One is demonstrable, provable harm happening in this world. One is possible, unprovable harm in the next. They're not remotely comparable.
From the point of view of the poster, their depth of conviction, and how an "I give up on you" response is going to come across to them, they are entirely comparable.
I don't particularly want my conviction that people starving to death because their benefits have been cut off is wrong challenged. Nor my conviction that deporting British citizens because they're black is wrong.
There are people who sincerely and fearfully believe that gays will go to hell and that they might end up there too merely for entertaining the idea that this belief might be mistaken.
Not only do they "not particularly want" that conviction overturned, they are shit scared of the eternal consequences of it being overturned. Should they therefore be left unchallenged?
Of course not. But the thing is, there are things that should be challenged and things that shouldn't. We don't all agree on what goes into those two categories, and the general consensus about what goes into those two categories changes, hopefully for the better. But there is a certain amount of consensus. For instance, it's wrong to beat a child. People didn't use to think that, but now it is an idea that is not and should not be challenged. I'm not going to back down on that, and I'm not going to agree to being challenged on that idea in exchange for being able to challenge the view that gay people will go to hell. I similarly think all people have a right to eat, and that racism is wrong, so like @Arethosemyfeet, I'm not going to entertain challenges to those convictions.
One can passionately advocate the position that the current UK welfare system is deeply flawed, resulting in many people relying on food banks and other charity, and lots of people dying prematurely, and that this system needs radical overhaul to do what you think it should be doing (eg: allowing those unable to work to live with a minimal level of dignity). You can argue that the reasons the welfare system has failed is the result of the policies of successive Conservative governments.
But, those arguments and advocacy are significantly different from saying that all Conservative party members support these policies (I've said before, and I'll repeat it, I know several local Conservative activists who think that the government has got it wrong on this point) let alone that everyone who voted for their Conservative candidate support these policies. If you present the argument for reforming the welfare system in a manner that doesn't automatically put every Conservative in the category of enemy to common sense you may well find that you have allies within the Conservative party and wider support base. Alienating potential allies from the very start is not a particularly good way of having your views gain wider acceptance and change how things happen.
Arethosemyfeet: If we assume that someone voting Tory is informed and intelligent then we must conclude that they are OK with the harm caused by Tory government, whether that be the Windrush scandal, homelessness, library closures, sure start closures, increasing child poverty, work capability assessments etc. etc. An informed choice to vote for the continuation of that IS a moral issue and I struggle to get past that.
"If we assume........." On what basis can you make the assumption, Arethosemyfeet ? Many people voted Labour in 2005, despite the Iraq war not because of it, including, one assumes, Jeremy Corbyn. I wonder, too, how many Labour voters were bothered about the Windrush scandal in the last British general election, or were greatly worried about the social injustices arising from austerity? Were Tory voters voting for the party because they wished to see a rise in homelessness, library closures, and increases in child poverty? They voted Tory, one suspects, because they felt it best served their interests and the country, regarding the unfortunate downside of austerity as the regrettable consequence of the economic mess inherited from Labour. But there am I making the kind of assumptions I'm criticising you for! What I'm suggesting is that we all have tendencies to demonise those thinking differently from us, making unwarranted assumptions about their motivations. We should be interested in exploring the ethical basis of why people make political choices other than those we consider right and good. That is what could make Purgatory so much more interesting and productive. We might even swill out our own 'bullshit'.
I don't particularly want my conviction that people starving to death because their benefits have been cut off is wrong challenged. Nor my conviction that deporting British citizens because they're black is wrong.
Your problem is going from 'wrong' to 'therefore absolutely a definitive reason to not vote Tory and therefore anyone who voted Tory must not think those things are wrong'.
That's just demonstrably false reasoning. An election is not a referendum on specific issues, and treating it as if it's a referendum on specific issues is every bit as bad as a victorious party claiming that an election win is a definitive mandate for everything in their policy platform. It isn't. That's not what the ballot paper asks.
You're simply not bothering to inquire what factors someone weighed up in deciding which way to vote, because you've decided in your own mind that certain factors simply must be conclusive ones. For EVERYONE, not just for you personally.
One of the things I've found useful when posting in Purgatory (and Dead Horses and Epiphanies), is choosing to back up what I'm saying with reputable articles or research. It has stopped me several times in the past when I've been unable to back up something I had read as I discovered the soundbite that fired me up was unsupportable. And it's remembering that there is a person out there, not a set of opinions to be shot down in flames. Sometimes that's hard, particularly when it's something that feels personal.
Over 60,000 Americans have died in the pandemic, more than died in the Vietnam War, and there's no end in sight. Donald Trump's approval has averaged 40% since he was inaugurated, and it currently stands at 49%, the highest it's ever been -- this in the week when he mused about the possibility of injecting disinfectant to fight the coronavirus.
How are his supporters not in the category of enemy to common sense?
And it's remembering that there is a person out there, not a set of opinions to be shot down in flames. Sometimes that's hard, particularly when it's something that feels personal.
Over 60,000 Americans have died in the pandemic, more than died in the Vietnam War, and there's no end in sight. Donald Trump's approval has averaged 40% since he was inaugurated, and it currently stands at 49%, the highest it's ever been -- this in the week when he mused about the possibility of injecting disinfectant to fight the coronavirus.
How are his supporters not in the category of enemy to common sense?
Because they might support him in spite of his musings on disinfectant, not because of them.
Again, as much as my personal view is that practically any other candidate would be preferable to Trump, it's simply not right to take a single musing, or even a single issue, and decide that because that's definitive for you it has to be definitive for everybody else.
There's a basic fallacy for something as complex and multifactorial as which party to vote for in assuming that the things you took into account must be the things that everyone else took into account.
And I say this despite personally being unable to see any reasoning path that would lead me to support Trump. The point is, this is quite different to dismissing the possibility that any reasoning path exists.
Because outright dismissal denies anyone the opportunity to lay out a path to a different conclusion. Sure, if someone lays out a path, by all means point out the flaws in it. Critique the hell out of it. That's still fundamentally different to basically saying ahead of time that you're not interested in hearing why someone supports Trump because you've already declared that it's inevitably wrong to do so.
But it's also claimed that Labour did badly in the election because of media lies. From which it would follow that a significant number of Tory voters are not informed.
and intelligent then we must conclude that they are OK with the harm caused by Tory government, whether that be the Windrush scandal, homelessness, library closures, sure start closures, increasing child poverty, work capability assessments etc. etc.
Work capability assessments were introduced by Labour. So was being horrible to asylum seekers, which is part of the same 'brown people don't count' mentality that led to Windrush.
How are his supporters not in the category of enemy to common sense?
I won't repeat the arguments made above, but I think such a starting point comes close to bigotry.
To echo what @Curiosity killed said, maybe what I find lacking is empathy. A belief that one's opponents are all enemies of common sense does not require one to communicate that belief.
Over 60,000 Americans have died in the pandemic, more than died in the Vietnam War, and there's no end in sight. Donald Trump's approval has averaged 40% since he was inaugurated, and it currently stands at 49%, the highest it's ever been -- this in the week when he mused about the possibility of injecting disinfectant to fight the coronavirus.
