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The fundamental fallacy at play here is the human mental bias that we are at the peak of ethical advancement - and the corollary meta-bias that the historical w

The fundamental fallacy at play here is the human mental bias that we are at the peak of ethical advancement - and the corollary meta-bias that the historical witch hunters didn’t have this exact same bias themselves. It doesn’t help that drama likes to portray them as intentionally evil. In reality, most Christian zealots (or any historical enforcers of heresy) must have been very confident that they are doing the right thing. That their acts are sacred and justified. That they are on the right side of history. Tolerance thrived when people realised that although you feel certain in your convictions you should have enough humility to let others express theirs, because everyone always thinks and always thought that they are right, yet they were obviously wrong most of the time. And we are likely to be too.

tootie 4y ago
The fallacy that Graham is espousing seems to be that moral superiority (or even moral improvement) is utterly impossible and any attempt to raise the level of discourse is oppression. The change in tone in the 80s he refers to is the ascendance of civil rights, feminism and gay rights. All incredibly worthy movements. The fact that some adherents make mistakes is human nature. The notion that they can't be debated is patently false. The anti-progress faction is still very very powerful. Plenty of unequivocal sexists and racists face no punishment.
- jimkleiber 4y ago
  How I understood his essay was that he actually wants more debate about things and finds statements such as "that is X-ist" to end debate. Did you read that differently?
- oh_my_goodness 4y ago
  Points. On the other hand, how carefully did you read the comment you're responding to?
  - tootie 4y ago
    I'm not arguing with the above poster. I'm expounding. The confidence people have in their moral compass may be overinflated but that doesn't mean it's without value. I'd take the judgment of a social justice warrior over the Church of England any day of the week. But also you have to recognize that not everyone is so self-important and can be rational. Modern liberal values are a massive improvement over the past even if not everyone applies them sensibly.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      Just a quibble, not to argue with your overall point- isn’t the modern CoE, as a mainline church, much closer to the prototypical SJW than a more conservative religion?
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > The change in tone in the 80s he refers to is the ascendance of civil rights, feminism and gay rights Source? These movements are more than 100 years old. (yes, even gay acceptance basically got its start in the early 19th c.!) Did they really progress all that much from the 1980s to the present day? This is very much non-obvious, at least to me.
  - tootie 4y ago
    That's being very literal. Jim Crow lasted until 1965. Loving v Virginia was 1967. Gay marriage was made legal in 2015. The 80s wasn't necessarily a watershed but it was a generation raised knowing that a civil rights battle could be won.
- rayiner 4y ago
  The idea that there is an “anti-progress faction” is a self-serving delusion. What you have is different people with differing views of what “progress” looks like. For example as to “feminism”—in 2022 nearly all women agree it’s a good idea women can have bank accounts. But Roe remains deeply divisive and most women reject the full scope of those “rights” (specifically the right to abort in the second trimester). Half of women with children at home would prefer to be homemakers, and many resent the social and economic pressures for mothers to work. Same thing for “civil rights” or fighting “racism.” Does that mean Black and brown people being able to order food at any restaurant? Virtually nobody disagrees with that. Does that mean Black and Hispanic people getting racial preferences in college admissions or employment? Most Black and Hispanic people themselves reject that. As one of the oft-discussed “Black and brown” people, I would say much of what passes for “fighting racism” today is more like this: https://contexts.org/blog/who-gets-to-define-whats-racist/ https://contexts.org/blog/who-gets-to-define-whats-racist/ (“Rather than actually dismantling white supremacy or meaningfully empowering people of color, efforts often seem to be oriented towards consolidating social and cultural capital in the hands of the ‘good’ whites.”). Don’t forget that there were lots of ideas advanced in the name of “progress” that turned out to be ideological dead ends. 60 years after “free love,” we have massively retrenched, pushing sexuality out of more and more contexts. I don’t see Malcom X-style racial separatism being the way forward in a multi-ethnic society. “Same sex marriage” was actually a moderate reaction in it’s time—a response to those who wanted to use gay rights as a vehicle for a larger change in norms around marriage and gender. Finally, we don’t know the ultimate effect of these changes. I can’t help observing that the countries that initiated major shifts in views towards marriage and sexuality in the last 50 years have become dependent for their continued population stability on immigration from countries that have traditional views on marriage and sexuality.
- twofornone 4y ago
  >The anti-progress faction is still very very powerful. Plenty of unequivocal sexists and racists face no punishment. If I dared to push back on diversity and inclusion mandates in my workplace I'd lose my job. That includes explicitly racist talk about not hiring any more white guys. These "anti-progress" sentiments may exist but effectively in a parallel society, relegated mostly to blue collar work. It's dishonest to pretend that this ideology hasn't effectively taken over nearly all of our major institutions, and this slimy sort of denial is partly how it happened. And these topics are not nearly as black and white as culture warriors make them out to be, but God forbid if you express the wrong opinion or even ask the wrong question. Progress is great but sometimes you need to stop and listen to the people warning you that you're about to progress right off a cliff.
  - tootie 4y ago
    For one that's a sample bias of HN being primarily affluent coastal elites. Half the country voted for the anti-progress candidate. Second, I do not at all believe that you'd be fired for a reasonable objection to diversity policy. Saying "I don't want diversity at all" might.
    - rendall 4y ago
      > I do not at all believe that you'd be fired for a reasonable objection to diversity policy. That's not an argument. Not even really a reasonable belief. It happens to people on the regular. Let me introduce you to Jodie Shaw. https://dangerousintersection.org/2021/02/20/jodi-shaw-resigns-from-smith-college-after-smith-college-fails-to-buy-her-silence/ https://dangerousintersection.org/2021/02/20/jodi-shaw-resig...
      - tootie 4y ago
        She quit, she wasn't fired. And it was at least partly over incidents she wasn't even party too. Apparently she was upset that a supervisor suggested she not rap. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jodi-shaw-smith-college-bari-weiss-rapping-librarian-1132010/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jodi-shaw-...
deleted 4y ago
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tootie 4y ago

