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This is where professionalism is important. Firmly separating your personal life and your professional life. That said, there's a huge gap between a religion
by Pxtl 10y ago
This is where professionalism is important. Firmly separating your personal life and your professional life.
That said, there's a huge gap between a religion a person is imparted with as a child, and philosophy they chose as an adult and have jumped into with both feet.
Many people come from backgrounds with bigoted ideas like that, but they don't colour their daily lives with it because they're not actively married to the idea - it's just part of the box of stuff they grew up believing passively.
This, on the other hand, is an active choice. An active decision that women are our lessers. That's far more serious. I have a lot more trouble with the idea of politely ignoring somebody who actively evangelizes this kind of idea rather than being simply passively being raised with it.
Where do you draw the line? How far do you go in ignoring the fact that key people in your community are, to be blunt: hateful?
Marvel Comics recently fired an illustrator for hiding Islamist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian references in his art. His ideas were "normal" in his country - should that have been ignored? Reprimanded as long as he kept his politics out of his art?
- andoon 10y ago>This, on the other hand, is an active choice. An active decision that women are our lessers. That's far more serious. As long as holding that belief doesn't affect in any way his behaviour towards women as a contributor of that project, then his beliefs are none of the project's business.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- maxlybbert 10y ago> That said, there's a huge gap between a religion a person is imparted with as a child, and philosophy they chose as an adult and have jumped into with both feet. Searching out which people have chosen a philosophy as an adult is how witch hunts start and are justified. I've heard complaints about McCarthyism and the Red Scare over the years, and I thought the moral was "witch hunts are bad." However, it looks clear to me that other people think the main problem was that McCarthy picked the wrong targets. If he hadn't chased leftist beliefs, then perhaps he never would have been vilified.
- Pxtl 10y agoLeftist beliefs aren't "half the population is my lesser". Seriously, would you make excuses like this for a pro-ISIS muslim? A white nationalist? A violent anarchist? An antisemitic holocaust denier? Believing that one person is less human than the other by the attributes of their birth is not a philosophical discussion like capitalism vs communism. If witches are actually doing damage, then by all means hunt them.
- ploxiln 10y agoThat's the funny thing - leftist beliefs are in fact "half the population is my lesser". The half that are not leftist are "bad hateful people", and you hate them and do not tolerate them. I'm no republican, but I end up being more annoyed by liberals for such blatant doublethink, for being unable to recognize their own actions.
- Pxtl 10y ago> The half that are not leftist are "bad hateful people", and you hate them and do not tolerate them. You're arguing with a strawman. There's an ocean of space between "leftist" and "bigoted" for normal centre and right-wing people who aren't bigots. I'll agree that the social justice community has made a bad habit of throwing around "racist" and "sexist" far too freely, especially in the wake of Trump's election. But this isn't like that. This is a guy who celebrates sexism. Who has made sexism a cornerstone of his ideology. It is not hypocritical to be intolerant of intolerance, anymore than it is hypocritical to use violence to stop violence (since that is the entire mechanism of law enforcement).
- Frondo 10y agoI've never seen any leftist claim that any group is inferior by birth; though it is, of course, easy to find leftists looking down on people for the ideas they hold and politics they practice. But having bad ideas doesn't seem to translate to "is my lesser" or is less human than me. To put it another way, the leftists will acknowledge that anyone can grow out of stupid ideas (and indeed, there are hopeful stories of bigots changing their tune), while the things the right gets down on people for (being gay, whatever) are things built into the person. So, I think this is an inaccurate characterization of the left. You're free to be annoyed by whatever annoys you, of course, but this one might merit rethinking.