How are his supporters not in the category of enemy to common sense?
Because to classify them all under that category is to effectively say that almost half of Americans are fundamentally the same ... when it's patently nonsense to say 150 million people form a homogeneous block. I'm not American, I don't live in America, I don't have a magical insight into how different people in America think ... but it seems obvious to me that the reasons people approve of the current President will be highly variable - some may think he's doing a fantastic job, some think his approach is the only workable compromise through the current crisis, some will think stay at home restrictions are too severe and think he's the best person to get them rescinded, some think he's doing a bad job but think that Mrs Clinton or Mr Biden will have done worse, some will just think it's great to see the President on the TV everyday addressing the nation ... and probably 150 million other reasons as well.
Isn't dismissing half the population of your own nation "enemies of common sense" indistinguishable from saying their views aren't worth listening too because they don't demonstrate common sense? Of course, you don't have to read what they say and you don't need to respond to them. But, if you do respond what's gained by being dismissive with a "you support Trump, therefore you're not talking sense"?
Over 60,000 Americans have died in the pandemic, more than died in the Vietnam War, and there's no end in sight. Donald Trump's approval has averaged 40% since he was inaugurated, and it currently stands at 49%, the highest it's ever been -- this in the week when he mused about the possibility of injecting disinfectant to fight the coronavirus.
How are his supporters not in the category of enemy to common sense?
Because they might support him in spite of his musings on disinfectant, not because of them.
Again, as much as my personal view is that practically any other candidate would be preferable to Trump, it's simply not right to take a single musing, or even a single issue, and decide that because that's definitive for you it has to be definitive for everybody else.
There's a basic fallacy for something as complex and multifactorial as which party to vote for in assuming that the things you took into account must be the things that everyone else took into account.
Obviously the disinfectant comment was just one of many I could have cited that would have sunk any other presidency. I didn't cite it as definitive; it's illustrative.
And I specifically didn't talk about which party someone voted for - I said Trump supporters. My mother is a Republican, but not a Trump supporter; I know all kinds of things go into party affiliation.
And I say this despite personally being unable to see any reasoning path that would lead me to support Trump. The point is, this is quite different to dismissing the possibility that any reasoning path exists.
Because outright dismissal denies anyone the opportunity to lay out a path to a different conclusion. Sure, if someone lays out a path, by all means point out the flaws in it. Critique the hell out of it. That's still fundamentally different to basically saying ahead of time that you're not interested in hearing why someone supports Trump because you've already declared that it's inevitably wrong to do so.
I have spent time in real life listening to Trump supporters say why they support him, and I have yet to hear sound reasoning. For example: My neighbor who relies on food stamps to eat defended Trump on the grounds that he was doing good things for the economy, and cited the stock market as evidence. But the stock market is not the economy, and many Americans were living on the edge of disaster before the pandemic hit, and she sure doesn't have any money in the stock market! She runs out of money before the end of every month. When I said "but the racism" her answer was, "Obama was racist." I asked which of Obama's policies were racist, and she just said, "oh, come on, you know he's a racist." Another Trump supporter I talked with veered into a digression about how the Founding Fathers didn't care what color you were (40% of the people who helped write the US Constitution held slaves, but oh well).
You haven't seen a reasoning path that would lead you to support Trump. Have you seen one that helps you understand why someone else supports him? I haven't seen a path that would lead someone to support Trump that wasn't founded in untruths or misconceptions or a combination of the two.
If you see common sense in there anywhere, show it to me. If there are reasoned, reasonable grounds for supporting Trump, even if you don't agree with the view, you should be able to lay them out.
@Ruth in response to that I think a more constructive discussion would be on the subject of populism, how people fall for it, and how they could be led out of it.
I really don't think that people repeating populist "thinking" are necessarily less intelligent. I think it's just as likely they've been induced to set aside intelligent reasoning in their voting choices. Either way, an assumption that their convictions indicate a basic lack of common sense and thus deserve to be treated with contempt, in this forum, is not going to change much.
I absolutely have seen reasoning paths that led people to vote for Trump back in 2016.
One Shipmate shared one with me back then, privately, because that Shipmate detected that I would not react hysterically at the time to this information. The reasoning was not shared on the more visible parts of the Ship precisely because the Shipmate concerned felt that they would not get any kind of fair hearing on the question.
I have no idea whether the reasoning would be the same now after several years of actually experiencing Trump in office.
EDIT: And your demand is still fundamentally misconceived. If you feel that the only way to accept that a reasoning path is possible is to actually be shown one, right here and right now, then you are completely misunderstanding my point. That in no way demonstrates an openness to possibilities ahead of time.
But I am not sure anyone here is a Trump supporter, so there isn't a lot of point asking us to defend a point of view we don't hold.
I do talk to people who support the Tories, I live in an area that returns a Tory MP whatever scandal attaches to them, and the last two MPs have had a few, so unless I ignore most of my neighbours, I have to. I have tried to work out why they thought it was good idea, and often it is that they are convinced by what they read. It may have been in the Daily Mail, and it might take a lot of unpicking to point out that the Daily Mail often has a different view to other papers, and it isn't always supportable by research, by which time I've lost them as that's all too hard and too challenging. And I've probably been accused of being a wet lefty Guardian reader, with all the other epithets. But maybe just pointing out that not all papers are reliable is worth doing.
I don't think this thread is about asking people to defend Trump's point of view. It's about whether someone attempting to do so would get a fair hearing, by each of us, posting as individuals, in the first person.
I absolutely have seen reasoning paths that led people to vote for Trump back in 2016.
And there was lots of discussion of this in the wake of the 2016 election. I'm talking about the support Trump enjoys now, over three years later, when people are dying who didn't have to die.
EDIT: And your demand is still fundamentally misconceived. If you feel that the only way to accept that a reasoning path is possible is to actually be shown one, right here and right now, then you are completely misunderstanding my point. That in no way demonstrates an openness to possibilities ahead of time.
You assert that it is possible that there is a reasoning path. I have looked and not found one. Maybe it's possible, but based on my experience, I'm dubious. So your assertion of the possibility that such a thing exists isn't going very far for me.
But it's also claimed that Labour did badly in the election because of media lies. From which it would follow that a significant number of Tory voters are not informed.
and intelligent then we must conclude that they are OK with the harm caused by Tory government, whether that be the Windrush scandal, homelessness, library closures, sure start closures, increasing child poverty, work capability assessments etc. etc.
Work capability assessments were introduced by Labour. So was being horrible to asylum seekers, which is part of the same 'brown people don't count' mentality that led to Windrush.
As to the first, that's kind of the point of the "if". It's conditional, not an acceptance as fact. As to the second, you won't hear me defending Blairism, but the tories supported the war, made the WCA worse and were advocating even worse policies towards asylum seekers. There is a strong "lesser of two evils" argument to supporting Labour even in 2005 and 2010 that simply does not apply the other way around with deploying "alternative facts". For myself I voted Green on both those occasions and SNP in 2015.
