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Was so lovely after reading the article, that the point that stuck with me, aligned with your comment right at the top. Maybe there's some sort of new "non-den

by goldcd 6y ago

Was so lovely after reading the article, that the point that stuck with me, aligned with your comment right at the top. Maybe there's some sort of new "non-denominational creed" we could all sign up for. ~" We may not agree but I will always listen to you. I will always consider your opinion with respect and will endeavour to understand your reasoning. My views are not set - my goal is to listen to arguments to come to an informed position, I can honestly take forward " As I typed that, I could hear the happy-clappy sounds of some mocking-utopia ringing in my ears - but goddamnit, it doesn't sound too hard for us to each put it into action. I'm as guilty as the next person, but I'm going to try going forward.

ctdeneen 6y ago
But with the internet much more of what you do is visible and more people know about it. What you said could be attacked with "white silence is violence"
- goldcd 6y ago
  I had a much longer response typed - but deleted it when it stopped even making sense to me. "white silence is violence" googles Still no idea how that could be applied to my post - but I am most definitely white, and after a bit of introspection, can't think of anything I've constructively done to address racism outside of late-night internet posts. So whilst I'd like to think I was "non-racist" - I do now feel a bit shitty that I entertain the cognitive-dissonance of being "anti-racist" and "not having ever done anything that was anti-racist" Then if I cookie-cutter myself out to everybody else - I now see how racism flourishes, whilst the majority tut-tuts. Was that your point?
  - arunbahl 6y ago
    This — suspension of judgement long enough to engage in genuine introspection, followed by a return to the conversation with humility — is something we so rarely see, and each need to engage in more. Kudos to you for leading by example.
    - goldcd 6y ago
      I am so not a good example of anything. But genuinely do appreciate your reply - makes that little voice in my head feel "less alone" What was interesting/depressing was my "how about a creed" post was getting a few up-votes, then the moment I replied below saying maybe I was a "crap anti-rascist", my OP started to get down-votes. Text hadn't changed, but by putting some context around it, it was read differently.
      - zaroth 6y ago
        Very consistently I’ve found engaging with replies to your own comment will get the original (even high ranking comment) downvoted. It could be just a reflexive thing to seeing a given username show up too often. I wouldn’t presume it was any deeper than that.
        goldcd 6y ago
        I think it's more than that. In my OP I very deliberately stuck to abstracts that I'd hoped "nobody could disagree with". And nobody seemed to - until I put more words beneath it. You're right though - engaging with your own posts is perceived as negative. People read the platitude and hit 'like' - the more you put beneath it, the greater the opportunity for something to annoy somebody (and scroll up to try to kill the thread)
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    > I entertain the cognitive-dissonance of being "anti-racist" and "not having ever done anything that was anti-racist" The systems and histories in place we battle with are much bigger, and much older, than we are. Unless your explicit goal is to set out to change the world (which frankly is a shitty goal and usually leads to some kind of genocide), literally the best advice is "think globally, act locally", as "outdated" as that saying I suppose now is. Except that it is especially true when what you want is positive social change. Think about the implications of someone who first implements your initial original post ("just stop and think for a sec"), and then also implements your second ("is there anything I can do here?"). That's enough. Literally that, when applied on a large scale, would change the world, in a way far more positive than riots and social justice movements. See, humans are really terrible creatures. We have a bad habit of overcorrecting and, you know, killing millions of people in the name of an ideal. We've done it what, dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of times. It's the difference between water carving a river, and a nuke carving a crater. The first one takes longer but is alot less destructive.
    - goldcd 6y ago
      Woah - I'd love to change the world (and why wouldn't you?) Then I lost your thread. Then I agreed with you, "we're terrible"
      - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
        Imagine what a planet full of people all changing the world would look like. Absolute, unabashed chaos. We all love to think we are the hero of our own story, but we aren't, and most of the time, shouldn't be. We should do what we can do, what fate and hard work have placed in front of us. "Change the world" as a cause in and of itself has killed far too many people to be considered a valid goal. We all believe our vision for the world is the right or best one, except it seems we're actually pretty bad at forcing the world to look like us. You were berating yourself for believing in anti-racism, while not actually physically doing anything about it. My point was this: These are not contradictory things, and don't let emotional blackmailers convince you otherwise. You do what is in front of you to do, and only that. If there's not actually anything in front of you to do, that's it. Is there or isn't there? That's 100% up to you. I can't say there is or there isn't. But it is important to question even the statement that there is something to do because otherwise you get caught in a Kafka trap of never actually living in a just world (tilting at smaller and smaller windmills until you're swinging at air).