The fallacy that Graham is espousing seems to be that moral superiority (or even moral improvement) is utterly impossible and any attempt to raise the level of discourse is oppression. The change in tone in the 80s he refers to is the ascendance of civil rights, feminism and gay rights. All incredibly worthy movements. The fact that some adherents make mistakes is human nature. The notion that they can't be debated is patently false. The anti-progress faction is still very very powerful. Plenty of unequivocal sexists and racists face no punishment.

jimkleiber 4y ago
How I understood his essay was that he actually wants more debate about things and finds statements such as "that is X-ist" to end debate. Did you read that differently?
oh_my_goodness 4y ago
Points. On the other hand, how carefully did you read the comment you're responding to?
- tootie 4y ago
  I'm not arguing with the above poster. I'm expounding. The confidence people have in their moral compass may be overinflated but that doesn't mean it's without value. I'd take the judgment of a social justice warrior over the Church of England any day of the week. But also you have to recognize that not everyone is so self-important and can be rational. Modern liberal values are a massive improvement over the past even if not everyone applies them sensibly.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Just a quibble, not to argue with your overall point- isn’t the modern CoE, as a mainline church, much closer to the prototypical SJW than a more conservative religion?
zozbot234 4y ago
> The change in tone in the 80s he refers to is the ascendance of civil rights, feminism and gay rights Source? These movements are more than 100 years old. (yes, even gay acceptance basically got its start in the early 19th c.!) Did they really progress all that much from the 1980s to the present day? This is very much non-obvious, at least to me.
- tootie 4y ago
  That's being very literal. Jim Crow lasted until 1965. Loving v Virginia was 1967. Gay marriage was made legal in 2015. The 80s wasn't necessarily a watershed but it was a generation raised knowing that a civil rights battle could be won.
rayiner 4y ago
The idea that there is an “anti-progress faction” is a self-serving delusion. What you have is different people with differing views of what “progress” looks like. For example as to “feminism”—in 2022 nearly all women agree it’s a good idea women can have bank accounts. But Roe remains deeply divisive and most women reject the full scope of those “rights” (specifically the right to abort in the second trimester). Half of women with children at home would prefer to be homemakers, and many resent the social and economic pressures for mothers to work. Same thing for “civil rights” or fighting “racism.” Does that mean Black and brown people being able to order food at any restaurant? Virtually nobody disagrees with that. Does that mean Black and Hispanic people getting racial preferences in college admissions or employment? Most Black and Hispanic people themselves reject that. As one of the oft-discussed “Black and brown” people, I would say much of what passes for “fighting racism” today is more like this: https://contexts.org/blog/who-gets-to-define-whats-racist/ https://contexts.org/blog/who-gets-to-define-whats-racist/ (“Rather than actually dismantling white supremacy or meaningfully empowering people of color, efforts often seem to be oriented towards consolidating social and cultural capital in the hands of the ‘good’ whites.”). Don’t forget that there were lots of ideas advanced in the name of “progress” that turned out to be ideological dead ends. 60 years after “free love,” we have massively retrenched, pushing sexuality out of more and more contexts. I don’t see Malcom X-style racial separatism being the way forward in a multi-ethnic society. “Same sex marriage” was actually a moderate reaction in it’s time—a response to those who wanted to use gay rights as a vehicle for a larger change in norms around marriage and gender. Finally, we don’t know the ultimate effect of these changes. I can’t help observing that the countries that initiated major shifts in views towards marriage and sexuality in the last 50 years have become dependent for their continued population stability on immigration from countries that have traditional views on marriage and sexuality.
twofornone 4y ago
>The anti-progress faction is still very very powerful. Plenty of unequivocal sexists and racists face no punishment. If I dared to push back on diversity and inclusion mandates in my workplace I'd lose my job. That includes explicitly racist talk about not hiring any more white guys. These "anti-progress" sentiments may exist but effectively in a parallel society, relegated mostly to blue collar work. It's dishonest to pretend that this ideology hasn't effectively taken over nearly all of our major institutions, and this slimy sort of denial is partly how it happened. And these topics are not nearly as black and white as culture warriors make them out to be, but God forbid if you express the wrong opinion or even ask the wrong question. Progress is great but sometimes you need to stop and listen to the people warning you that you're about to progress right off a cliff.
- tootie 4y ago
  For one that's a sample bias of HN being primarily affluent coastal elites. Half the country voted for the anti-progress candidate. Second, I do not at all believe that you'd be fired for a reasonable objection to diversity policy. Saying "I don't want diversity at all" might.
  - rendall 4y ago
    > I do not at all believe that you'd be fired for a reasonable objection to diversity policy. That's not an argument. Not even really a reasonable belief. It happens to people on the regular. Let me introduce you to Jodie Shaw. https://dangerousintersection.org/2021/02/20/jodi-shaw-resigns-from-smith-college-after-smith-college-fails-to-buy-her-silence/ https://dangerousintersection.org/2021/02/20/jodi-shaw-resig...
    - tootie 4y ago
      She quit, she wasn't fired. And it was at least partly over incidents she wasn't even party too. Apparently she was upset that a supervisor suggested she not rap. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jodi-shaw-smith-college-bari-weiss-rapping-librarian-1132010/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jodi-shaw-...

deleted 4y ago

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