Tolerance vs intolerance - where is the middle ground?

[midniterider]

25 minutes ago, Burnedout said:

When does a reaction become hypersensitivity, making a mountain out of a molehill?  There is no evidence that any actual real actions have happened out of what opinion is discussed on here.  This almost sounds like the very old argument that violent music causes physical violence from teenagers or later, violent video games.  

 

The things we discuss mostly just impacts our sense of self-importance.

 

 

[midniterider]

9 minutes ago, Burnedout said:

 

And who is ultimately responsible for that?  Can someone else force you to feel happy, sad, angry?  NO....only YOU.  How you respond is completely up to you.  There are only two things you HAVE to do in life; 1) live and 2) die.  

 

Exactly.

[Joshpantera]

10 hours ago, wellnamed said:

 

I already answered your question about why I think it matters and what I think should be done. I understand your reasons for not responding to what I wrote, but I don't think it's useful to act as if I didn't already give you an answer. In any case, while I understand the rationale behind the rule against public discussion of moderation, my opinion is that this issue has been festering on this site for literally years (it was a problem the first time I was here in 2015) and absent public discussion I doubt it will ever really be addressed. But at the very least I would encourage you to consider what I actually wrote privately, if not publicly.

 

Again, the rules are the rules and I'll be treating them as such. 

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

Disclaimer, this post is about the above conversation regarding Skip's Roosh V thread, NOT his actions as a mod. 

 

Right, I'll be careful how I tread here. I was just reading the last two pages, primarily of the exchange between @Joshpantera and @wellnamed (WN) regarding Skips agreement or or lack thereof of the posted links of Roosh V. It occurs to me that if we are to post links in discussion we may well be advised to nuance our thoughts about them. Like WN I thought from what Skip was saying that he was in large agreement with Roosh, and even on the first link posted, that gave me grave concerns (As I expressed in that thread) that someone might actually agree with them. Now Skip did say one might find nuggets in Roosh's writing, but one had to look damn hard and endure bleeding eyeballs. (I didn't find anything I liked at all)

 

So coming back to this exchange in this thread aforementioned, it doesn't surprise me that WN considers, rightly or wrongly, that Skip largely agrees with Roosh. My point here is if we are going to post articles, if we don't want members to assume we agree with them, (Or we do want them too) it might pay to clearly state such. I do note BO will at times post something and say "Not saying I agree or disagree" which is pretty handy as a guide to his thoughts on a subject. If we post material and our OP statement gives the strong appearance of agreeing with the material contained while warning others that they may disagree then it is fair to assume we do agree with said material. In fact as WN pointed out Skip does seem to largely agree at least with "Much of Roosh's printed material".

 

Now as to whether or not we should allow Skip to share these views, and this leads back to my OP, I have already made it abundantly clear in this thread that I support the right of anyone to share whatever view they have short of inciting violence. You might share your views that women should be XX and men should be XY and that's fine, but should you start stating that you think this should be enforced... well that's the line crossed. I do agree with Truescotsman et al that such views, should they gain traction, would actually be capable of causing real harm. However I still fall on the side of fight opinions you disagree with, with opinions of your own, rather than attempt to silence them.

 

[Miriam]

Hi there... not taking part in the argument happening, but responding to the theme of the original post there is an excellent book on this subject called "The Intolerance of Tolerance" by D A Carson - apologies if it has been mentioned elsewhere, I'm new. D A Carson is a Christian, but it can be read by anyone, he backs up his points with logic and current affairs, not bible passages.  Not a ranting preaching book, just a thoughtful book, worth a read. 

 

Miriam

[LogicalFallacy]

This has suddenly become a hot topic in NZ in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings.

 

There has been renewed talk of shutting down hate speech and extremist views. I think as a society we need to tread firmly but cautiously. I do think certain forms of speech should not be tolerated, but we must be careful to then silence genuine criticisms of an ideology or idea. Hopefully we can manage the right balance.

[Geezer]

12 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

This has suddenly become a hot topic in NZ in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings.

 

There has been renewed talk of shutting down hate speech and extremist views. I think as a society we need to tread firmly but cautiously. I do think certain forms of speech should not be tolerated, but we must be careful to then silence genuine criticisms of an ideology or idea. Hopefully we can manage the right balance.

 

The inherent problem with censorship is that it tends to grow and expand. We have seen that here in the U.S. with “political correctness”. An actual social judicial/punishment segment has been created. Say the wrong thing and a person’s life can be literally destroyed. Its out of control now because it has evolved into a form of mob rule and there doesn’t seem to be a way to control it, much less end it. 

[ag_NO_stic]

12 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

This has suddenly become a hot topic in NZ in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings.

 

There has been renewed talk of shutting down hate speech and extremist views. I think as a society we need to tread firmly but cautiously. I do think certain forms of speech should not be tolerated, but we must be careful to then silence genuine criticisms of an ideology or idea. Hopefully we can manage the right balance.