  - ABCLAW 6y ago
    Here's the line of thinking: The idea is that ineffectual discourse without actual efforts towards reform is a method of signalling that one wants change while benefiting from the status quo of oppression. Discussion is great, but the discussion is supposed to result in change, not a vortex of words which have no connection to reality. When people advocate for lofty civility above all else when the status quo is violent, aggressive, demeaning and unjust, it shows that the priority is not justice; it is the maintenance of the current order. Is this position accurate? I don't know. There's obviously countervailing concerns regarding having a chilling effect on the market of ideas, but like all tough questions, it's likely a difficult situation with no clear cut answer and two virtues being traded-off against each other. This seems to be borne out by the fairly dramatic spectrum of positions adopted on the issue across the globe.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    No, the statement is nonsensical abusive rhetoric. Silence is literally not violence. It substitutes an argument that stands on its merits with a rather shameful and racist manipulation technique that is unfortunately quite effective, as evidenced by your apparent guilt. You obviously did nothing wrong. When racism flourishes is when we allow phrases like that to enter the discourse.
    - Volundr 6y ago
      Did he do nothing wrong? If I see a child being beaten in the street, look at it and say "that's horrible" and continue with my day, have I done nothing wrong? I certainly didn't beat the child, but my inaction allowed the abuse to continue. So question comes down to, did I have the moral obligation to act? Personally I lean towards yes, but can at least understand where the people who say no might be coming from. While I agree that silence is violence at its face is literally false, that's the general principal it's meant to invoke, that injustice can only be stopped when bystanders cease to tolerate it. The victim cannot stop it, and the perpetrator won't. Thus those who tut tut and move on with their day become complicit in allowing it to continue. That is what the commenter is feeling vaguely guilty about, and it's a healthy thing to feel. I know I have guilt in my past where I have failed to help someone when I had the opportunity, and that guilt that comes from recognition of that has driven me to be less of a bystander later in life.
      - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        What you’re talking about has nothing to do with what I said and is an extremely important distinction. Serious allegations should not be made casually with artistic license to bend the truth. If you witness a beating and do not intervene, then no, you did not commit an act of violence. You could debate what the morally correct thing is or isn’t if you want, but you can’t debate that you committed an act of violence.
        d1zzy 6y ago
        This seems like a debate over semantics to me. Silence doesn't mean violence, but silence can enable violence or be worse than violence if the consequence of staying silent are worse than those of violence: http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/edmund-burkeon-in-action.html http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/edmund-burkeon-in-action....
  - ctdeneen 6y ago
    I'm sorry I wasn't clear in my reply which was short and poorly written considering how it has a very powerful phrase. I'm not implying your post was racist but was responding to the quote you provided: We may not agree but I will always listen to you. I will always consider your opinion with respect and will endeavor to understand your reasoning. My views are not set - my goal is to listen to arguments to come to an informed position, I can honestly take forward I was trying to explain that because the internet has increased the visibility of ones opinions to a global scale, and a recent increase in the use of both public shaming as well as punitive financial measures (fired from job, boycott) it could be dangerous to opine about anything.
- Igelau 6y ago
  Speech isn't violence. Lack of speech isn't violence. People lazily regurgitate these postmodernist bumper sticker phrases and consider themselves informed activists.
  - goldcd 6y ago
    I would politely disagree (and happy to talk about it) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... I think speech can definitely lead to violence - and speech can also counteract it. Neither directly, but the delta has real-world repercussions. Or to look at it the other way - can you come up with an example of violence, that wasn't preceded by rhetoric?
    - Igelau 6y ago
      > speech can definitely lead to violence - and speech can also counteract it I don't disagree with you on that. We can say "A can lead to B" and "A can counteract B". I'm lost at the leap to "A is B" and "NOT(A) by COLOR = B". I could speak or not speak, and even do so out of negligence or spite. My choices may have effects and consequences, but violence does not mean "anything with effects and consequences". It feels too much like the missing piece is "this is what we say the word means now, QED". It's all too convenient that a conversation can be shut down by calling it violence. Implicating people is divisive. By it's own logic, redefining violence to include speech is itself a form of violent speech because it causes conflict.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    What a world we live in when the mob downvotes someone for the obviously true statement of “lack of speech isn’t violence”. Postmodernism is a disease.
  - FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
    Speech is most definitely capable of being violence. Just ask most anyone who was bullied as a child.
