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> Where every actor must take a position on every issue Not taking a position is, by default, choosing to uphold the status quo. When the status quo is unjust,

> Where every actor must take a position on every issue Not taking a position is, by default, choosing to uphold the status quo. When the status quo is unjust, it's choosing to uphold injustice. That's fine, just own up to it. Hiding behind "I'm apolitical" when you're a loyal foot soldier for the current system isn't a good look.

lucaspauker 6y ago
...point in case
AmericanChopper 6y ago
This line of reasoning falls over with even the slightest level of scrutiny. It's just a way of bullying people into adopting the political views that you want them to, and it shouldn't be tolerated in a society that values democratic freedoms. An uncountable number of injustices take place across the world every day, and any individual person will be playing no part in, and have no influence over a vast majority of them. This argument can't be taken as honest or sincere, because with absolute surety I can guarantee that horrific injustices took place today that you have absolutely no concern about at all. When somebody presents this argument, they are not honestly advocating for justice. What they are actually saying is that "by not adopting _my_ political views, you are acting out evil". Part of any person's political world view is how they choose the issues that they consider to be important, knowing that they only have the span of their short life, and the means of their limited resources to address the problems in the world. You have no right to demand that somebody make the same decisions in this respect as you do. It is absurd, it is hostile to the notion of free democracy, and it is a standard that no living person could ever meet. And all of that is before you account for the fact describing something as an injustice in the first place is quintessentially an opinion. This sort of thing reminds me a lot of the psychology of warfare, where soldiers are systemically taught to view the enemy as animals who lack humanity. It has a terribly toxic influence on society. Your ideas no longer need to compete on their merits, because the people who disagree with them are the enemy, and the enemy is less than human.
- exclusiv 6y ago
  > It's just a way of bullying people into adopting the political views that you want them to, and it shouldn't be tolerated in a society that values democratic freedoms. > You have no right to demand that somebody make the same decisions in this respect as you do. It is absurd, it is hostile to the notion of free democracy, and it is a standard that no living person could ever meet. Well said. It's sad that activists are anti-liberty in this way. It undermines their campaigns. I had a professor in college tell an entire class the first day - "nobody really cares about you except your family and maybe some friends". You could see the shock to a lot of the students who had been coddled and told how awesome they were their whole life. Once you accept that concept, you can learn to be more effective in communication and not expect things from others. Most of these activists have no tact. Neil deGrasse Tyson says in his MasterClass that his father taught him that it's not enough to be right. You must be effective. The world would be a much better place if everyone followed that.
- zbentley 6y ago
  > describing something as an injustice in the first place is quintessentially an opinion Unless you mean a critique of the notion of justice in general, that seems to be a bit reductive. Accusations of "injustice" in most societies typically don't stand on their own; they're accompanied by evidence, which is debated, and an ethical stance, which is also sometimes debated. But injustice isn't some Hitlerian discussion-ender; it's an idea and a value set, always selectively applied, just like "fairness", "equality", "utilitarianism", or whatever. It's not like invoking the devil in church. I'm not GP. I've no clue whether they were being honest in their statements or not, or how they'd choose to back them up, but: at what point is an accusation of injustice not an "opinion", or a "toxic influence on society"? When one person believes it? Ten? Some percentage of society? Some magistrate? When you agree with it? There's no general answer to that question, so saying "they said it was unjust, that means that they're dehumanizing my position and making me into the enemy!" is somewhat silly.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    That’s definitely the most minor detail of my parent comment. The fact is that every person in the world gets to choose for themselves which issues they consider to be most important to them. They each get to choose which issues they devote their time/attention/money/skills/resources/etc to. When you account for the total number of all injustices that take place everyday, any person will only ever be able to concern themselves with a minuscule portion of them. By not concerning yourself with a particular injustice, you are in not automatically supporting it. A failure to intervene does not make you responsible for the actions of every other person on the planet. Somebody who says this is not saying “why are you not concerned about every injustice on the planet”, they’re saying “if your concerns don’t align with mine then you’re a bad person”. Unless they consider themselves a champion of injustice, any person who repeats this is necessarily a hypocrite.
MFLoon 6y ago
I used to be baffled at the use of "SJW" as a pejorative, but comments like this reveal it's aptness to me. It's not the fighting for justice that's negative, it's the adoption of the warrior mentality. Which, ironically, is a perfect reflection of the problem with American policing - viewing the world as a battlefield and anyone not with you as against you. There are no non-combatants in the streets, just as there are none in the ideological trenches. The struggle for order and/or social justice is a totalizing endeavor that demands complete obedience, to the point where non-compliance/apolitical intransigence is treated more harshly than some forms of law-breaking/ideological deviance.
- zbentley 6y ago
  The "soldier" metaphor was unfortunate, but I think the underlying thesis is well taken. We live in a deeply interconnected world. Most actions, even studied inaction/uninvolvedness, have repercussions on lots of other people--complex repercussions that have to do with privilege and affluence and race and gender and all those other hot-button issues that people get up in arms about. We call that "political". Now, nobody's making you be an activist (someone who puts a ton of time towards advancing one of those causes). Nobody's making you care. You're free to do whatever you want. But choosing not to care doesn't make the repercussions of your choices any less political. It weirds me out when people get prickly in response to that pointing out that basic reality, because it sounds very much like "I don't want to acknowledge that my actions have wide reaching consequences." What you should/shouldn't do about that reality is a separate question: opinions range from "don't tell anyone what to do" to "sell all your belongings in service to $cause right now". But accepting that basically everything we do in an interdependent society is not just tangentially but fundamentally political (yes, even refraining from discussing political topics at work) isn't a super contentious or extreme claim.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    At very best, the claim is pointless. In order to live up to that standard, you would have to consider the interests of all people (both living and yet to be born), every time you made any decision. Even if you narrow the scope of those interests to down to only those relating to justice, you’re still left with fundamentally impossible proposition (and even if you were omnipresent, you’re still going to need to neglect some injustices, in cases where the judicial interests of two parties are at odds). Nobody takes that position because they’re concerned that you’re not considering the injustices some random far away people, that neither of you know about, are currently experiencing. People only take that position when they want to bully/guilt/coerce/intimidate others into caring about the same issues as they do. If taking no action against an injustice is equivalent to supporting it, then the history of humanity has been comprised entirely of absolutely despicable people. Because for every injustice that you have taken a stand against, there is an essentially unlimited number of additional injustices that you have fully supported by virtue of never even knowing they occurred.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
notSupplied 6y ago
Therein lies the difference between "This is what I believe." vs "This is what I believe, and anyone who isn't actively fighting for my cause must be evil." None of us here can really know what Brian has done as a private citizen in terms of political activism. What would you think if he is privately active (maybe even for causes you agree with!) and also chooses the workplace to be politically neutral? (Speaking of which, what have you done to fight the status quo? Why not more? Why have you not consumed all of your time/money/attention on it? What level is necessary to be considered not-complicit in the status quo?)

