intolerance of intolerance. Is it going anywhere and where will it lead us.

[Steerpike]

I'm beginning to really dislike the term hatred. It seems to be the default term thrown out by those who can't justify their ideology. I equally grow increasingly weary of the use of phobias to belittle those who oppose the agendas of one side or the other. This is a great example of intolerance, sense it is used against the person and not the issue. To me it is a sign of weakness. It merely tries to shove other peoples arguements under the rug, instead of dealing with them. The "Your views are invade because you're a hater" stance is an ad hominem attack and pretty much a waste of everyone's time.

You're right.

I think it is intellectual laziness (or ignorance) and ultimately comes down to dehumanizing someone who disagrees to the point of being a caricature, as I noted above. I find that people who do this tend to have limited exposure to diverse range of viewpoints. They surround themselves with people, media, and the like that put forth a viewpoint they already agree with. Insulating oneself is easier than thinking.

 

[Justme]

I really don't think Liberals are more intolerant than conservatives. I think the term Idealistic is closer to the mark. At first the term Idealistic sounds like a positive thing, but consider that ideals are mindsets that need not reflect the real world. They are every bit as real to the idealist as Christianity is to the religious and to refute an ideologues ideals is to assault the fabric that holds their world together.

NOTE: The left has no monopoly on ideologues any more than they have on intellectuals, but ideologues are the fertile ground where springs the most destructive individuals on the planet.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

...ignores your individuality and autonomy as an individual and casts broad characterizations upon you merely on your association with a given group of people. That seems to me to be the very definition of bigotry.

Very well put!

That's what I was talking about when I referred to some of the decision-makers in academic world. I cringe every time I hear someone white and well-off telling me how s/he "understands" my students who are poor and Hispanic. I always want to say, no you don't understand them. You only understand that they're poor and Hispanic!

I realize your point was about the hatemongers on both sides, but I feel that there's another form of bigotry that comes from well-intentioned individuals. It's a sort of class/race-based pity which ignores the individuality of anyone in a given class/race. The danger is that people (with authority) say, "Well... you're students can't handle that. They're... different."

 

[Justme]

I cringe every time I hear someone white and well-off telling me how s/he "understands" my students who are poor and Hispanic.

These people just want to feel good about themselves What is a concern is the what atmousphere has created the need for people to make statements as ridiculous as these.

I realize your point was about the hatemongers on both sides, but I feel that there's another form of bigotry that comes from well-intentioned individuals. It's a sort of class/race-based pity which ignores the individuality of anyone in a given class/race. The danger is that people (with authority) say, "Well... you're students can't handle that. They're... different."

The mindset that somethings are beyond a certain groups grasp seems to me to be a setup for giving that giving that group the idea that they need outside help which usually means help by the very people who made the original statement. It's creating victims instead of empowering them to succeed.

 

[Black Dragon]

Friends,

Please be very careful when discussing this subject. It's all too easy to make blanket generalizations about the motivations of those whom you disagree with.

If this discussion is to continue, I would suggest making a sincere effort to understand the other side, and not to automatically judge the opposing perspective.

Also, please remember our guidelines:

When discussing sensitive topics such as religion and politics, special care must be taken. Such discussions must be conducted in a spirit of mutual respect and genuine inquiry.

Thank you for your cooperation.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I just want to mention there's a difference between being pro-choice and HAVING an abortion. With my first pregnancy, I had a miscarriage at 8 weeks and elected to have a D&C because waiting at home was too horrific to imagine at the time. That being said, I would not choose to abort a child that was healthy and born out of love. BUT, there's loads of women who aren't as lucky as I am. They have children they don't want or give up to foster care because their relationships are abusive, broken, or nonexistent. If history shows us anything, it's that women will practically kill themselves in an attempt to do away with an unwanted pregnancy, and though that fact makes me very sad personally, shouldn't they be allowed to do it in a clinic with proper medical care?

Also, as someone who has worked with disabled children and seen the effects on their parents, I can only say that it is a life some people cannot handle and a large number of those poor children end up in state care. What kind of life is that for them? Most people look upon abortion as a selfish act, but can it not also be considered selfless? How about the children who ARE born with so many problems because their parents could not make the hard choice? Does any six-month old deserve to have multiple brain surgeries only to die weeks later? Is that not the epitome of cruelty? Nature would have most likely terminated the pregnancy anyways, and if not through miscarriage or still-birth (both of which are very hard to deal with first-hand) the child would only live a few days without say, half their brain or missing their spleen or liver or with deformed lungs and heart. Nature itself is cruel and we cannot fix every problem.