erikpukinskis 6y ago
I’m probably gonna do it. I’m not sure I could do the other thing... if the world burns, at least I burn in her camp. I’m ok with that. I’m excited you might be there too!
- goldcd 6y ago
  offers a marshmallow
- someguydave 6y ago
  If people are willing to die for the cause then conversation or listening is not going to accomplish anything. I’m afraid you do not understand the fire with which you are playing.
nyokodo 6y ago
This is a key aspect of the struggle of civilization and not utopian at all. If we hope to change anyone's mind and reach a level of social consensus on anything then it's imperative we make a safe space for everyone to think and have civil discourse. Knee jerk recriminations for essentially thinking is the recipe for entrenchment of positions and pushing people to the margins where they are more likely to mix with extremists. RBG and Scalia were a great example of how to disagree respectfully and not treat ideas as a personal threat but to engage with them with enthusiasm. I am with you in your quest to listen and give ideas their due and all people respect.
- purrplexed 6y ago
  Can't echo this enough. It feels over the last decade that we really have lost this. You see so little actual discussion taking place any longer. Everything is rhetoric, it is tiring.
  - munificent 6y ago
    > It feels over the last decade that we really have lost this. Polarization has been increasing in the US for longer than that. Many of these tendrils stretch all the way back to the founding days of the US, but I think the real uptick of this modern flavor is hate started with Newt Gingrich: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Role_in_political_polarization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Role_in_politica...
    - watersb 6y ago
      Ralph Reed: toxic as a kid at University of Georgia, still toxic today. My judgement may not move the conversation any further. I'm too emotionally wound up. I could do without the personal experience of the community which spawned this artificial divide. But then again, it's all I have, so I might as well use the hard lessons as well as the good times. Never been in the same room as the founder of the (so-called) Christian Coalition. I hope. Grew up in Athens Georgia around that time, it was considered a small town. It wasn't all bad, but it took thousands of miles and decades of years before I could enter a Christian Church without wanting to run away.
ponker 6y ago
That kind of collaboration can’t exist if there are two sides who believe that most issues are zero sum.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  I have no evidence for the following statement, but as someone who grew up just before social media was a thing (I became a legal adult about a decade before Facebook), I truly feel that the zero-sum thinking, while present before social media, really took on a new form because of it. It is much more vehement than before. You don't get the same kind of interaction on a forum or a bulletin board that you do on Twitter or FB or [modern social network]. When I was growing up, there was no Fox News channel nor any of the cable news channels (I remember when MSNBC was a brand new thing). News was something you watched for 1 hour in the evening. 24 hours news + trench digging/tribalism have done a horrible number on modern discourse. Thing is, I think that that's because before, there WAS no discourse, not really. It was slower. Most of the conversation was had by those you watched on TV. Alot fewer people participated. The internet DID democratize that, with frankly predictable results. Not saying we should have done differently but I do think we need to come to terms with what that means (e.g. realizing it's forcing us into zero-sum thinking and consciously choosing something else).
  - Cd00d 6y ago
    I'm close to your age I think. Don't forget that well before Fox News there was a AM radio, and Rush Limbaugh was national in the 80's. I definitely remember how his talking point impacted my high school's debate team's rhetoric. Agree that zero-sum thinking is a net-negative.
KittenInABox 6y ago
I think this might collapse at the edge cases: If I'm a black man and the opinion is that I'm an animal, and the person with the opinion uses this reasoning to abuse me, then I may be ethically correct to not listen or keep myself in their presence. Or, say, I'm a disabled person and someone tells me they think social services should be cut so people like me can die off for the good of humanity. It may be actively emotionally harmful for marginalized people to be listening to toxic opinions that they are worth nothing. (EDIT: To be clear I think listening to opinions I disagree with in good faith is a good thing that we need more of in society. However, I also believe marginalized voices are, by sake of being marginalized, are forced to engage in a significantly higher volume of significantly more emotionally taxing opinions, and therefore may need to protect themselves, and that isn't wrong.)
- __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  If someone is expressing a good-faith opinion then you shouldn't write them off just because you disagree. Of course, "good faith" is a subjective judgement. Over time I've come to realize that usually there's a legitimate reason why someone believes what they do. Often they are either optimizing for different things, or view the matter differently. If listening to someone's opinion is actively causing emotional harm, then sure, don't listen to them. But I worry very much about the rise in offense-taking. Perhaps it's an illusion but I've felt it's become incredibly difficult to talk to people with different [political, etc] opinions than my own: not because of me, but because of their attitude towards dissent.
  - KittenInABox 6y ago
