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Great, cohesive, and clear essay! Hear hear. One thing that I think is underappreciated in our current times, that gets lost on both the left and the right sid
by ethbr1 2y ago
Great, cohesive, and clear essay! Hear hear.
One thing that I think is underappreciated in our current times, that gets lost on both the left and the right sides -- an individual is more important than their identity.
- A specific trans person can also be an asshole.
- A specific white man can also be a saint.
Extremists on both political sides will scream about the reasons one or the other of those statements is wrong, but doing so lumps all possible individuals of an identity into a "them" category to which blanket statements, positive or negative, can be applied.
That reductionism feels incredibly insulting to our shared, innate humanity.
Are there all kinds of subconscious and societal biases that seriously influence our perceptions of others on the basis of their identity? Sure!
But it doesn't change the goal of treating the person standing in front of you, first and foremost and always, as an individual person.
Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you.
(And maybe, if you feel so inclined, have some compassion about what they did to get to that table)
- gedpeck 2y agoBe curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you. In general I wholeheartedly agree. But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree.
- ethbr1 2y agoFair, but in our current times using someone's identity as a justification to act like an asshole to them is a sith's whisper. We all have our less enlightened moments. Better we not afford ourselves easy intellectual justifications for being our worst selves. As the quip goes: the greatest evils are perpetrated by those most assured of their own righteousness. Edit: Or in video form. Beginning summary: "brick suit guy" was apparently an extremely aggressive heckler of the media at Trump rallies. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fRSIv7alUZ8&t=95s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fRSIv7alUZ8&t=95s
- gedpeck 2y agoIn normal times I would agree with you. At present in the U.S. I’d not agree with this sentiment. People who support electing a known racist, thief, con man, and felon are deserving of ridicule and ire. They don’t deserve respect in my opinion. When the politics of a nation shift so far in one direction we get into a situation where supporters of that shift don’t deserve respect. Stalinist Soviet Union is an extreme example of this.
- ethbr1 2y agoSo what lengths do you think you're justified going to against individuals you disagree with? And how do you feel about them feeling the same about you? Mutual righteous hostility is why ethnic and religious wars simmer forever, because there's always a convenient justification for acting violently towards others (and them towards you).
- gedpeck 2y ago… justified going to against individuals you disagree with? I don’t do anything at this time. But I understand why there are those who do have vitriol for supporters of a rapist who lusts after his own daughter. There are times when a nation’s society fractures as the social cohesion evaporates. We are beginning to be in such a time in the U.S. Well, it appears that way to me. Only time will tell.
- itsoktocry 2y ago[flagged]
- gedpeck 2y agoThe one who rapes and lusts after his daughter is the one who has issues. Well, him and the people who support him. Never thought I’d live to see Republicans, the so called party of family values, support such an asshole. You should get some ethics and apply them consistently.
- mecsred 2y agoThen you don't agree at all. Every single adult in the world has "done or advocated for things that cause harm". It's inescapable.
- gedpeck 2y agoGreat harm then? I’m not morally obligated to to treat Putin with respect. Most people agree that there are people who are so reprehensible that they don’t deserve respect.
- haswell 2y agoThere are obvious bad/evil actors in the world. When people talk about engaging with other humans respectfully, they're generally not referring to the Putins of the world. And it's pretty rare to have so much clarity about a person to know they're in the "obviously reprehensible" bucket. I'm not saying this is what you're doing, but I often see people argue like this: 1. There are obviously bad actors in the world 2. Nobody would argue those bad actors should be given respect 3. So I won't respect people I come across who disagree with me The fallacy is in the jump from 2 to 3, and the assumption that the existence of bad actors means the person I'm interacting with right now is one of them. The vast majority of people aren't Putin, nor can they be judged so quickly/clearly. And setting aside whether or not someone like that deserves respect, there's also a clear difference between respecting someone for who they are vs. behaving in a respectful manner out of self-preservation. The latter may ultimately keep you alive.
