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Sounds nice. But in the real world all humans are both sinners and saints at the same time. Good luck being the one with the power to decide what an upstanding

by doitLP 6y ago

Sounds nice. But in the real world all humans are both sinners and saints at the same time. Good luck being the one with the power to decide what an upstanding citizen is. This is cancel culture in a nutshell. There’s a reason “don’t meet your heroes” is a saying. The problem is not appreciating the good works of someone who has also done bad things —- the problem is when we assume prima facie that just because someone is celebrated for one thing, that they are an upstanding citizen in all other areas of their life. There would be a lot less Harvey Weinstein’s in the world if our fallible human herd mentality didn’t elevate someone to sainthood because they were a bigshot in one aspect of their life.

ALittleLight 6y ago
I'm reminded of this quote which I once saw on lesswrong.com The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.” The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view . . .” —Marc Stiegler, David’s Sling It's true that "all humans are both sinners and saints at the same time" - but it's absolutely not true that all, or even most, humans have done something as bad as raping a child (to say nothing of the other people mentioned in the parent comment). This kind of sentiment is appropriate when considering the kinds of mistakes or sins that all humans commit, identifying the grey areas that people are consistently in. The existence of grey areas does not mean that somethings aren't black and others aren't white. I think, in this case, we can clearly see that what Polanski did was very bad and worthy condemnation and not "Who among hasn't..."
- randomsearch 6y ago
  This sounds like an ungenerous interpretation of the parent. They are saying - all humans do good things and bad things. You are attacking the argument - all humans are the same. Those two assertions are totally different.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    I am taking the point that "all humans do good and bad things" as a response to the commentary on Polanski, as a kind of excuse for Polanski or as saying that we shouldn't be too harsh or "cancel" Polanski because, after all, all humans do good and bad things. The point I'm trying to make in return is that while it is true that all humans do good and bad things, some humans, like Polanski, do genuinely terrible things, and the fact that all humans do bad things should not be an excuse for ignoring or looking over genuinely terrible things.

by doitLP 6y ago

ALittleLight 6y ago

I'm reminded of this quote which I once saw on lesswrong.com The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.” The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view . . .” —Marc Stiegler, David’s Sling It's true that "all humans are both sinners and saints at the same time" - but it's absolutely not true that all, or even most, humans have done something as bad as raping a child (to say nothing of the other people mentioned in the parent comment). This kind of sentiment is appropriate when considering the kinds of mistakes or sins that all humans commit, identifying the grey areas that people are consistently in. The existence of grey areas does not mean that somethings aren't black and others aren't white. I think, in this case, we can clearly see that what Polanski did was very bad and worthy condemnation and not "Who among hasn't..."

randomsearch 6y ago
This sounds like an ungenerous interpretation of the parent. They are saying - all humans do good things and bad things. You are attacking the argument - all humans are the same. Those two assertions are totally different.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  I am taking the point that "all humans do good and bad things" as a response to the commentary on Polanski, as a kind of excuse for Polanski or as saying that we shouldn't be too harsh or "cancel" Polanski because, after all, all humans do good and bad things. The point I'm trying to make in return is that while it is true that all humans do good and bad things, some humans, like Polanski, do genuinely terrible things, and the fact that all humans do bad things should not be an excuse for ignoring or looking over genuinely terrible things.