    I agree it has become difficult to talk to people with different political opinions than my own. I just think the statement suggested was logically too strong, and entirely non applicable in very important failure modes. There are often legitimate reasons why someone believes what they do, but sometimes the belief is "I think there should be no consequences to murdering someone like you, because you're not worth the social resources you take with your disability", which was a belief expressed to me, and I need to protect myself emotionally from people who genuinely believe I should be dead.
rendall 6y ago
"Maybe there's some sort of new "non-denominational creed" we could all sign up for" That's me! I'm in that creed. People associating their identity with their politics is when trouble starts. That's when it becomes really threatening for them to even consider alternate perspectives, because if they change their mind, they will change who they are and who they can be friends with. It's possible to separate the two, whereby an idea on how society should be organized is just that: an idea, to be considered, adopted, discussed, and abandoned as new information becomes available. One really poisonous idea I see circulating is "either you are for <some thing> or you are a <bad person>" Either you support riots or you are a fascist Either you punch Nazis or you are one Related, just as terrible, "Time for discussion is over. If you're on the fence at this point, you are <bad person>" These kinds of memes increase polarization, and stop discussion. A person who says something like that can no longer have a calm exchange of ideas with their grandma
- tiziniano 6y ago
  I think you hit it right on the head. What I'm wondering now is: What leads to this association of politics and identity? Is it a product of our culture, upbringing, is it human nature? Is it that modern life has so little avenue for people individuating? Maybe it is filling a void. One thing that strikes me as key to this polarization is how pervasive are some generalizations we make today and how the individual is lost when we make them. I've seen racists make the comment "Black people are ...." (won't repeat that here) but then I see activist say "Black people are (ex. disadvantaged.)" Are there no quite privileged black people? (millionaires, billionaires, etc) Don't lower class people face a pretty similar set of challenges no matter their skin tone? When you look at it, both arguments are generalizing equally as aggressive. My question then is: are all generalizations wrong or only some? I think this process of grouping people has ome currents of thought tend to generalize two aspects to it, people who group other people when making statements and people who in some search of uniqueness, group themselves into it? As a non-American, coming from a very heterogeneous country I find it hard to follow how many people will self-identify so readily with a group and in the process lose some of their individuality. Maybe I speak from "privilege" as someone who due to upbringing and origin, felt a quite distinct individual, so I cannot say for sure. I just think this currents of thought harm more by dividing into groups and with many individuals satisfying their need of identity there.
Aeolun 6y ago
I think my problem with statements like this, is that while I can totally imagine the liberals I know taking this viewpoint, there are very few conservatives I know that do. The response will be something like: “Why would I listen to these whiners? I already know what I want.”
- enjeyw 6y ago
  Yeah, the reality is that "listening and respecting the opinions of people whom you disagree with" (or not) is an ideology in its own right. One would hope that it'd be orthogonal to conservatism/liberalism or any other political spectrum, but I suspect it's not.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    In some respects it is, it’s just correlated I’d say.
- pattrn 6y ago
  That type of response may result more from lack of education than from political ideology. Where I live, there are a fair amount of educated liberals and conservatives. I run into liberals and conservatives alike who give a similar response to what you listed; I also run into liberals and conservatives alike who have wonderful conversations about politics without getting riled up. From my observations, there doesn't seem to be a correlation with political ideology. I'm curious to know how frequently you have encountered one of your liberal friends debating with an educated conservative. Likewise, I'm curious to know how frequently you've encountered one of your conservative friends debating with an educated liberal. Over the past couple of years, I've run into a number of people who simply couldn't believe that an educated liberal/conservative existed, primarily because they grew up in an area where there weren't many people with differing political views. It's a dangerous trap to fall into, because it allows you to categorize the other political party based on only the rhetoric of elected officials and on the interpretation from media. I have yet to meet a conservative or progressive who matches the caricature of either portrayed by politicians or entertainers.
  - 6y ago
PaulRobinson 6y ago
Good leadership involves the sort of thinking where you are prepared to listen to a diverse set of opinions and be prepared to change your mind - especially if there is data that tells you you are wrong. The political discourse across the globe has taken a sharp turn away from this over the last 40 years in particular. There was a brief window between the end of the Cold War and 9/11 where many had hope this was going to be the new normal. I remember feeling that sliver of optimism as I entered adulthood. No more. Vote for people who are called "flip-floppers", by their opponents. Change your own opinions when the data changes. Be the change you want to see.