- gedpeck 2y agoHerein lies the crux of the matter in my view. The jump from 2 to 3. When Bob Dole ran for President I wholeheartedly agreed with the position about being respectful to those you disagree with. Politics was still normal in the U.S. at that time. But now we in the U.S. elected a known rapist. A felon and a con man. He can’t run a charity in New York due to his misdeeds. He lusts after his own daughter. We have entered into an era where supporters of one party’s President deserve the assumption of being terrible people. Now obviously there are many people who disagree with the above. But this is how I see things and I act accordingly. The call for civility comes from those who hold terrible beliefs. We are well into the Paradox of Tolerance situation in the U.S.
- hnthrowaway6543 2y ago> But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree. the current conflict in the middle east shows why this doesn't work in the long run. despite what a generation that grew up consuming Marvel films was led to believe, not every conflict is a clearly defined superhero-vs-supervillain, good-vs-evil affair. eventually, you will be the one who, according to some, is advocating for things that cause harm and is considered a horrible person.
- gedpeck 2y agoMost definitely. Each person decides for themselves where the lines are drawn.
- beardedwizard 2y agoVery underrated comment. Right and wrong are largely a function of culture, not universal law.
- gopher_space 2y ago> Right and wrong are largely a function of culture, not universal law. Sure, but then you're handwaving away questions about why cultures align along similar axioms.
- hnthrowaway6543 2y ago[flagged]
- gedpeck 2y agoaccording to gedpeck, nearly everyone in Africa and Asia, and every single practicing Muslim, is a horrible person... I said no such thing.
- hnthrowaway6543 2y ago
- Suppafly 2y ago>In general I wholeheartedly agree. But if the person in front of you has done or advocated for things that cause harm or is themself a horrible person then I disagree. I feel like the parent comment is pretending to be deep and meaningful but is really just rehashing the 'both sides are the same' argument with a side of 'everyone is entitled to their own opinion'. It's nice to say that we should judge everyone for who they are, but if who they are is a vocal member of a group that wants to hurt other people, that's all we need to know to judge them. Pretending otherwise is silly.
- ethbr1 2y agoThe difference is between judging an individual for what they themselves say vs what identities you associate with them (or even those they associate with themselves).
- Suppafly 2y ago>or even those they associate with themselves I see no problem judging someone for the identities that they choose to associate themselves with.
- ethbr1 2y agoOver and above their works and words?
- Suppafly 2y agoTheir associations are their works and words. You can't just handwave that stuff away as being irrelevant because you like the parts of their works and words that don't touch on anything you deem to be an association.
- ethbr1 2y agoI know people of the political party I tend to disagree with who are saints and dedicate the majority of their time to others. I know people of the political party I tend to agree with who are insufferable selfish pricks and treat others terribly. Works and words aren't always associations.
- CivBase 2y agoWhat constitutes "harm"? Is hurting someone's feelings harm? Is misinformation harm? How do you determine intention? To what extent does intention matter? How do circumstances impact the answers to these questions? When your creed is basically "I only hate bad people", you have given yourself permission to hate anyone and feel righteously justified about it. And you'll never feel the need to empathize because bad people always deserve whatever bad things happen to them. You don't need to love everyone unconditionally, but clearly more neuance is needed.
- gedpeck 2y agoWhat constitutes "harm"? Is hurting someone's feelings harm? Is misinformation harm? How do you determine intention? To what extent does intention matter? How do circumstances impact the answers to these questions? I know the answers to these questions…for me. Each person decides for themselves where the lines are drawn. It has always been this way.
- yibg 2y agoMy challenge is I can’t even tell if me and someone else are seeing the same facts. Take trump for example. Policies etc I may disagree on but I can see why someone else would support them. As a person, looking at everything he says and does I can only conclude that he’s a narcissist that only cares about himself. But then there are a lot of trump supporters that are convinced he cares about them and the country. What am I missing that we can come to such dramatically different conclusions?