- tps5 10y agoI don't think you get it. It doesn't matter what some guy posts on some message board (unless it's a threat, an incitement of violence, or something along those lines). It doesn't matter if he says he believes in "Gorean philosophy," whatever the hell that is. What matters are his actions. If he's treating women disrespectfully then, by all means, throw him out. But he's allowed to believe whatever the hell he wants, and the idea that he should face repercussions for his beliefs is wrong, whatever age he was when he came to those beliefs. Sure, there's going to be some correlation between holding misogynistic beliefs and inappropriate behavior toward women, but we don't punish the beliefs, we just punish the behavior. That's what makes this a free society.
- therpe1 10y agoThis is a distinction without difference. No meaningful line can be drawn between "belief" and "behavior." Somebody who holds hateful beliefs will act on those beliefs whether it's donating to a political candidate who wishes to provide government support to the hateful ideology or it's protesting the targets of that hate or it's just posting on a bulletin board and attempting to spread the hate to others. Here's a much simpler and more radical idea: let each group decide, based upon their own values, what criteria will be applied to their members. Internet communities are not a public spaces that belong to all. They're not managed by the government. They're not even a "protected" space like private corporations. They're not even clubs whose membership confers significant socio-economic benefits. They are free, private associations in the purest sense of the word. Think of people gathering to have a chat at a bar or hobbyists getting together on the weekend to build matchbox race cars. Given this, it's right and proper that the people of the Drupal Community don't want to hang out with some creep who hates women and have ejected him. It's their community, let them decide.
- Pxtl 10y agoI do get it. That's why I started from the important of professionalism, of separating the professional from the personal. But I'm also pointing out the other side: that maybe, just maybe, this kind of thing crosses the line. If it was just his beliefs we wouldn't know about them in the first place. But obviously, we know about them, which means it's not just his beliefs it's his statements. If I went around on some other private forum and said "tps5 is sub-human and should be subservient to me" you'd have reason to say "I will not work with Pxtl and I'm disappointed that this project is working with him, his behavior is seriously not okay". If I went around on some other private forum and said "all people who share attribute X with tps5 are sub-human and should be subservient to me" is that more or less okay?
- manarth 10y agoMarvel Comics recently fired an illustrator for hiding Islamist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian references in his art. It wasn't exactly his art in which the references were hidden - it was Marvel's art. He hid the references in comic panels, commissioned by Marvel and designed specifically for publication in a Marvel comic.
- jacquesm 10y agoThat's a practice that is as old as Michelangelo.
- Bartweiss 10y agoThe bait-and-switch here is pretty bad, yeah. This was content hidden in his professional work that he was dismissed over. It's not comparable. If someone were putting inflammatory political content in the Drupal source, it'd be an unambiguous CoC violation and I think they'd have basically no defenders.
- giaour 10y ago> That said, there's a huge gap between a religion a person is imparted with as a child, and philosophy they chose as an adult and have jumped into with both feet. That seems like a distinction without a difference. If someone converted to a religion as an adult, would you feel justified in using their religious beliefs to eject them from an open source project?
- Bartweiss 10y agoAll other commentary aside, I find the "imparted as a child" distinction creepy and infantilizing. It sounds like "I know you think you believe this, but you were raised that way so your views don't count as real opinions!" My gut reaction is something like "screw you, hold me accountable for all my beliefs!" Even more obviously, childhood beliefs affect us in lots of different ways. If someone becomes a Satanist because they were raised with oppressive Christianity, is that any less "imparted as a child" than sticking with their Christian faith? This is a bizarre distinction that seems like a way to exempt popular beliefs from being held accountable for their content.
- hhandoko 10y ago> Marvel Comics recently fired an illustrator for hiding Islamist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian references in his art. His ideas were "normal" in his country - should that have been ignored? Reprimanded as long as he kept his politics out of his art? Indonesian here, I'm not sure to what you attribute it to a normal view by Indonesians?
- Pxtl 10y agoSorry, not "normal" but "common" as in "not rare". 100,000 people out protesting Ahok is a pretty firm sign that the artist is part of a large movement, even if his viewpoint is in the minority.
- hhandoko 10y agoYes, certainly not a normal nor common view, but as you said, a lot of people seems to share it.