 

I think Trump won in the US because we have patently NOT found the right balance. Enough people (all political flavors) appear to be hell bent on finding things to be offended about, without the facts to back it up, and it's resulting in more and more people becoming embittered (again, all political flavors). I am honestly an example of that. I have found my perspective harden, as opposed to soften, in response to America's political climate. Until the far left AND far right decide to stop being assholes and responding to "trigger words" instead of listening to people's words for their actual content and point, it's not going to get better. 

[wellnamed]

Polarization has definitely gotten more extreme in the US. I've noticed the change a lot in at least one of the left-leaning places I hang out. People have gotten a lot more bitter and definitely radicalized some in their attitudes towards the people they disagree with. The stakes feel much higher to people (and perhaps that isn't even entirely incorrect). My impression is that right-leaning places have also seen a lot of radicalization but I haven't had the opportunity to observe it as directly. I do know that the #TrumpFan internet forums I visit are pretty alarming as far as the kind of rhetoric I see towards liberals, and I don't think it was always that way. My impression is that the level of hate (for lack of a better term) is dramatically higher in the right-wing forums I visit than the left-wing forums, but the left has caught up a bit

 

I don't really see how this changes in the near future, but I definitely worry about some negative consequences coming from so much anger.

[ag_NO_stic]

19 minutes ago, wellnamed said:

Polarization has definitely gotten more extreme in the US. I've noticed the change a lot in at least one of the left-leaning places I hang out. People have gotten a lot more bitter and definitely radicalized some in their attitudes towards the people they disagree with. The stakes feel much higher to people (and perhaps that isn't even entirely incorrect). My impression is that right-leaning places have also seen a lot of radicalization but I haven't had the opportunity to observe it as directly. I do know that the #TrumpFan internet forums I visit are pretty alarming as far as the kind of rhetoric I see towards liberals, and I don't think it was always that way. My impression is that the level of hate (for lack of a better term) is dramatically higher in the right-wing forums I visit than the left-wing forums, but the left has caught up a bit

 

I don't really see how this changes in the near future, but I definitely worry about some negative consequences coming from so much anger.

 

I will never condone destructive action or behavior based on the anger, but I do believe the anger is justified to some degree. I think you underestimate how often those on the left act like complete assholes. Which is fair, because I believe those on the right overlook how they act like complete assholes. It's a nasty little cycle.

 

The source of my anger is that many on the left, though not all to be fair, draw on debatable assumptions as fact and any disagreement with those presuppositions = racism, sexism, or some other ism or phobia. It's fucking exhausting and annoying as fuck and it definitely embitters and disenfranchises people who are NOT racist, sexist, or any other kind of ist or phobic lol. 

[disillusioned]

4 hours ago, ag_NO_stic said:

 

The source of my anger is that many on the left, though not all to be fair, draw on debatable assumptions as fact and any disagreement with those presuppositions = racism, sexism, or some other ism or phobia. It's fucking exhausting and annoying as fuck and it definitely embitters and disenfranchises people who are NOT racist, sexist, or any other kind of ist or phobic lol. 

 

All assumptions are debateable. Otherwise, they wouldn't be assumptions.

 

You're right,  there are lots of people who react negatively to people challenging their assumptions. This is not unique to the left or the right,  though. I think this is often a symptom of insecurity. But I also think that much of politics isn't actually about objective fact (whatever that might mean). At the end of the day, it's about what we want. So obviously people get upset when they're told that what they want is wrong. And sometimes they lash out.

 

If you scratch a person hard enough,  most of the time, you'll find a selfish asshole.

[ag_NO_stic]

16 hours ago, disillusioned said:

 

All assumptions are debateable. Otherwise, they wouldn't be assumptions.

 

You're right,  there are lots of people who react negatively to people challenging their assumptions. This is not unique to the left or the right,  though. I think this is often a symptom of insecurity. But I also think that much of politics isn't actually about objective fact (whatever that might mean). At the end of the day, it's about what we want. So obviously people get upset when they're told that what they want is wrong. And sometimes they lash out.

 

If you scratch a person hard enough,  most of the time, you'll find a selfish asshole.