lucaspauker 6y ago

...point in case

AmericanChopper 6y ago

This line of reasoning falls over with even the slightest level of scrutiny. It's just a way of bullying people into adopting the political views that you want them to, and it shouldn't be tolerated in a society that values democratic freedoms. An uncountable number of injustices take place across the world every day, and any individual person will be playing no part in, and have no influence over a vast majority of them. This argument can't be taken as honest or sincere, because with absolute surety I can guarantee that horrific injustices took place today that you have absolutely no concern about at all. When somebody presents this argument, they are not honestly advocating for justice. What they are actually saying is that "by not adopting _my_ political views, you are acting out evil". Part of any person's political world view is how they choose the issues that they consider to be important, knowing that they only have the span of their short life, and the means of their limited resources to address the problems in the world. You have no right to demand that somebody make the same decisions in this respect as you do. It is absurd, it is hostile to the notion of free democracy, and it is a standard that no living person could ever meet. And all of that is before you account for the fact describing something as an injustice in the first place is quintessentially an opinion. This sort of thing reminds me a lot of the psychology of warfare, where soldiers are systemically taught to view the enemy as animals who lack humanity. It has a terribly toxic influence on society. Your ideas no longer need to compete on their merits, because the people who disagree with them are the enemy, and the enemy is less than human.

