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"Don't speak ill of the dead"? How about "Don't be a bad person when you're alive"?

by RIMR 7mo ago

bovermyer 7mo ago
Something I was brought up to believe was that you shouldn't speak ill of the recently deceased. A courtesy to those in mourning. I struggle with that rule sometimes.
- lern_too_spel 7mo ago
  And Chuck Norris was brought up to believe that gay people are the devil. I was conditioned to not take my parents traditions as gospel. The taboo against speaking ill of the recently deceased is not universal as we saw after Khamenei's death, and it is possible to debate whether we should discuss the failings of the recently deceased dispassionately, as newspaper obituaries usually do, and whether the impact on society of those critiques is net negative or not. There is the famous case of a premature unflattering obituary of Alfred Nobel upon the death of his brother possibly inspiring Nobel to think about his legacy, for example. All this to say that I don't think it's necessarily problematic for you to mention that he had and shared some pretty awful views.
claytongulick 7mo ago
Great advice. Do you follow it? Is there one way to be a good person? Does being a good person also mean agreeing with your politics?
- ahhhhnoooo 7mo ago
  There are good people whose politics I disagree with. If you are using your celebrity status to cause harm to millions on the international stage, systematically attempting to strip their rights, I think it's fair to say they weren't a good person.
- kelnos 7mo ago
  > Does being a good person also mean agreeing with your politics? Can we stop framing human rights as "politics"? People hating on others because they don't like that they're gay or trans or black or brown... that's just people being fundamentally awful people, and has nothing to do with politics. The fact that they are then taking their awfulness and engaging politically to enshrine their awful views into law just adds another dimension to it. I said this in another comment: if these people with awful views would stop trying to make those awful views laws, then I'd have much less of a problem with them; I could at least just ignore them. > Is there one way to be a good person? What a useless, one-dimensional take on the problem.

"Don't speak ill of the dead"? How about "Don't be a bad person when you're alive"?

by RIMR 7mo ago

"Don't speak ill of the dead"? How about "Don't be a bad person when you're alive"?

Something I was brought up to believe was that you shouldn't speak ill of the recently deceased. A courtesy to those in mourning. I struggle with that rule sometimes.

lern_too_spel 7mo ago
And Chuck Norris was brought up to believe that gay people are the devil. I was conditioned to not take my parents traditions as gospel. The taboo against speaking ill of the recently deceased is not universal as we saw after Khamenei's death, and it is possible to debate whether we should discuss the failings of the recently deceased dispassionately, as newspaper obituaries usually do, and whether the impact on society of those critiques is net negative or not. There is the famous case of a premature unflattering obituary of Alfred Nobel upon the death of his brother possibly inspiring Nobel to think about his legacy, for example. All this to say that I don't think it's necessarily problematic for you to mention that he had and shared some pretty awful views.

claytongulick 7mo ago

Great advice. Do you follow it? Is there one way to be a good person? Does being a good person also mean agreeing with your politics?

ahhhhnoooo 7mo ago
There are good people whose politics I disagree with. If you are using your celebrity status to cause harm to millions on the international stage, systematically attempting to strip their rights, I think it's fair to say they weren't a good person.
kelnos 7mo ago
> Does being a good person also mean agreeing with your politics? Can we stop framing human rights as "politics"? People hating on others because they don't like that they're gay or trans or black or brown... that's just people being fundamentally awful people, and has nothing to do with politics. The fact that they are then taking their awfulness and engaging politically to enshrine their awful views into law just adds another dimension to it. I said this in another comment: if these people with awful views would stop trying to make those awful views laws, then I'd have much less of a problem with them; I could at least just ignore them. > Is there one way to be a good person? What a useless, one-dimensional take on the problem.