 

Excellent points, of course. All assumptions are certainly debatable, but they aren't all necessarily equal in merit which makes comments like yours, while true, not necessarily the most pragmatically productive. Of course, the subjectivity of "merit" is its own rabbit trail, hopefully you'll see I acknowledge it so we don't have to go down that path lol. :D You and I both surely understand this having left our faith and having challenged our assumptions harshly and in personally jarring ways. Everyone has a right to their assumptions, of course this is true, our assumptions are learned and "proved" through confirmation bias. That does not mean all are grounded in reality. For a Christian to respond to someone challenging their assumption with "Everyone has them" is true, but not really addressing the challenged assumption. I could respond to that Christian with "You're right, but you should still challenge yours as everyone should. I used to have similar presumptions like you and I understand, I challenged those same ones and ended up here." We both understand that Christians think they understand us and our beliefs based on their assumptions. It is not lost on me that you might think I'm doing the same, I could also say you're doing the same to me, or at least people who presume the same things as I do. Because my assumptions are not yours and vice versa. Do you believe that we should could continue to entertain Christian presumption as "correct" and a legitimate possibility or is safe to reject a certain ideology after examining it? I believe you're correct in general about challenged assumptions and defensiveness, it just doesn't feel so personally applicable. I can't speak for the left or right here so much as myself. Because I was raised conservative before I left my faith, I'll acknowledge I could be blind to a lot. But.... I also took a HUGE step back away from my political viewpoint and challenged the hell out of my conservative bias around the same time that I left my faith. I was questioning everything and almost seeking refuge in leftist thought because surely conservatives were wrong about everything too. I never really returned to "the right,"I pick and choose issues I agree with like any moderate, but I allowed myself to make emotion and the feelings of others a priority, allowing certain life facts to fall by the wayside, for a little too long in my opinion. Now I think everyone is probably right and wrong (refrained from making a left joke there :P) and likely crazy. :P An article webmdave shared the other day on correlations between social justice "activists/warriors" and evangelicals, called "The Righteous and the Woke" really resonated with me. It was honestly a very well expressed read for what I have been trying to say for awhile.

 

I think now's a good time to say that I have begun noticing that I have misrepresented myself and not communicated clearly enough when I critique "the left," I clearly have been conflating the extreme radical left with the generic, moderate left which is a huge mistake. I think the left is doing that to the right as well with all the nationalism and "club 45" crap by running with all these assumptions, but that doesn't mean I should do the same, so again I refer to a nasty cycle.  I must say I disagree with you that the anger, at least mine, is due largely to challenged assumptions. I think the anger is all across the board  and largely due to  everyone misunderstanding each other and not trying to learn. Since you didn't mention other reasons, that's how I understood your meaning anyway. 

"Scratching a person hard enough," I understand you're just using a saying, but I don't think it's even remotely true. If the scratching is welcome, maybe it's kinky and not assholery. If the scratching is not welcome, responding to the aforementioned hypothetical person for being like "stop fucking scratching me" is not unwarranted. I have this feeling like you're going to mention that "oppression" is like "scratching" and now we're just dealing with the "stop fucking scratching" to which I would reply, "it's all in how things are perceived" lol.

 

I really do love challenging my assumptions in my conversations with you, always refreshing.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

I think the root problem we have in America is that our outmoded 2-party system facilitates extremism on both ends of the spectrum, without allowing for genuine moderatism.

[wellnamed]

Duverger's Law is interesting (n.b. the author of that essay has his own perspective, but I just think the description of why we have a two-party system is useful).

 

This is one reason I am intrigued by the idea of moving to different voting systems, whether Instant Runoff or proportional representation or something else. Especially as polarization increases it seems like it might work a little better.

[disillusioned]

5 hours ago, ag_NO_stic said:

 

Excellent points, of course. All assumptions are certainly debatable, but they aren't all necessarily equal in merit which makes comments like yours, while true, not necessarily the most pragmatically productive. Of course, the subjectivity of "merit" is its own rabbit trail, hopefully you'll see I acknowledge it so we don't have to go down that path lol. You and I both surely understand this having left our faith and having challenged our assumptions harshly and in personally jarring ways. Everyone has a right to their assumptions, of course this is true, our assumptions are learned and "proved" through confirmation bias. That does not mean all are grounded in reality. For a Christian to respond to someone challenging their assumption with "Everyone has them" is true, but not really addressing the challenged assumption. I could respond to that Christian with "You're right, but you should still challenge yours as everyone should. I used to have similar presumptions like you and I understand, I challenged those same ones and ended up here." We both understand that Christians think they understand us and our beliefs based on their assumptions. It is not lost on me that you might think I'm doing the same, I could also say you're doing the same to me, or at least people who presume the same things as I do. Because my assumptions are not yours and vice versa. Do you believe that we should could continue to entertain Christian presumption as "correct" and a legitimate possibility or is safe to reject a certain ideology after examining it?

 

Absolutely not. As you said, not all assumptions are equally useful, and some are actively destructive. Christianity leads to myriad contradictions, which entails that either its specific assumptions are not consistent with each other, or that they are not consistent with other assumptions that we all tend to make (about rationality, the natural world, etc). I tend to think it's both.