by goldcd 6y ago

ctdeneen 6y ago

But with the internet much more of what you do is visible and more people know about it. What you said could be attacked with "white silence is violence"

goldcd 6y ago
I had a much longer response typed - but deleted it when it stopped even making sense to me. "white silence is violence" googles Still no idea how that could be applied to my post - but I am most definitely white, and after a bit of introspection, can't think of anything I've constructively done to address racism outside of late-night internet posts. So whilst I'd like to think I was "non-racist" - I do now feel a bit shitty that I entertain the cognitive-dissonance of being "anti-racist" and "not having ever done anything that was anti-racist" Then if I cookie-cutter myself out to everybody else - I now see how racism flourishes, whilst the majority tut-tuts. Was that your point?
- arunbahl 6y ago
  This — suspension of judgement long enough to engage in genuine introspection, followed by a return to the conversation with humility — is something we so rarely see, and each need to engage in more. Kudos to you for leading by example.
  - goldcd 6y ago
    I am so not a good example of anything. But genuinely do appreciate your reply - makes that little voice in my head feel "less alone" What was interesting/depressing was my "how about a creed" post was getting a few up-votes, then the moment I replied below saying maybe I was a "crap anti-rascist", my OP started to get down-votes. Text hadn't changed, but by putting some context around it, it was read differently.
    - zaroth 6y ago
      Very consistently I’ve found engaging with replies to your own comment will get the original (even high ranking comment) downvoted. It could be just a reflexive thing to seeing a given username show up too often. I wouldn’t presume it was any deeper than that.
      - goldcd 6y ago
        I think it's more than that. In my OP I very deliberately stuck to abstracts that I'd hoped "nobody could disagree with". And nobody seemed to - until I put more words beneath it. You're right though - engaging with your own posts is perceived as negative. People read the platitude and hit 'like' - the more you put beneath it, the greater the opportunity for something to annoy somebody (and scroll up to try to kill the thread)
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  > I entertain the cognitive-dissonance of being "anti-racist" and "not having ever done anything that was anti-racist" The systems and histories in place we battle with are much bigger, and much older, than we are. Unless your explicit goal is to set out to change the world (which frankly is a shitty goal and usually leads to some kind of genocide), literally the best advice is "think globally, act locally", as "outdated" as that saying I suppose now is. Except that it is especially true when what you want is positive social change. Think about the implications of someone who first implements your initial original post ("just stop and think for a sec"), and then also implements your second ("is there anything I can do here?"). That's enough. Literally that, when applied on a large scale, would change the world, in a way far more positive than riots and social justice movements. See, humans are really terrible creatures. We have a bad habit of overcorrecting and, you know, killing millions of people in the name of an ideal. We've done it what, dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of times. It's the difference between water carving a river, and a nuke carving a crater. The first one takes longer but is alot less destructive.
  - goldcd 6y ago
    Woah - I'd love to change the world (and why wouldn't you?) Then I lost your thread. Then I agreed with you, "we're terrible"
    - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
      Imagine what a planet full of people all changing the world would look like. Absolute, unabashed chaos. We all love to think we are the hero of our own story, but we aren't, and most of the time, shouldn't be. We should do what we can do, what fate and hard work have placed in front of us. "Change the world" as a cause in and of itself has killed far too many people to be considered a valid goal. We all believe our vision for the world is the right or best one, except it seems we're actually pretty bad at forcing the world to look like us. You were berating yourself for believing in anti-racism, while not actually physically doing anything about it. My point was this: These are not contradictory things, and don't let emotional blackmailers convince you otherwise. You do what is in front of you to do, and only that. If there's not actually anything in front of you to do, that's it. Is there or isn't there? That's 100% up to you. I can't say there is or there isn't. But it is important to question even the statement that there is something to do because otherwise you get caught in a Kafka trap of never actually living in a just world (tilting at smaller and smaller windmills until you're swinging at air).
- ABCLAW 6y ago