I don't think this thread is about asking people to defend Trump's point of view. It's about whether someone attempting to do so would get a fair hearing, by each of us, posting as individuals, in the first person.
Could you expand on what a fair hearing looks like?
I don't think this thread is about asking people to defend Trump's point of view. It's about whether someone attempting to do so would get a fair hearing, by each of us, posting as individuals, in the first person.
Exactly. And the evidence is fairly convincing that they wouldn't.
This is the kind of thing we shouldn't be doing, if we truly want people other than ourselves to be on the Ship. We need to at least admit the possibility of decent humanity in groups whose politics (religion, customs, ethnicity) we don't like, and avoid painting the lot of them with a broad and hostile brush. Because if we do that often enough, they will protest, then finally give up and go away. And we will be left in an echo chamber listening to our own voices, forever immune to new insights.
Super post - a good read; and I just thought I'd drop in to say that I am a Tory! A moderate, sensible one of course!
Yes, but this is a whole other thing. The kind of public shaming you're talking about, where someone says something dumb or rude or merely badly phrased and then is dragged all over the internet because of it, is awful. But it's not an abridgement of free speech. It might make some people not want to talk, but that's not the same thing. It's akin to what @Lamb Chopped was discussing, but with more damaging consequences. And I'd point out that she's making a choice not to post because of "facile bullshit" thrown at her. Is "facile bullshit" a good thing or even okay? No. But it is not a threat to free speech. It makes speaking unpleasant, but it doesn't prevent it from happening.
I'm not sure I understand how this differs significantly from laws banning certain speech. The only difference I can see is in the specific consequences for persisting with that speech.
"Facile bullshit" is unpleasant, but it doesn't prevent the actual speech from happening.
Losing your livelihood because of an internet public shaming is unpleasant, but it doesn't stop the actual speech happening. Being put in jail is unpleasant, but it doesn't prevent the actual speech from happening.
If the consequences for expressing a certain opinion are sufficiently unpleasant that very few people will risk expressing it, does it really make a difference if those consequences are imposed via the government or via more direct means? I don't think so.
This is one of those areas where protecting our rights has failed to keep up with the march of technology. Even within my lifetime someone expressing an unpopular opinion in a social setting may have garnered immediate disapproval, but not to the extent that their livelihood could be threatened. Now all it takes is one of the people there to record them saying it and post it online and suddenly thousands or millions of people are calling for their head.
The only way someone could have no problem with that is if they genuinely think such opinions should never be expressed in public. And once you're at that point then it doesn't really matter if you use the machinery of state to impose negative consequences for expressing them or not, the result is the same.
When I started this thread I was not criticising the Hosts in any way. In fact, if an issue like this can only be sorted out by the Hosts wading in officially, I think it's a telling indictment of all the rest of us Shipmates.
What concerns me is exactly what @Lamb Chopped has been talking about. Now there are all sorts of issues I'm sure she and I disagree about; I'm equally sure we could have a sensible conversation about them. And that's what the Ship used to be great at. Maybe it's because we're all feeling the pressure of lockdown, but there seems to me to be a lot more hit and run posting than there used to be. Or are my rose tinted spectacles fogging up?
Arethosemyfeet: For myself I voted Green on both those occasions and SNP in 2015.
The question for us is why you made those choices? What did you do in 2019, by the way?
What can I assume? Or what might I be tempted to assume about your motivation? One, that you are a Scottish nationalist because both parties you support favour Scottish independence. Two, that Green is your preferred choice over the SNP, otherwise you would not have twice vote for a party that had little chance of winning. Three, given what we know about your values you are decisively on the left and have a great concern for the underdog. It is not too difficult to understand why you reject the Tories, because in your view they represent all you abhor.
A critic, however, might argue that your anti-Conservative prejudice is clouding your judgement, because the SNP for all its rhetoric and nationalist sentiment generally is prejudicial to addressing your social concerns. An independent Scotland would face the problem of having to increase taxes to sustain the present level of public spending, and joining the EU, (which is part of the independence package), involves signing up to the Euro, that will impose further fiscal constraints. The outcome would be a greater austerity than has been experienced, leaving the disadvantaged worse off. Furthermore, as a Green it seems strange to support a party that has taken on the liability of a redundant airport, though I suppose you might argue that an attraction of the SNP its current leadership has little interest in economic growth on which social progress depends. The critic might conclude that your social concern is bogus because your electoral choices betray a greater preference for nationalism and low, if not zero, growth than social justice. The preservation of the Union, the central plank of Scottish Conservatism, is the sine qua non for the rational left, whose tactical vote should be Tory in a two-horse race with the SNP. Indeed, you will find a number of Labour voters have started doing just that.
Assuming attitudes from voter choice is quite complicated. If one is really introspective one might question whether one's sincerely stated reasons for voting in a particular way are the decisive triggers.
Arethosemyfeet: For myself I voted Green on both those occasions and SNP in 2015.
The question for us is why you made those choices? What did you do in 2019, by the way?
What can I assume? Or what might I be tempted to assume about your motivation? One, that you are a Scottish nationalist because both parties you support favour Scottish independence. Two, that Green is your preferred choice over the SNP, otherwise you would not have twice vote for a party that had little chance of winning. Three, given what we know about your values you are decisively on the left and have a great concern for the underdog. It is not too difficult to understand why you reject the Tories, because in your view they represent all you abhor.
A critic, however, might argue that your anti-Conservative prejudice is clouding your judgement, because the SNP for all its rhetoric and nationalist sentiment generally is prejudicial to addressing your social concerns. An independent Scotland would face the problem of having to increase taxes to sustain the present level of public spending, and joining the EU, (which is part of the independence package), involves signing up to the Euro, that will impose further fiscal constraints. The outcome would be a greater austerity than has been experienced, leaving the disadvantaged worse off. Furthermore, as a Green it seems strange to support a party that has taken on the liability of a redundant airport, though I suppose you might argue that an attraction of the SNP its current leadership has little interest in economic growth on which social progress depends. The critic might conclude that your social concern is bogus because your electoral choices betray a greater preference for nationalism and low, if not zero, growth than social justice. The preservation of the Union, the central plank of Scottish Conservatism, is the sine qua non for the rational left, whose tactical vote should be Tory in a two-horse race with the SNP. Indeed, you will find a number of Labour voters have started doing just that.
Assuming attitudes from voter choice is quite complicated. If one is really introspective one might question whether one's sincerely stated reasons for voting in a particular way are the decisive triggers.
Apart from the bizarre assertion that there is anything essential about the union, those are all factors that have weighed on my decision making. Certainly projecting the economic situation in an independent Scotland is difficult, but I've taken the view that a fairer country that is slightly poorer is a better deal for most folk than staying part of a more unfair country that is slightly richer. My preferences generally run decent UK government > decent independent Scottish government > decent devolved Scottish government. There are things I care about that require me to make a choice between Labour, Green and SNP, one of which is defeating the tories, because there is nothing I can think of that would be made better by having the tories in power, and certainly nothing that would justify the economic and social harm involved.
Prejudice implies a decision based on a lack on information. I have more than enough information about the tories to make a judgement.