exclusiv 6y ago
> It's just a way of bullying people into adopting the political views that you want them to, and it shouldn't be tolerated in a society that values democratic freedoms. > You have no right to demand that somebody make the same decisions in this respect as you do. It is absurd, it is hostile to the notion of free democracy, and it is a standard that no living person could ever meet. Well said. It's sad that activists are anti-liberty in this way. It undermines their campaigns. I had a professor in college tell an entire class the first day - "nobody really cares about you except your family and maybe some friends". You could see the shock to a lot of the students who had been coddled and told how awesome they were their whole life. Once you accept that concept, you can learn to be more effective in communication and not expect things from others. Most of these activists have no tact. Neil deGrasse Tyson says in his MasterClass that his father taught him that it's not enough to be right. You must be effective. The world would be a much better place if everyone followed that.
zbentley 6y ago
> describing something as an injustice in the first place is quintessentially an opinion Unless you mean a critique of the notion of justice in general, that seems to be a bit reductive. Accusations of "injustice" in most societies typically don't stand on their own; they're accompanied by evidence, which is debated, and an ethical stance, which is also sometimes debated. But injustice isn't some Hitlerian discussion-ender; it's an idea and a value set, always selectively applied, just like "fairness", "equality", "utilitarianism", or whatever. It's not like invoking the devil in church. I'm not GP. I've no clue whether they were being honest in their statements or not, or how they'd choose to back them up, but: at what point is an accusation of injustice not an "opinion", or a "toxic influence on society"? When one person believes it? Ten? Some percentage of society? Some magistrate? When you agree with it? There's no general answer to that question, so saying "they said it was unjust, that means that they're dehumanizing my position and making me into the enemy!" is somewhat silly.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  That’s definitely the most minor detail of my parent comment. The fact is that every person in the world gets to choose for themselves which issues they consider to be most important to them. They each get to choose which issues they devote their time/attention/money/skills/resources/etc to. When you account for the total number of all injustices that take place everyday, any person will only ever be able to concern themselves with a minuscule portion of them. By not concerning yourself with a particular injustice, you are in not automatically supporting it. A failure to intervene does not make you responsible for the actions of every other person on the planet. Somebody who says this is not saying “why are you not concerned about every injustice on the planet”, they’re saying “if your concerns don’t align with mine then you’re a bad person”. Unless they consider themselves a champion of injustice, any person who repeats this is necessarily a hypocrite.

MFLoon 6y ago

I used to be baffled at the use of "SJW" as a pejorative, but comments like this reveal it's aptness to me. It's not the fighting for justice that's negative, it's the adoption of the warrior mentality. Which, ironically, is a perfect reflection of the problem with American policing - viewing the world as a battlefield and anyone not with you as against you. There are no non-combatants in the streets, just as there are none in the ideological trenches. The struggle for order and/or social justice is a totalizing endeavor that demands complete obedience, to the point where non-compliance/apolitical intransigence is treated more harshly than some forms of law-breaking/ideological deviance.

zbentley 6y ago
The "soldier" metaphor was unfortunate, but I think the underlying thesis is well taken. We live in a deeply interconnected world. Most actions, even studied inaction/uninvolvedness, have repercussions on lots of other people--complex repercussions that have to do with privilege and affluence and race and gender and all those other hot-button issues that people get up in arms about. We call that "political". Now, nobody's making you be an activist (someone who puts a ton of time towards advancing one of those causes). Nobody's making you care. You're free to do whatever you want. But choosing not to care doesn't make the repercussions of your choices any less political. It weirds me out when people get prickly in response to that pointing out that basic reality, because it sounds very much like "I don't want to acknowledge that my actions have wide reaching consequences." What you should/shouldn't do about that reality is a separate question: opinions range from "don't tell anyone what to do" to "sell all your belongings in service to $cause right now". But accepting that basically everything we do in an interdependent society is not just tangentially but fundamentally political (yes, even refraining from discussing political topics at work) isn't a super contentious or extreme claim.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  At very best, the claim is pointless. In order to live up to that standard, you would have to consider the interests of all people (both living and yet to be born), every time you made any decision. Even if you narrow the scope of those interests to down to only those relating to justice, you’re still left with fundamentally impossible proposition (and even if you were omnipresent, you’re still going to need to neglect some injustices, in cases where the judicial interests of two parties are at odds). Nobody takes that position because they’re concerned that you’re not considering the injustices some random far away people, that neither of you know about, are currently experiencing. People only take that position when they want to bully/guilt/coerce/intimidate others into caring about the same issues as they do. If taking no action against an injustice is equivalent to supporting it, then the history of humanity has been comprised entirely of absolutely despicable people. Because for every injustice that you have taken a stand against, there is an essentially unlimited number of additional injustices that you have fully supported by virtue of never even knowing they occurred.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

notSupplied 6y ago

Therein lies the difference between "This is what I believe." vs "This is what I believe, and anyone who isn't actively fighting for my cause must be evil." None of us here can really know what Brian has done as a private citizen in terms of political activism. What would you think if he is privately active (maybe even for causes you agree with!) and also chooses the workplace to be politically neutral? (Speaking of which, what have you done to fight the status quo? Why not more? Why have you not consumed all of your time/money/attention on it? What level is necessary to be considered not-complicit in the status quo?)