  Here's the line of thinking: The idea is that ineffectual discourse without actual efforts towards reform is a method of signalling that one wants change while benefiting from the status quo of oppression. Discussion is great, but the discussion is supposed to result in change, not a vortex of words which have no connection to reality. When people advocate for lofty civility above all else when the status quo is violent, aggressive, demeaning and unjust, it shows that the priority is not justice; it is the maintenance of the current order. Is this position accurate? I don't know. There's obviously countervailing concerns regarding having a chilling effect on the market of ideas, but like all tough questions, it's likely a difficult situation with no clear cut answer and two virtues being traded-off against each other. This seems to be borne out by the fairly dramatic spectrum of positions adopted on the issue across the globe.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  No, the statement is nonsensical abusive rhetoric. Silence is literally not violence. It substitutes an argument that stands on its merits with a rather shameful and racist manipulation technique that is unfortunately quite effective, as evidenced by your apparent guilt. You obviously did nothing wrong. When racism flourishes is when we allow phrases like that to enter the discourse.
  - Volundr 6y ago
    Did he do nothing wrong? If I see a child being beaten in the street, look at it and say "that's horrible" and continue with my day, have I done nothing wrong? I certainly didn't beat the child, but my inaction allowed the abuse to continue. So question comes down to, did I have the moral obligation to act? Personally I lean towards yes, but can at least understand where the people who say no might be coming from. While I agree that silence is violence at its face is literally false, that's the general principal it's meant to invoke, that injustice can only be stopped when bystanders cease to tolerate it. The victim cannot stop it, and the perpetrator won't. Thus those who tut tut and move on with their day become complicit in allowing it to continue. That is what the commenter is feeling vaguely guilty about, and it's a healthy thing to feel. I know I have guilt in my past where I have failed to help someone when I had the opportunity, and that guilt that comes from recognition of that has driven me to be less of a bystander later in life.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      What you’re talking about has nothing to do with what I said and is an extremely important distinction. Serious allegations should not be made casually with artistic license to bend the truth. If you witness a beating and do not intervene, then no, you did not commit an act of violence. You could debate what the morally correct thing is or isn’t if you want, but you can’t debate that you committed an act of violence.
      - d1zzy 6y ago
        This seems like a debate over semantics to me. Silence doesn't mean violence, but silence can enable violence or be worse than violence if the consequence of staying silent are worse than those of violence: http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/edmund-burkeon-in-action.html http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/edmund-burkeon-in-action....
- ctdeneen 6y ago
  I'm sorry I wasn't clear in my reply which was short and poorly written considering how it has a very powerful phrase. I'm not implying your post was racist but was responding to the quote you provided: We may not agree but I will always listen to you. I will always consider your opinion with respect and will endeavor to understand your reasoning. My views are not set - my goal is to listen to arguments to come to an informed position, I can honestly take forward I was trying to explain that because the internet has increased the visibility of ones opinions to a global scale, and a recent increase in the use of both public shaming as well as punitive financial measures (fired from job, boycott) it could be dangerous to opine about anything.
Igelau 6y ago
Speech isn't violence. Lack of speech isn't violence. People lazily regurgitate these postmodernist bumper sticker phrases and consider themselves informed activists.
- goldcd 6y ago
  I would politely disagree (and happy to talk about it) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... I think speech can definitely lead to violence - and speech can also counteract it. Neither directly, but the delta has real-world repercussions. Or to look at it the other way - can you come up with an example of violence, that wasn't preceded by rhetoric?
  - Igelau 6y ago
    > speech can definitely lead to violence - and speech can also counteract it I don't disagree with you on that. We can say "A can lead to B" and "A can counteract B". I'm lost at the leap to "A is B" and "NOT(A) by COLOR = B". I could speak or not speak, and even do so out of negligence or spite. My choices may have effects and consequences, but violence does not mean "anything with effects and consequences". It feels too much like the missing piece is "this is what we say the word means now, QED". It's all too convenient that a conversation can be shut down by calling it violence. Implicating people is divisive. By it's own logic, redefining violence to include speech is itself a form of violent speech because it causes conflict.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  What a world we live in when the mob downvotes someone for the obviously true statement of “lack of speech isn’t violence”. Postmodernism is a disease.
- FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
  Speech is most definitely capable of being violence. Just ask most anyone who was bullied as a child.

