of people are bigoted in ways they don't necessarily realize.

jelly 10y ago
Voting is anonymous, so calling people names based off who they voted for isn't a viable strategy.

maxerickson 10y ago

If you question the dogma of social justice, you will be lynched on social media lynched on social media is an unfortunate construction. Excoriated? Mocked? Humiliated? Harassed? All things that can happen on social media. Anyway, what are the arguments against building a just society? Since you call social justice a dogma, I'd ask you to separate out arguments against the concept of a just society from arguments about whether specific ideas and policies represent progress towards a just society.