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoI'm so tired of hearing "both sides" though.
- layer8 2y agoFocusing on the individual means dropping the notion of “sides”. Identifying people (or even arguments) by their alleged “side”, instead of taking them on their own merit, is where things go wrong.
- watwut 2y agoWhere things go wrong is that the "extremists on both sides" is used to distract from what people on one side do. It is just a shield designed to prevent analysis.
- ethbr1 2y agoIt's not, because there's a difference between 'extremist individuals in a side' and 'a side as monolith.' It is currently en vogue to use the excesses of specific instances or individuals to tar entire identities, but that's statistically dishonest. Most people are not extremists, in the sense of 'if you talk to them at 1:13pm on a random Tuesday.'
- watwut 2y agoThere is actual political program and actual laws being pushed on. That is the reality. And yes, that political program belongs to that side. It is OK to blame republicans as such for what Trump or JD Vance does, because they made them big. It is ok to blame them for the for the supreme court politics too, because they knowingly put exactly those people there, knowing they will remove protection for abortion and lied about it. It is OK to blame democrats for what Biden does. For the both sides thing however, you need to attribute acts of people who Democratic party actively pushes away to that party ... and to pretend that people voting for republicans have zero to do with what that party does.
- timeon 2y ago> gets lost on both the left and the right sides It gets lost because of this black/white US perspective on politics. If you were multiparty system there will be less identities in politics.
- ethbr1 2y agoAlso, diffusing the bully pulpit and celebrity between a president, prime minister, and/or ceremonial royalty. Policy > popularity.
- gyomu 2y ago> If you were multiparty system there will be less identities in politics. If only it were that easy. I come from a country that is notorious for having political parties dissolve/new ones forming all the time, and politics are still all about identities and people still treat issues with a very black-or-white perspective. As many have made the point before, I think this kind of discourse/attitude is more due to the social media echo chambers environment we now evolve in, and that modern societies can't escape it.
- ethbr1 2y agoIndia? If so (or otherwise), what do you think a fix would be? I went down a rabbit hole of Indian parliamentary party history and was fascinated at the level of machination over the decades.
- Wolfenstein98k 2y agoNo, that just means the identities split into smaller groups that constantly fight for power within larger coalitions. Instead of Red vs Blue you get racial groupings and all sorts of subdivisions. Lebanon is a good example of what happens when you try to enshrine smaller subdivisions than A vs B.
- zug_zug 2y agoGood thought. The only change I'd make, to make your neutrality explicit, is to say - A specific trans person can be an an asshole. A specific trans person can be a saint. - A specific white man can be an asshole. A specific white man can be a saint.
- hartator 2y agoYes, the also implies that there is a default.
- Glyptodon 2y agoI call it the "could I share this with my grandmother" test. I don't like things that are supposed to have a point or make a good argument but fail the grandmother test.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nearbuy 2y ago> Be curious. Be courteous and respectful. Be a normal, nice goddamn human to human across the table from you. The unintuitive thing is that both this article and pg's essay are both advocating this! They're each complaining about another group being mean. Paul Graham's essay doesn't mention anything about LGBT people or issues. It doesn't really say what specific events he may have in mind, but it complains that woke people are being intolerant, sometimes bullying or ostracizing people for their beliefs, and trying to enforce allegiance to their side over honesty. The author of this essay is reading between the lines and assuming pg is a bigot who might discriminate against a trans person. They say actions like pg's are "mean", "unkind", and "malicious". I think a lot of this has to do with people being polarized and viewing every political statement in terms of which team it supports: if someone says something against your team, that means they must be on the other team, and are therefore evil. But regardless of the reasons, these uncharitable assumptions (on both sides) cause way too much conflict between people with similar core values. I don't think either author would discriminate against anyone based on their sexuality or gender. One can disagree with pg's criticisms without calling him a bigot.