erikpukinskis 6y ago

I’m probably gonna do it. I’m not sure I could do the other thing... if the world burns, at least I burn in her camp. I’m ok with that. I’m excited you might be there too!

goldcd 6y ago
offers a marshmallow
someguydave 6y ago
If people are willing to die for the cause then conversation or listening is not going to accomplish anything. I’m afraid you do not understand the fire with which you are playing.

nyokodo 6y ago

This is a key aspect of the struggle of civilization and not utopian at all. If we hope to change anyone's mind and reach a level of social consensus on anything then it's imperative we make a safe space for everyone to think and have civil discourse. Knee jerk recriminations for essentially thinking is the recipe for entrenchment of positions and pushing people to the margins where they are more likely to mix with extremists. RBG and Scalia were a great example of how to disagree respectfully and not treat ideas as a personal threat but to engage with them with enthusiasm. I am with you in your quest to listen and give ideas their due and all people respect.

purrplexed 6y ago
Can't echo this enough. It feels over the last decade that we really have lost this. You see so little actual discussion taking place any longer. Everything is rhetoric, it is tiring.
- munificent 6y ago
  > It feels over the last decade that we really have lost this. Polarization has been increasing in the US for longer than that. Many of these tendrils stretch all the way back to the founding days of the US, but I think the real uptick of this modern flavor is hate started with Newt Gingrich: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Role_in_political_polarization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Role_in_politica...
  - watersb 6y ago
    Ralph Reed: toxic as a kid at University of Georgia, still toxic today. My judgement may not move the conversation any further. I'm too emotionally wound up. I could do without the personal experience of the community which spawned this artificial divide. But then again, it's all I have, so I might as well use the hard lessons as well as the good times. Never been in the same room as the founder of the (so-called) Christian Coalition. I hope. Grew up in Athens Georgia around that time, it was considered a small town. It wasn't all bad, but it took thousands of miles and decades of years before I could enter a Christian Church without wanting to run away.

ponker 6y ago

That kind of collaboration can’t exist if there are two sides who believe that most issues are zero sum.

RonanTheGrey 6y ago
I have no evidence for the following statement, but as someone who grew up just before social media was a thing (I became a legal adult about a decade before Facebook), I truly feel that the zero-sum thinking, while present before social media, really took on a new form because of it. It is much more vehement than before. You don't get the same kind of interaction on a forum or a bulletin board that you do on Twitter or FB or [modern social network]. When I was growing up, there was no Fox News channel nor any of the cable news channels (I remember when MSNBC was a brand new thing). News was something you watched for 1 hour in the evening. 24 hours news + trench digging/tribalism have done a horrible number on modern discourse. Thing is, I think that that's because before, there WAS no discourse, not really. It was slower. Most of the conversation was had by those you watched on TV. Alot fewer people participated. The internet DID democratize that, with frankly predictable results. Not saying we should have done differently but I do think we need to come to terms with what that means (e.g. realizing it's forcing us into zero-sum thinking and consciously choosing something else).
- Cd00d 6y ago
  I'm close to your age I think. Don't forget that well before Fox News there was a AM radio, and Rush Limbaugh was national in the 80's. I definitely remember how his talking point impacted my high school's debate team's rhetoric. Agree that zero-sum thinking is a net-negative.

KittenInABox 6y ago

I think this might collapse at the edge cases: If I'm a black man and the opinion is that I'm an animal, and the person with the opinion uses this reasoning to abuse me, then I may be ethically correct to not listen or keep myself in their presence. Or, say, I'm a disabled person and someone tells me they think social services should be cut so people like me can die off for the good of humanity. It may be actively emotionally harmful for marginalized people to be listening to toxic opinions that they are worth nothing. (EDIT: To be clear I think listening to opinions I disagree with in good faith is a good thing that we need more of in society. However, I also believe marginalized voices are, by sake of being marginalized, are forced to engage in a significantly higher volume of significantly more emotionally taxing opinions, and therefore may need to protect themselves, and that isn't wrong.)