My vote in 2019 was a tactical one for the SNP. I wanted to vote Labour, but the urgency of the Brexit situation meant keeping the tories out was more essential. I made the same calculation in 2015 with a less appealing Labour Party. Previously I voted in England where the Green Party is not the same and the constitutional issue was not relevant. There my goal was to send a message, however imperfectly, to Labour about how far to the right they had shifted. In every case my aim as been to achieve a "least worst" outcome in the short or long term. Where I struggle is that I cannot see how you can start from that goal and arrive at the idea that voting tory is the way to achieve it. It just doesn't add up.
I've taken the view that a fairer country that is slightly poorer is a better deal for most folk than staying part of a more unfair country that is slightly richer.
Fair play to you. The question is what level of respect you're willing to give to those who, after equal consideration, decide in favour of a slightly richer country that is more unfair?
I've taken the view that a fairer country that is slightly poorer is a better deal for most folk than staying part of a more unfair country that is slightly richer.
Fair play to you. The question is what level of respect you're willing to give to those who, after equal consideration, decide in favour of a slightly richer country that is more unfair?
I suppose that would depend on what their motivations were - I suspect very few of them would be in favour of being personally poorer while the country was richer.
I've taken the view that a fairer country that is slightly poorer is a better deal for most folk than staying part of a more unfair country that is slightly richer.
Fair play to you. The question is what level of respect you're willing to give to those who, after equal consideration, decide in favour of a slightly richer country that is more unfair?
If they look at the constitutional question and reach the conclusion that Scots are going to marginally better off remaining with the UK even if we regularly get stuck with tory governments they'll get plenty of respect from me, so long as they're willing to aid in minimising the length and effects of those tory governments.
Tories expect to be deferred to; at least British ones do. This is written into the structure of society. The left disrupts this. Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them. This is my final point. Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?
You see, we've got a case right here (sorry, Thunderbunk, but it just happened to be your post that came up first, and provided a view of this stuff in real time. Nothing personal meant by it.). "Tories expect to be deferred to." Think for a moment. Is this true of all Tories? Seriously? Every single one of them, including any that may be lurking on the Ship? Not a one is reasonable or humble.
You go on to allege damage done by this class of people, of which each and every one of them is the same, and thus each is individually guilty (including our theoretical Shipmate): "Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them." Were I a Tory, even of the most reasonable sort (and seriously, there must be at least ONE in the universe!), I would be quite cross by now. You are attributing a moral crime--damaging people--to the whole class of Tories, without allowances for individuals who might in fact NOT damage people.
And then your conclusion: "Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?" Now we've slipped from talking about people (the Tories, each and every one of them) to their opinions. Very slick, that. If you had said "Why respect the people," you'd have been on thin ice commandment-wise. But because the focus has suddenly shifted to their opinions, you can get away with it.
And the final flourish: "Why should anyone respect...?" In other words, there is no sense in even answering said opinions, it is unreasonable to expect anyone on the other side to engage in debate with anybody holding such opinions. Better to ignore or shout them down. Their opinions are not worthy of respect, and (as was made clear in the opening statements about expecting deference and being damaging), neither are the people themselves.
This is the kind of thing we shouldn't be doing, if we truly want people other than ourselves to be on the Ship. We need to at least admit the possibility of decent humanity in groups whose politics (religion, customs, ethnicity) we don't like, and avoid painting the lot of them with a broad and hostile brush. Because if we do that often enough, they will protest, then finally give up and go away. And we will be left in an echo chamber listening to our own voices, forever immune to new insights.
Yes, I should probably apologise for at least part of this. I was posting before coffee and engagement of higher processes, which is not a good idea.
However, I think there is value in drawing people's attention to the inherent bias created by treating all individual instances as unaffected by systemic conditions. In this case, class and associated political bias are a real thing on the macro, social level, and will affect interactions between individuals on boards like this. Deference and its structural effects are too well documented to be entirely ignored, or discounted when it comes to individual engagement.
And I'm afraid high-handed outrage comes over very little better than provocation in this respect. The possibility of human decency does not affect the nature of the opinions held by those decent human beings, and if those decent human beings can do nothing other than express personal outrage at attacks on their repugnant opinions, then debate becomes impossible because the opinion is always shielded behind the person, who according to Purg rules is beyond attack.
Okay, thanx. I know you're admin, so I thought maybe you were instructing someone on this thread to stop campaigning.
For the avoidance of doubt, and for the second time on this thread, if I or any of the rest of the Crew post without host or admin tags on, we're posting as posters, not as Crew.
Crew have, in trying to be more gentle IMO, made non-tagged suggestions. Every time a crew member posts what could easily be a host post save for the lack of a tag, I certainly question the intention.
One can passionately advocate the position that the current UK welfare system is deeply flawed, resulting in many people relying on food banks and other charity, and lots of people dying prematurely, and that this system needs radical overhaul to do what you think it should be doing (eg: allowing those unable to work to live with a minimal level of dignity). You can argue that the reasons the welfare system has failed is the result of the policies of successive Conservative governments.
But, those arguments and advocacy are significantly different from saying that all Conservative party members support these policies (I've said before, and I'll repeat it, I know several local Conservative activists who think that the government has got it wrong on this point) let alone that everyone who voted for their Conservative candidate support these policies. If you present the argument for reforming the welfare system in a manner that doesn't automatically put every Conservative in the category of enemy to common sense you may well find that you have allies within the Conservative party and wider support base. Alienating potential allies from the very start is not a particularly good way of having your views gain wider acceptance and change how things happen.
At some point, no matter the internal variance, one owns the direction of one's chosen group. By remaining in the group, one puts one's own stamp on the behaviour. One can be against the policies of one's group, but if those policies show no signs of changing or the harm caused will precede change, then one shares the responsibility for those policies. It is why political groups exist, to wield collective power. With collective power comes collective responsibility.
And, for the millionth time, X group does bad thing Y does not mean that every member of X group is teh evilz. It is shorthand for the effects of the group. This is a normal, human* form of communication.
*At least in English and Spanish. Other languages might vary.
Mousethief is perfectly correct: the right to free speech is like the right to work. No third party is allowed to prevent people from offering you a job or offering you the opportunity to express your opinions, but nobody has the power to compel anyone else to offer you a job or the opportunity to express your opinions.
The right to work is an interesting parallel. Because it's all well and good saying that nobody can compel anyone else to offer someone a job, but if every single employer declines to hire a certain subset of humanity then the end result is that their right to work may as well not exist.
ETA that to extend the parallell a little, some on this thread would presumably say that as the government isn't legally banning them from working then their right to work has not been infringed.
Because it's all well and good saying that nobody can compel anyone else to offer someone a job, but if every single employer declines to hire a certain subset of humanity then the end result is that their right to work may as well not exist.
Indeed. And I think some of the people on this thread who would say that the right to free speech is infringed by a no-platform policy are just those who would say that the right to work is not infringed if nobody wants to hire you.