@ Sidekick. I'm overjoyed that your situation turned out to be a false call. I feel pretty comfortable making decisions regarding babies now, but with the first, it's always very scary. I'm glad your daughter foiled the doctor, and that you got a second opinion. Some medical professionals are less than professional and tests can be wrong (which is why I rarely do those tests. In fact, with my third, I didn't even get an ultrasound at all. I also deny the glucose tests and genetic testing). Every parent wants to give their child the best start, but unnecessary testing causes a lot more nervousness than it defrays. I've been really lucky, and am thankful for it, but I've known many people who are raising kids with serious problems and it puts a strain on a marriage and a family.


But people are allowed to make their own decisions whether I agree with them or not. Again I refer back to the people who are pro-life, but choose not to vaccinate their children. In making that decision, they are exposing my children to deadly diseases which we used to have herd immunity to. How's that for an injustice? Couldn't that be equated to being pro-disease?

What it all boils down to is that people will disagree on every point. While one can see the good in something, another can see the bad. We live in a gray-scale world people, and every day we are called upon to make difficult decisions.

 

[Jabrosky]

Is this because of the the person or persons they were talking about was black or because what that person or persons were acting like or had done?

The latter, but that doesn't excuse them from resorting to racial slurs. The moment you use a racial slur to describe someone's behavior, you associate that behavior with a certain race, which is fundamentally racist. For example, if you were to call an obnoxious individual who coincidentally happened to be black a "n*****", you would be implicitly linking obnoxious behavior with black people, because "n*****" has been historically used to denote blacks in general.

 

[Chilari]

As Steerpike has pointed out above, it is intellectually lazy and ignorant to demonise or dehumanise individuals or groups whose views you disagree with, and it happens amongst diverse people - whatever political or religious views they hold. The best known examples of this come from religious fundamentalists - those who claim someone will go to hell because they are gay, or had an abortion, or are female and walk around without their hair covered. But equally people can call others "evil" or label them as misogynists, manhaters, murderers or other dehumanising names for engaging in practices they dislike - whether that is attempting to privatise public healthcare, suggesting transwomen should be able to attend women-only events, or, conversely, suggesting transwomen should not be able to attend women-only events, eating meat, conducting experiments on animals, removing children from parents deemed unsuitable by social services, or whatever else might be going on.

Intolerance in all its forms can often be harmful. Often it is borne of ignorance. The way to combat it is through research and understanding of the opposing position - which isn't the same as agreeing with it or conceding that it is equally valid (because some issues are not equally balanced - for example, homeopathy should not be considered medicine because medicine is grounded in science and homeopathy has thus far failed to demonstrate scientific merit - or repeatable, rigourous testing); but it does mean you have to research that position in depth in order to establish its validity, understand the arguments in its favour, and logically come to an unbiased conclusion based on the evidence rather than seeking evidence to justify the position you already hold.

As Steerpike has pointed out, sometimes people prefer to surround themselves with people expressing the same views because it is flattering to believe that you are right and therefore intellectually superior to those who are percieved as wrong, but the tolerant approach, the scientific approach, is to include all data in your analysis, which means listening to every argument from every facet of the debate.

Only by encouraging a culture in which this approach is the accepted and prevalent one will intolerance ultimately be defeated.

 

[Devor]

As Steerpike has pointed out, sometimes people prefer to surround themselves with people expressing the same views because it is flattering to believe that you are right and therefore intellectually superior to those who are percieved as wrong, but the tolerant approach, the scientific approach, is to include all data in your analysis, which means listening to every argument from every facet of the debate.

If you want to grow as a person - and this goes for all of you - pick a political issue and seek out someone who is smart and articulate and disagrees with you, and talk about it fairly - talk about it late into the night, or until you realize that you have no idea what you're talking about, whichever comes first.

 

[Caged Maiden]

@ Devor. Done, and done. HAHA I have a friend who disagrees with me on about everything, and while it's exhausting having a debate for 6 or 7 hours, it gives perspective and also lets off a little steam. Plus it gives my husband and me something to tallk about the next day (and maybe a few inside jokes too).

 

[Jabrosky]

The fact that your own posts here are inherently hateful seems to be lost somehow. It is just this sort of thinking on either side that is at the root of bigotry, in my view. Except for being on the opposite side of the issues, you don't sound much different than a truly bigoted right-winger. Is that supposed to be an enlightened way of looking at the world, simply because you're on the left-wing side of the various issues? I'm sure that's not the intent behind it, but if your argument is the right one, then the intent doesn't matter.