__blockcipher__ 6y ago
If someone is expressing a good-faith opinion then you shouldn't write them off just because you disagree. Of course, "good faith" is a subjective judgement. Over time I've come to realize that usually there's a legitimate reason why someone believes what they do. Often they are either optimizing for different things, or view the matter differently. If listening to someone's opinion is actively causing emotional harm, then sure, don't listen to them. But I worry very much about the rise in offense-taking. Perhaps it's an illusion but I've felt it's become incredibly difficult to talk to people with different [political, etc] opinions than my own: not because of me, but because of their attitude towards dissent.
- KittenInABox 6y ago
  I agree it has become difficult to talk to people with different political opinions than my own. I just think the statement suggested was logically too strong, and entirely non applicable in very important failure modes. There are often legitimate reasons why someone believes what they do, but sometimes the belief is "I think there should be no consequences to murdering someone like you, because you're not worth the social resources you take with your disability", which was a belief expressed to me, and I need to protect myself emotionally from people who genuinely believe I should be dead.

rendall 6y ago

"Maybe there's some sort of new "non-denominational creed" we could all sign up for" That's me! I'm in that creed. People associating their identity with their politics is when trouble starts. That's when it becomes really threatening for them to even consider alternate perspectives, because if they change their mind, they will change who they are and who they can be friends with. It's possible to separate the two, whereby an idea on how society should be organized is just that: an idea, to be considered, adopted, discussed, and abandoned as new information becomes available. One really poisonous idea I see circulating is "either you are for <some thing> or you are a <bad person>" Either you support riots or you are a fascist Either you punch Nazis or you are one Related, just as terrible, "Time for discussion is over. If you're on the fence at this point, you are <bad person>" These kinds of memes increase polarization, and stop discussion. A person who says something like that can no longer have a calm exchange of ideas with their grandma

tiziniano 6y ago
I think you hit it right on the head. What I'm wondering now is: What leads to this association of politics and identity? Is it a product of our culture, upbringing, is it human nature? Is it that modern life has so little avenue for people individuating? Maybe it is filling a void. One thing that strikes me as key to this polarization is how pervasive are some generalizations we make today and how the individual is lost when we make them. I've seen racists make the comment "Black people are ...." (won't repeat that here) but then I see activist say "Black people are (ex. disadvantaged.)" Are there no quite privileged black people? (millionaires, billionaires, etc) Don't lower class people face a pretty similar set of challenges no matter their skin tone? When you look at it, both arguments are generalizing equally as aggressive. My question then is: are all generalizations wrong or only some? I think this process of grouping people has ome currents of thought tend to generalize two aspects to it, people who group other people when making statements and people who in some search of uniqueness, group themselves into it? As a non-American, coming from a very heterogeneous country I find it hard to follow how many people will self-identify so readily with a group and in the process lose some of their individuality. Maybe I speak from "privilege" as someone who due to upbringing and origin, felt a quite distinct individual, so I cannot say for sure. I just think this currents of thought harm more by dividing into groups and with many individuals satisfying their need of identity there.

Aeolun 6y ago

I think my problem with statements like this, is that while I can totally imagine the liberals I know taking this viewpoint, there are very few conservatives I know that do. The response will be something like: “Why would I listen to these whiners? I already know what I want.”

enjeyw 6y ago
Yeah, the reality is that "listening and respecting the opinions of people whom you disagree with" (or not) is an ideology in its own right. One would hope that it'd be orthogonal to conservatism/liberalism or any other political spectrum, but I suspect it's not.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  In some respects it is, it’s just correlated I’d say.
pattrn 6y ago
That type of response may result more from lack of education than from political ideology. Where I live, there are a fair amount of educated liberals and conservatives. I run into liberals and conservatives alike who give a similar response to what you listed; I also run into liberals and conservatives alike who have wonderful conversations about politics without getting riled up. From my observations, there doesn't seem to be a correlation with political ideology. I'm curious to know how frequently you have encountered one of your liberal friends debating with an educated conservative. Likewise, I'm curious to know how frequently you've encountered one of your conservative friends debating with an educated liberal. Over the past couple of years, I've run into a number of people who simply couldn't believe that an educated liberal/conservative existed, primarily because they grew up in an area where there weren't many people with differing political views. It's a dangerous trap to fall into, because it allows you to categorize the other political party based on only the rhetoric of elected officials and on the interpretation from media. I have yet to meet a conservative or progressive who matches the caricature of either portrayed by politicians or entertainers.
- 6y ago

PaulRobinson 6y ago

Good leadership involves the sort of thinking where you are prepared to listen to a diverse set of opinions and be prepared to change your mind - especially if there is data that tells you you are wrong. The political discourse across the globe has taken a sharp turn away from this over the last 40 years in particular. There was a brief window between the end of the Cold War and 9/11 where many had hope this was going to be the new normal. I remember feeling that sliver of optimism as I entered adulthood. No more. Vote for people who are called "flip-floppers", by their opponents. Change your own opinions when the data changes. Be the change you want to see.