That said, I think everyone thinks it's acceptable for nobody to hire someone who just can't do the work - even after reasonsble accommodation for disabilities. It's irrelevant systematic discrimination based on irrelevant traits that is objectionable. Whereas the act of offering a platform is relevant to the views to be expressed. People offer columns in newspapers partly because they can't say everything they want to say themselves.
Were this forum in a church basement I’d have, by now, walked out in tears, promising myself that I’d pray for you, and be very, very fearful of ever coming in again. I am very sad to see this.
Yeah, but on the other hand, churches are full empty of people who fell out and didn't ever thrash through the issues, preferring to walk away and be upset about it, often for years. I've long wished for churches to have a RL equivalent of Hell (on its better days), and I think churches that have something approximating it rather than permanent iron-on crinkly smiles are much healthier places to be in the long run.
Also, lockdown is getting to people, and to me this thread is clear evidence of it. If it helps clear the air a bit, so much the better.
As one of those who walked out of a bizarre parish situation, where an overbearing rector and his allies made quite certain that any thrashing out of issues was one-sided (i.e., objectors and their ideas got thrashed) and walking away was a simple survival mechanism (I've had friends who have done the same in political situations), I'm not sure I agree. Religious organizations are not built for thrashing things through, but rather seem to be designed for either convincing/beating down the opposition or not dealing with the issue at hand-- the Quakers have a good approach with waiting until the meeting was of one mind, but we are not so patient these days.
As far as Brexit or even Trump goes, I have long thought that these affiliations were based on how people viewed and affirmed their identities, and had little to do with the policy specifics at hand. This makes "resolving" the issue or convincing anyone to be difficult and perhaps a fantastic notion. I have read little which has changed my mind, but I have often found that shipmates' articulations of their positions informative. As Tanita Tikaram once sang, "different things are good for me."
Where the ship may have foundered perhaps has been in how traditionally-oriented ecclesiastical positions have sometimes been received with party-line hostility. I recall my dissent with how some Canadian Lutherans were treating their agreement with Anglicans was called "hateful." I just dropped out of the discussion, as I saw little point in arguing such language. Perhaps I should have taken my interlocutor to Hell... next time. I have noted that there are fewer obviously-RC shipmates posting. However, I have noted that some of their boards are fading as well. Perhaps it is the demographics speaking, or they have taken to heart Pope Frank's suggestion to shy away from internet debates.
Over 60,000 Americans have died in the pandemic, more than died in the Vietnam War, and there's no end in sight. Donald Trump's approval has averaged 40% since he was inaugurated, and it currently stands at 49%, the highest it's ever been -- this in the week when he mused about the possibility of injecting disinfectant to fight the coronavirus.
How are his supporters not in the category of enemy to common sense?
Because they might support him in spite of his musings on disinfectant, not because of them.
Again, as much as my personal view is that practically any other candidate would be preferable to Trump, it's simply not right to take a single musing, or even a single issue, and decide that because that's definitive for you it has to be definitive for everybody else.
There's a basic fallacy for something as complex and multifactorial as which party to vote for in assuming that the things you took into account must be the things that everyone else took into account.
Obviously the disinfectant comment was just one of many I could have cited that would have sunk any other presidency. I didn't cite it as definitive; it's illustrative.
And I specifically didn't talk about which party someone voted for - I said Trump supporters. My mother is a Republican, but not a Trump supporter; I know all kinds of things go into party affiliation.
And I say this despite personally being unable to see any reasoning path that would lead me to support Trump. The point is, this is quite different to dismissing the possibility that any reasoning path exists.
Because outright dismissal denies anyone the opportunity to lay out a path to a different conclusion. Sure, if someone lays out a path, by all means point out the flaws in it. Critique the hell out of it. That's still fundamentally different to basically saying ahead of time that you're not interested in hearing why someone supports Trump because you've already declared that it's inevitably wrong to do so.
I have spent time in real life listening to Trump supporters say why they support him, and I have yet to hear sound reasoning. For example: My neighbor who relies on food stamps to eat defended Trump on the grounds that he was doing good things for the economy, and cited the stock market as evidence. But the stock market is not the economy, and many Americans were living on the edge of disaster before the pandemic hit, and she sure doesn't have any money in the stock market! She runs out of money before the end of every month. When I said "but the racism" her answer was, "Obama was racist." I asked which of Obama's policies were racist, and she just said, "oh, come on, you know he's a racist." Another Trump supporter I talked with veered into a digression about how the Founding Fathers didn't care what color you were (40% of the people who helped write the US Constitution held slaves, but oh well).
You haven't seen a reasoning path that would lead you to support Trump. Have you seen one that helps you understand why someone else supports him? I haven't seen a path that would lead someone to support Trump that wasn't founded in untruths or misconceptions or a combination of the two.
If you see common sense in there anywhere, show it to me. If there are reasoned, reasonable grounds for supporting Trump, even if you don't agree with the view, you should be able to lay them out.
But this is exactly the point. You say, "If you see common sense in there anywhere, show it to me. If there are reasoned, reasonable grounds for supporting Trump, even if you don't agree with the view, you should be able to lay them out." Yes indeed. But that kind of discussion isn't going to happen if we stick our fingers in our ears, go "la la la" and declare them (every single one of them!) to be "enemies of common sense" and therefore not worth responding to as human beings.
Look, I've listened to the Trump supporters too, and I have them in the family, and I understand the temptation to bash your own eardrums in so as not to hear one more word on the subject. But that isn't going to change them. Maybe nothing will change them--but maybe I'm wrong on that, and the only way to find out is by talking. Discussing. Refuting all the bullshit and attempting to see if there is any good thing left at the bottom when we're done. And giving them the opportunity to explore our positions in return, which they consider to be bullshit but may (through exposure--and NOT flippant dismissal) actually come to consider as something that makes sense for them, too.
You spoke of "enemies of common sense." Perhaps they are. Perhaps not. But we don't have to treat them as personal enemies on the Ship--people so far beneath contempt that we talk over them, past them, never to them, except to fling a passing insult.
Tories expect to be deferred to; at least British ones do. This is written into the structure of society. The left disrupts this. Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them. This is my final point. Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?
You see, we've got a case right here (sorry, Thunderbunk, but it just happened to be your post that came up first, and provided a view of this stuff in real time. Nothing personal meant by it.). "Tories expect to be deferred to." Think for a moment. Is this true of all Tories? Seriously? Every single one of them, including any that may be lurking on the Ship? Not a one is reasonable or humble.
You go on to allege damage done by this class of people, of which each and every one of them is the same, and thus each is individually guilty (including our theoretical Shipmate): "Hence the outrage of those who feel that their opinions should be deferred to by people who are damaged by them." Were I a Tory, even of the most reasonable sort (and seriously, there must be at least ONE in the universe!), I would be quite cross by now. You are attributing a moral crime--damaging people--to the whole class of Tories, without allowances for individuals who might in fact NOT damage people.
And then your conclusion: "Why should anyone respect an opinion which would damage them if enforced?" Now we've slipped from talking about people (the Tories, each and every one of them) to their opinions. Very slick, that. If you had said "Why respect the people," you'd have been on thin ice commandment-wise. But because the focus has suddenly shifted to their opinions, you can get away with it.
