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Perhaps with the best of intentions, the left seems to be silencing the discussion, or at least attempting to. It's a paradoxical defense of cultural relativism

Perhaps with the best of intentions, the left seems to be silencing the discussion, or at least attempting to. It's a paradoxical defense of cultural relativism with a morally absolute position (saying x is bad and should be institutionally censored). I don't have an easy way to resolve that dilemma, but sometimes it seems the left is more concerned with appearance than with discussion.

kelnos 9y ago
Yeah, I definitely see that, and it worries me as well. I do believe that the concept of tolerance can go too far, and that simply tolerating intolerant people can actually give you a worse outcome than censoring them. But I'm afraid that the left (of which I consider myself a part) goes too far sometimes. It's taboo to even try to discuss some topics, and people who don't understand and are just trying to learn get slapped down. That's not helping.
- weberc2 9y ago
  Disclaimer: I'm an Obama-voting moderate liberal (for whatever that's worth), and I'm writing this from my phone in great haste. Please forgive bluntness and typos. One concern I have is that the left is arguing that it should be okay to punch intolerant people ("what's wrong with punching Nazis?"), but they are also happy to use "intolerant" to describe pretty much anyone with whom they disagree (the Christakis/Yale incident and the Google Memo fiasco come to mind, but I see this all over). Anyone who isn't convinced about theories of structural racism or discrimination as the root cause of all disparities are increasingly called intolerant (to your point about people getting slapped down), and it seems like only a shallow victory for liberal thought (people are "accepting" these theories out of fear, and will probably vocally challenge them again when the fear is removed). The left should do the hard work of persuading, and if they fail to persuade huge swaths of the population, perhaps they should step back and examine their theories instead of taking it as evidence that the country is indeed full of Nazis (because only Nazis would disagree, right?) Besides being concerned about abusing a hypothetical "right to punch Nazis", I'm equally concerned that suppressing hate is more likely to have the reverse effect (which probably best explains the uptick we're seeing now, though I can't prove it). It seems like the left had a really good system several years ago, which was to challenge bigoted ideas in open debate. It may not have completely rooted out hate, but that could be because it wasn't practices long enough or well enough or perhaps there is simply some small percent of people who are unreachable with reasoned debate and we reached everyone else (we seem to have done a good job of making these people insignificant, prior to the last couple of years).

kelnos 9y ago

Yeah, I definitely see that, and it worries me as well. I do believe that the concept of tolerance can go too far, and that simply tolerating intolerant people can actually give you a worse outcome than censoring them. But I'm afraid that the left (of which I consider myself a part) goes too far sometimes. It's taboo to even try to discuss some topics, and people who don't understand and are just trying to learn get slapped down. That's not helping.

weberc2 9y ago
Disclaimer: I'm an Obama-voting moderate liberal (for whatever that's worth), and I'm writing this from my phone in great haste. Please forgive bluntness and typos. One concern I have is that the left is arguing that it should be okay to punch intolerant people ("what's wrong with punching Nazis?"), but they are also happy to use "intolerant" to describe pretty much anyone with whom they disagree (the Christakis/Yale incident and the Google Memo fiasco come to mind, but I see this all over). Anyone who isn't convinced about theories of structural racism or discrimination as the root cause of all disparities are increasingly called intolerant (to your point about people getting slapped down), and it seems like only a shallow victory for liberal thought (people are "accepting" these theories out of fear, and will probably vocally challenge them again when the fear is removed). The left should do the hard work of persuading, and if they fail to persuade huge swaths of the population, perhaps they should step back and examine their theories instead of taking it as evidence that the country is indeed full of Nazis (because only Nazis would disagree, right?) Besides being concerned about abusing a hypothetical "right to punch Nazis", I'm equally concerned that suppressing hate is more likely to have the reverse effect (which probably best explains the uptick we're seeing now, though I can't prove it). It seems like the left had a really good system several years ago, which was to challenge bigoted ideas in open debate. It may not have completely rooted out hate, but that could be because it wasn't practices long enough or well enough or perhaps there is simply some small percent of people who are unreachable with reasoned debate and we reached everyone else (we seem to have done a good job of making these people insignificant, prior to the last couple of years).