 

5 hours ago, ag_NO_stic said:

 

I believe you're correct in general about challenged assumptions and defensiveness, it just doesn't feel so personally applicable. I can't speak for the left or right here so much as myself. Because I was raised conservative before I left my faith, I'll acknowledge I could be blind to a lot. But.... I also took a HUGE step back away from my political viewpoint and challenged the hell out of my conservative bias around the same time that I left my faith. I was questioning everything and almost seeking refuge in leftist thought because surely conservatives were wrong about everything too. I never really returned to "the right,"I pick and choose issues I agree with like any moderate, but I allowed myself to make emotion and the feelings of others a priority, allowing certain life facts to fall by the wayside, for a little too long in my opinion. Now I think everyone is probably right and wrong (refrained from making a left joke there :P) and likely crazy. An article webmdave shared the other day on correlations between social justice "activists/warriors" and evangelicals, called "The Righteous and the Woke" really resonated with me. It was honestly a very well expressed read for what I have been trying to say for awhile.

 

I also read that article, and generally liked it. I don't have a lot to quibble with here. I wasn't trying to suggest that you personally are particularly likely to become defensive if your assumptions are challenged. What I was commenting on was the reaction you identified annoying that you find comes from some on the left; ie, "you don't agree with me, therefore Xism!!!". I was trying to explain why these people react this way. I think it's a mixture of insecurity and the fact that politics isn't about what's write, it's about what we want. And we want what we want, goddammit!!

 

5 hours ago, ag_NO_stic said:

 

I think now's a good time to say that I have begun noticing that I have misrepresented myself and not communicated clearly enough when I critique "the left," I clearly have been conflating the extreme radical left with the generic, moderate left which is a huge mistake. I think the left is doing that to the right as well with all the nationalism and "club 45" crap by running with all these assumptions, but that doesn't mean I should do the same, so again I refer to a nasty cycle.  I must say I disagree with you that the anger, at least mine, is due largely to challenged assumptions. I think the anger is all across the board  and largely due to  everyone misunderstanding each other and not trying to learn. Since you didn't mention other reasons, that's how I understood your meaning anyway. 

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I think your anger is due to this. As explained above, I was trying to explain the kind of overreaction that you sometimes get from more extreme lefties. Sorry about that. I also agree with what you're saying here about the cycle that gets born from this kind of thing. Sometimes the initial anger is due to misunderstanding, but I don't think this is always the case. Sometimes it's due to understanding, and disagreeing.

 

5 hours ago, ag_NO_stic said:

"Scratching a person hard enough," I understand you're just using a saying, but I don't think it's even remotely true. If the scratching is welcome, maybe it's kinky and not assholery. If the scratching is not welcome, responding to the aforementioned hypothetical person for being like "stop fucking scratching me" is not unwarranted. I have this feeling like you're going to mention that "oppression" is like "scratching" and now we're just dealing with the "stop fucking scratching" to which I would reply, "it's all in how things are perceived" lol.

 

The operative word in my statement "If you scratch a person hard enough,  most of the time, you'll find a selfish asshole" is enough. I included the qualification "most of the time" because I can only really speak for myself. In general, I like to be scratched. Quite a bit actually. But there's a line. The line doesn't get crossed too often (I think), but when it does, you'll find that I'm a selfish asshole. Now, maybe not all people are like this, but I have my doubts.

 

5 hours ago, ag_NO_stic said:

I really do love challenging my assumptions in my conversations with you, always refreshing.

 

Agree with this entirely  .

[Joshpantera]

On 3/18/2019 at 9:08 PM, LogicalFallacy said:

This has suddenly become a hot topic in NZ in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings.

 

There has been renewed talk of shutting down hate speech and extremist views. I think as a society we need to tread firmly but cautiously. I do think certain forms of speech should not be tolerated, but we must be careful to then silence genuine criticisms of an ideology or idea. Hopefully we can manage the right balance.

 

Basically, because of some random nutter the majority of responsible and decent citizens will lose more and more personal freedom. That's just terrific. 

[ag_NO_stic]

17 hours ago, disillusioned said:

The operative word in my statement "If you scratch a person hard enough,  most of the time, you'll find a selfish asshole" is enough. I included the qualification "most of the time" because I can only really speak for myself. In general, I like to be scratched. Quite a bit actually. But there's a line. The line doesn't get crossed too often (I think), but when it does, you'll find that I'm a selfish asshole. Now, maybe not all people are like this, but I have my doubts.

 

Are you talking about intellectual scratching? I was referring to the physical act of scratching. I was saying scratch a person hard enough, they're not an asshole to say "stop" or eventually self defense.  I was making a play on your words

[disillusioned]

On 3/21/2019 at 10:18 AM, ag_NO_stic said:

 

Are you talking about intellectual scratching? I was referring to the physical act of scratching. I was saying scratch a person hard enough, they're not an asshole to say "stop" or eventually self defense.  I was making a play on your words

 

I got that. Then I tried to carry it over into a relevant point about intellectual scratching. More fool me. WN's point about writing vs communicating seems relevant again.