And the final flourish: "Why should anyone respect...?" In other words, there is no sense in even answering said opinions, it is unreasonable to expect anyone on the other side to engage in debate with anybody holding such opinions. Better to ignore or shout them down. Their opinions are not worthy of respect, and (as was made clear in the opening statements about expecting deference and being damaging), neither are the people themselves.
This is the kind of thing we shouldn't be doing, if we truly want people other than ourselves to be on the Ship. We need to at least admit the possibility of decent humanity in groups whose politics (religion, customs, ethnicity) we don't like, and avoid painting the lot of them with a broad and hostile brush. Because if we do that often enough, they will protest, then finally give up and go away. And we will be left in an echo chamber listening to our own voices, forever immune to new insights.
Yes, I should probably apologise for at least part of this. I was posting before coffee and engagement of higher processes, which is not a good idea.
However, I think there is value in drawing people's attention to the inherent bias created by treating all individual instances as unaffected by systemic conditions. In this case, class and associated political bias are a real thing on the macro, social level, and will affect interactions between individuals on boards like this. Deference and its structural effects are too well documented to be entirely ignored, or discounted when it comes to individual engagement.
And I'm afraid high-handed outrage comes over very little better than provocation in this respect. The possibility of human decency does not affect the nature of the opinions held by those decent human beings, and if those decent human beings can do nothing other than express personal outrage at attacks on their repugnant opinions, then debate becomes impossible because the opinion is always shielded behind the person, who according to Purg rules is beyond attack.
No need to apologise to me. I felt bad that it was your particular post I picked on to make the point. But whatever...
I'm suggesting neither provocation NOR high-handed outrage. I'm suggesting logical debate. If a person shows up with an utterly indefensible position, very well; it will take that much less time to demolish it. If they turn up to have some smidgen of sense somewhere in the midst of the dross, kudos to whoever uses logical, thought-out back and forth to rescue that smidgen of sense and bring it to daylight.
It is far, far better to interact with the real people themselves, be they Trump supporters, conservatives, Republicans or Orcs from Mordor, than it is to fling passing class-wide insults at a caricature of them as we pass on by.
quetzalcoatl: I thought the free speech argument today is mainly a right wing complaint.
You are probably right, but it gives me little comfort to find the field deserted by others. It is as if the writings of George Orwell, and in that I include a number of his essays, had never existed.
Or it's the case that free speech isn't under any serious threat in the west
Yours certainly isn't.
Whose do you think is?
Anyone who disagrees with the zeitgeist on issues such as gender or sexuality for a start.
Except they're not are they? They may not be given a platform where the gatekeeper for that platform chooses not to, but there are thousands of homophobes and transphobes out there not being prosecuted for their views.
There are thousands of people out there who have not been told what transgender people find offensive and do not move in places where they will encounter them. Being ignorant of what is offensive is not the same as being deliberately offensive, something the liberal-minded need to be reminded of.
quetzalcoatl: I thought the free speech argument today is mainly a right wing complaint.
You are probably right, but it gives me little comfort to find the field deserted by others. It is as if the writings of George Orwell, and in that I include a number of his essays, had never existed.
Or it's the case that free speech isn't under any serious threat in the west
Yours certainly isn't.
Whose do you think is?
Anyone who disagrees with the zeitgeist on issues such as gender or sexuality for a start.
Except they're not are they? They may not be given a platform where the gatekeeper for that platform chooses not to, but there are thousands of homophobes and transphobes out there not being prosecuted for their views.
There are thousands of people out there who have not been told what transgender people find offensive and do not move in places where they will encounter them. Being ignorant of what is offensive is not the same as being deliberately offensive, something the liberal-minded need to be reminded of.
The reaction of someone who is inadvertently offensive and finds out would be horror tinged with embarrassment followed by fulsome apologies. If that is what happens then I don't think you're going to get large numbers of people calling for their head. Thing is, people opining on trans issues on twitter generally know exactly what they're saying and how offensive they're being.
However, I think there is value in drawing people's attention to the inherent bias created by treating all individual instances as unaffected by systemic conditions. In this case, class and associated political bias are a real thing on the macro, social level, and will affect interactions between individuals on boards like this. Deference and its structural effects are too well documented to be entirely ignored, or discounted when it comes to individual engagement.
And I'm afraid high-handed outrage comes over very little better than provocation in this respect. The possibility of human decency does not affect the nature of the opinions held by those decent human beings, and if those decent human beings can do nothing other than express personal outrage at attacks on their repugnant opinions, then debate becomes impossible because the opinion is always shielded behind the person, who according to Purg rules is beyond attack.
First, by all means, draw attention to systemic bias and deference issues and whatever you like. This would make a great thread topic. I've got nothing against that.
And if you do find a poster who holds opinions you find repugnant, and who refuses to engage in debate, choosing rather to shriek and clutch his/her pearls? Call the idiot to Hell. That is what Hell is for. Or if you prefer to be a little more merciful on a given occasion, point out on the wannabe debate thread in Purg that they ARE in fact doing this, and refusing to offer any reasons for their opinions, and let the rest of the Purg denizens besiege them with requests for evidence, facts, logic. That's what Purg is for.
It is not possible for someone to last forever on the Ship who does nothing but spew repugnant opinions and, when challenged, howl "You're oppressing me! I refuse to give you any explanation, data or logic to support my position!" Such a person will wind up challenged, then in Hell, and certainly under hostly/Adminly discipline sooner or later. You won't have to endure them long.
But during the brief time you DO endure them, your attempt to lure them into a reasonable discussion (as opposed to a mutual slinging of facile one liners) just might might MIGHT work a miracle, and get them to reconsider. Which would be worth it, don't you think?
(And hey, failing all else, you will at least have the right to say, "Oh yeah, I once debated an actual breathing [fill in despised group HERE] and this is what they were like"--instead of taking the Daily whatever's caricature of said group, as so many do.)
quetzalcoatl: I thought the free speech argument today is mainly a right wing complaint.
You are probably right, but it gives me little comfort to find the field deserted by others. It is as if the writings of George Orwell, and in that I include a number of his essays, had never existed.
Or it's the case that free speech isn't under any serious threat in the west
Yours certainly isn't.
Whose do you think is?
Anyone who disagrees with the zeitgeist on issues such as gender or sexuality for a start.
Except they're not are they? They may not be given a platform where the gatekeeper for that platform chooses not to, but there are thousands of homophobes and transphobes out there not being prosecuted for their views.
There are thousands of people out there who have not been told what transgender people find offensive and do not move in places where they will encounter them. Being ignorant of what is offensive is not the same as being deliberately offensive, something the liberal-minded need to be reminded of.
At some point, ignorance is not a good defence. It is not excusable in this day and age to not be aware of what women and black people might find offensive, why is it of trans?
I'm not entirely sure BabyWombat was complaining about Hell. What I'm seeing is an upswelling of disrespectful interactions on the main boards, ones that stay just this side of getting Hostly attention (and often stray over the border). As far as I'm concerned, Hell is fine, Hell does a great job of handling that stuff. And those who don't want to read Hell don't have to.
quetzalcoatl: I thought the free speech argument today is mainly a right wing complaint.