Ophiucha's posts may sound "hateful" to you, because every strong opinion sounds hateful to you, but she's only calling a spade a spade. Seriously, if we were debating the Nazis, you would probably chastise us for calling them antisemitic, genocidal white supremacists and denouncing their war crimes. Grow a spine already!

 

[Caged Maiden]

Who are you defining as Nazis? Hitler? The SS? The German army in WW2? The German people?

 

[Steerpike]

Ophiucha's posts may sound "hateful" to you, because every strong opinion sounds hateful to you, but she's only calling a spade a spade. Seriously, if we were debating the Nazis, you would probably chastise us for calling them antisemitic, genocidal white supremacists and denouncing their war crimes. Grow a spine already!

Thanks for continuing to demonstrate my point for me, Jabrosky.

Now, apparently, you can't even distinguish the difference between holding a strong opinion and behaving like a hateful, bigoted person in expressing it. Why am I not surprised by this? You seem to come unhinged rather quickly at disagreement. My advice to you is to take some time to reflect, particularly before undertaking to fail to express yourself intelligently via the keyboard.

 

[Steerpike]

Who are you defining as Nazis? Hitler? The SS? The German army in WW2? The German people?

Jabroksy doesn't know. He only understands "them," which is to say "not him." With his mentality, if he were born in Germany in 1920s he'd have been one of the guys wearing the brown shirts later. It takes that kind of blind, unthinking outlook on the issues and those who disagree to pull something like that off

EDIT: I mean, is anyone else noticing Jabrosky's NAZI fixation?

 

[Caged Maiden]

I am, and I personally feel more than a little offended by it. I'm a first-generation American, and for me, the "old country" isn't so old. My mother was born in 1959 Germany and we have a very different view than most here probably do. Don't you consider our fellow scribes who are German before you post that word? The German people weren't Nazis, nor were the men drafted into the army, like my grandfather who was sent to fight in Russia when he was 17. My grandmother lived on a small farm near Dortmund and the Americans sent aid to those poor people in the form of food dropped from planes. Her father helped hide Jews in a building in town BTW in case it points to anything other than rampant hatred by a whole nation. I'm so damn tired of hearing about Nazis from people who didn't hear the stories from my grandmother's mouth. How the army would take what they wanted from the poor people and she and her 6 sisters were locked up at night. If you're implying that people unconditionally supported the acts of a few men, you're wrong, and to keep bringing it up is very ignorant.

 

[Steerpike]

Well put, anihow. Really, anyone dragging the Nazis into a debate should be disregarded out of hand (unless the debate has to do specifically with Nazis of course).

Jabrosky probably spends quite a bit of time sweating at the keyboard to provide us with these posts, which makes it all the more unfortunate that what we see from him is the intellectual equivalent of a bunch of Snooki tweets.

 

[Devor]

Steerpike, Jabrosky . . . to the casual observer, it seems like there's a bit of a feud between you two, and that - all rights and wrongs aside for a minute - it should really be dealt with.

 

[Steerpike]

Devor, it seems to me Jabrosky likes to start in on the little personal jabs (which doesn't bother me, so I'm not complaining). It's not my fault that I'm funnier than he is, and that no sooner has he started things than he's getting beat down like a plastic mole poking its head up in an arcade full of speed freaks.

I'd hesitate to go so far as to say it is anything personal when we're dealing with an internet forum. We don't know each other.

 

[Chilari]

Can we stop the personal attacks please? No-one should be accusing anyone else of being a hateful bigot or anything else here. I'm not going to do anything about it right now, mostly because I want to go to bed, but personal attacks have no place in this discussion and if you feel it is going that way please avoid escalating it and address the topics that merit discussion using reasoned debate and not inflammatory language.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I just object to yet another conversation about Nazis as the greatest example of hatred and injustice.

Can we pick on some other people for a bit? How about the Vikings? They raided foreign lands and pillaged for much of history (far longer than the Nazis persecuted Jews). In fact, the Slavs got their name from the Vikings, who thought they were the perfect people to take as their slaves. Let's take a few jabs at the Norse people as a whole for that one. Maybe we can bring their religion into it, calling them nothing more than a compilation of heathen poems. I just can't hear any more about how people treat dark-skinned people, and I say we focus in on offending a smaller percentage of the world for a bit.

How is it on a WRITING forum we are constantly delving into political debate and hate-mongering? We're supposed to be creating fantasy, not delving into our own sordid history in an attempt to draw dividing lines between us. Let's work on building something beautiful people, we're all artists here.