You are probably right, but it gives me little comfort to find the field deserted by others. It is as if the writings of George Orwell, and in that I include a number of his essays, had never existed.
Or it's the case that free speech isn't under any serious threat in the west
Yours certainly isn't.
Whose do you think is?
Anyone who disagrees with the zeitgeist on issues such as gender or sexuality for a start.
Except they're not are they? They may not be given a platform where the gatekeeper for that platform chooses not to, but there are thousands of homophobes and transphobes out there not being prosecuted for their views.
There are thousands of people out there who have not been told what transgender people find offensive and do not move in places where they will encounter them. Being ignorant of what is offensive is not the same as being deliberately offensive, something the liberal-minded need to be reminded of.
At some point, ignorance is not a good defence. It is not excusable in this day and age to not be aware of what women and black people might find offensive, why is it of trans?
For starters such things vary between cultures. Calling someone "coloured" in the UK makes you look ancient and clueless at best and racist at worst. In South Africa (if I've understood correctly) it remains the accepted term for certain mixed heritage populations. The use of certain vulgar terms for female anatomy vary substantially in how severely they are regarded, and whether they're considered misogynistic or merely rude, including by many women. I would consider it a matter of courtesy to try and be aware of such things, and to accept with good grace if one makes a mistake and is corrected, but demanding that everyone keep track of evolving attitudes to language without error is asking a bit much.
If we assume that someone voting Tory is informed and intelligent then we must conclude that they are OK with the harm caused by Tory government, whether that be the Windrush scandal, homelessness, library closures, sure start closures, increasing child poverty, work capability assessments etc. etc.
It depends what you mean by "OK with" doesn't it?
What you are presented with at an election is a choice between (usually) two options. What I find myself doing (at least, when I could vote - I haven't actually been able to vote anywhere for more than a decade) is choosing the least bad of the viable options presented to me.
This doesn't mean that I'm OK with everything on the manifesto of the party I vote for, let alone any non-manifesto action they may have taken or be expected to take - it means that I think that they are, in total, better than the other choice. That's rather a different statement than "OK with".
If you present me a choice between the leopards-eating-people's-faces party and the spaniels-chewing-people's-ankles party, I'm going to vote for the doggies. That doesn't mean in any sense that I'm OK with ankle-chewing - I just think it's better than face-eating.
If those are my choices, then what I should do is vote for whichever of the two I think does least harm, and then campaign publicly against any kind of animal chewing body parts, and hope to attract enough support for my no-chewing-of-body-parts campaign that one or both parties changes their policy.
If we assume that someone voting Tory is informed and intelligent then we must conclude that they are OK with the harm caused by Tory government, whether that be the Windrush scandal, homelessness, library closures, sure start closures, increasing child poverty, work capability assessments etc. etc.
It depends what you mean by "OK with" doesn't it?
What you are presented with at an election is a choice between (usually) two options. What I find myself doing (at least, when I could vote - I haven't actually been able to vote anywhere for more than a decade) is choosing the least bad of the viable options presented to me.
This doesn't mean that I'm OK with everything on the manifesto of the party I vote for, let alone any non-manifesto action they may have taken or be expected to take - it means that I think that they are, in total, better than the other choice. That's rather a different statement than "OK with".
If you present me a choice between the leopards-eating-people's-faces party and the spaniels-chewing-people's-ankles party, I'm going to vote for the doggies. That doesn't mean in any sense that I'm OK with ankle-chewing - I just think it's better than face-eating.
If those are my choices, then what I should do is vote for whichever of the two I think does least harm, and then campaign publicly against any kind of animal chewing body parts, and hope to attract enough support for my no-chewing-of-body-parts campaign that one or both parties changes their policy.
Sure, but given the enormities perpetrated by the tories I have great difficulty imagining what could possibly lead you to regard them as the lesser evil. By "ok with it" I simply mean "either approve or don't care enough to put it ahead of something else they want".
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From the point of view of the poster, their depth of conviction, and how an "I give up on you" response is going to come across to them, they are entirely comparable.
Of course not. But the thing is, there are things that should be challenged and things that shouldn't. We don't all agree on what goes into those two categories, and the general consensus about what goes into those two categories changes, hopefully for the better. But there is a certain amount of consensus. For instance, it's wrong to beat a child. People didn't use to think that, but now it is an idea that is not and should not be challenged. I'm not going to back down on that, and I'm not going to agree to being challenged on that idea in exchange for being able to challenge the view that gay people will go to hell. I similarly think all people have a right to eat, and that racism is wrong, so like @Arethosemyfeet, I'm not going to entertain challenges to those convictions.
But, those arguments and advocacy are significantly different from saying that all Conservative party members support these policies (I've said before, and I'll repeat it, I know several local Conservative activists who think that the government has got it wrong on this point) let alone that everyone who voted for their Conservative candidate support these policies. If you present the argument for reforming the welfare system in a manner that doesn't automatically put every Conservative in the category of enemy to common sense you may well find that you have allies within the Conservative party and wider support base. Alienating potential allies from the very start is not a particularly good way of having your views gain wider acceptance and change how things happen.
"If we assume........." On what basis can you make the assumption, Arethosemyfeet ? Many people voted Labour in 2005, despite the Iraq war not because of it, including, one assumes, Jeremy Corbyn. I wonder, too, how many Labour voters were bothered about the Windrush scandal in the last British general election, or were greatly worried about the social injustices arising from austerity? Were Tory voters voting for the party because they wished to see a rise in homelessness, library closures, and increases in child poverty? They voted Tory, one suspects, because they felt it best served their interests and the country, regarding the unfortunate downside of austerity as the regrettable consequence of the economic mess inherited from Labour. But there am I making the kind of assumptions I'm criticising you for! What I'm suggesting is that we all have tendencies to demonise those thinking differently from us, making unwarranted assumptions about their motivations. We should be interested in exploring the ethical basis of why people make political choices other than those we consider right and good. That is what could make Purgatory so much more interesting and productive. We might even swill out our own 'bullshit'.
Your problem is going from 'wrong' to 'therefore absolutely a definitive reason to not vote Tory and therefore anyone who voted Tory must not think those things are wrong'.
That's just demonstrably false reasoning. An election is not a referendum on specific issues, and treating it as if it's a referendum on specific issues is every bit as bad as a victorious party claiming that an election win is a definitive mandate for everything in their policy platform. It isn't. That's not what the ballot paper asks.
You're simply not bothering to inquire what factors someone weighed up in deciding which way to vote, because you've decided in your own mind that certain factors simply must be conclusive ones. For EVERYONE, not just for you personally.
How are his supporters not in the category of enemy to common sense?
Because they might support him in spite of his musings on disinfectant, not because of them.
Again, as much as my personal view is that practically any other candidate would be preferable to Trump, it's simply not right to take a single musing, or even a single issue, and decide that because that's definitive for you it has to be definitive for everybody else.
There's a basic fallacy for something as complex and multifactorial as which party to vote for in assuming that the things you took into account must be the things that everyone else took into account.
And I say this despite personally being unable to see any reasoning path that would lead me to support Trump. The point is, this is quite different to dismissing the possibility that any reasoning path exists.
Because outright dismissal denies anyone the opportunity to lay out a path to a different conclusion. Sure, if someone lays out a path, by all means point out the flaws in it. Critique the hell out of it. That's still fundamentally different to basically saying ahead of time that you're not interested in hearing why someone supports Trump because you've already declared that it's inevitably wrong to do so.
But it's also claimed that Labour did badly in the election because of media lies. From which it would follow that a significant number of Tory voters are not informed.
Work capability assessments were introduced by Labour. So was being horrible to asylum seekers, which is part of the same 'brown people don't count' mentality that led to Windrush.
To echo what @Curiosity killed said, maybe what I find lacking is empathy. A belief that one's opponents are all enemies of common sense does not require one to communicate that belief.
Isn't dismissing half the population of your own nation "enemies of common sense" indistinguishable from saying their views aren't worth listening too because they don't demonstrate common sense? Of course, you don't have to read what they say and you don't need to respond to them. But, if you do respond what's gained by being dismissive with a "you support Trump, therefore you're not talking sense"?
Obviously the disinfectant comment was just one of many I could have cited that would have sunk any other presidency. I didn't cite it as definitive; it's illustrative.
And I specifically didn't talk about which party someone voted for - I said Trump supporters. My mother is a Republican, but not a Trump supporter; I know all kinds of things go into party affiliation.
I have spent time in real life listening to Trump supporters say why they support him, and I have yet to hear sound reasoning. For example: My neighbor who relies on food stamps to eat defended Trump on the grounds that he was doing good things for the economy, and cited the stock market as evidence. But the stock market is not the economy, and many Americans were living on the edge of disaster before the pandemic hit, and she sure doesn't have any money in the stock market! She runs out of money before the end of every month. When I said "but the racism" her answer was, "Obama was racist." I asked which of Obama's policies were racist, and she just said, "oh, come on, you know he's a racist." Another Trump supporter I talked with veered into a digression about how the Founding Fathers didn't care what color you were (40% of the people who helped write the US Constitution held slaves, but oh well).
You haven't seen a reasoning path that would lead you to support Trump. Have you seen one that helps you understand why someone else supports him? I haven't seen a path that would lead someone to support Trump that wasn't founded in untruths or misconceptions or a combination of the two.
If you see common sense in there anywhere, show it to me. If there are reasoned, reasonable grounds for supporting Trump, even if you don't agree with the view, you should be able to lay them out.
I really don't think that people repeating populist "thinking" are necessarily less intelligent. I think it's just as likely they've been induced to set aside intelligent reasoning in their voting choices. Either way, an assumption that their convictions indicate a basic lack of common sense and thus deserve to be treated with contempt, in this forum, is not going to change much.
One Shipmate shared one with me back then, privately, because that Shipmate detected that I would not react hysterically at the time to this information. The reasoning was not shared on the more visible parts of the Ship precisely because the Shipmate concerned felt that they would not get any kind of fair hearing on the question.
I have no idea whether the reasoning would be the same now after several years of actually experiencing Trump in office.
EDIT: And your demand is still fundamentally misconceived. If you feel that the only way to accept that a reasoning path is possible is to actually be shown one, right here and right now, then you are completely misunderstanding my point. That in no way demonstrates an openness to possibilities ahead of time.
I do talk to people who support the Tories, I live in an area that returns a Tory MP whatever scandal attaches to them, and the last two MPs have had a few, so unless I ignore most of my neighbours, I have to. I have tried to work out why they thought it was good idea, and often it is that they are convinced by what they read. It may have been in the Daily Mail, and it might take a lot of unpicking to point out that the Daily Mail often has a different view to other papers, and it isn't always supportable by research, by which time I've lost them as that's all too hard and too challenging. And I've probably been accused of being a wet lefty Guardian reader, with all the other epithets. But maybe just pointing out that not all papers are reliable is worth doing.
Who is "we"?
And there was lots of discussion of this in the wake of the 2016 election. I'm talking about the support Trump enjoys now, over three years later, when people are dying who didn't have to die.
You assert that it is possible that there is a reasoning path. I have looked and not found one. Maybe it's possible, but based on my experience, I'm dubious. So your assertion of the possibility that such a thing exists isn't going very far for me.
As to the first, that's kind of the point of the "if". It's conditional, not an acceptance as fact. As to the second, you won't hear me defending Blairism, but the tories supported the war, made the WCA worse and were advocating even worse policies towards asylum seekers. There is a strong "lesser of two evils" argument to supporting Labour even in 2005 and 2010 that simply does not apply the other way around with deploying "alternative facts". For myself I voted Green on both those occasions and SNP in 2015.
Could you expand on what a fair hearing looks like?
Excellent. I'm going to go watch TV.
Exactly. And the evidence is fairly convincing that they wouldn't.
I'm going to stick with empathy and join @orfeo in front of the TV for now.
A one-line dismissal that doesn't deal with the substance of my post. The irony is not lost on me.
I'm not sure I understand how this differs significantly from laws banning certain speech. The only difference I can see is in the specific consequences for persisting with that speech.
"Facile bullshit" is unpleasant, but it doesn't prevent the actual speech from happening.
Losing your livelihood because of an internet public shaming is unpleasant, but it doesn't stop the actual speech happening. Being put in jail is unpleasant, but it doesn't prevent the actual speech from happening.
If the consequences for expressing a certain opinion are sufficiently unpleasant that very few people will risk expressing it, does it really make a difference if those consequences are imposed via the government or via more direct means? I don't think so.
This is one of those areas where protecting our rights has failed to keep up with the march of technology. Even within my lifetime someone expressing an unpopular opinion in a social setting may have garnered immediate disapproval, but not to the extent that their livelihood could be threatened. Now all it takes is one of the people there to record them saying it and post it online and suddenly thousands or millions of people are calling for their head.
The only way someone could have no problem with that is if they genuinely think such opinions should never be expressed in public. And once you're at that point then it doesn't really matter if you use the machinery of state to impose negative consequences for expressing them or not, the result is the same.
What concerns me is exactly what @Lamb Chopped has been talking about. Now there are all sorts of issues I'm sure she and I disagree about; I'm equally sure we could have a sensible conversation about them. And that's what the Ship used to be great at. Maybe it's because we're all feeling the pressure of lockdown, but there seems to me to be a lot more hit and run posting than there used to be. Or are my rose tinted spectacles fogging up?
The question for us is why you made those choices? What did you do in 2019, by the way?
What can I assume? Or what might I be tempted to assume about your motivation? One, that you are a Scottish nationalist because both parties you support favour Scottish independence. Two, that Green is your preferred choice over the SNP, otherwise you would not have twice vote for a party that had little chance of winning. Three, given what we know about your values you are decisively on the left and have a great concern for the underdog. It is not too difficult to understand why you reject the Tories, because in your view they represent all you abhor.
A critic, however, might argue that your anti-Conservative prejudice is clouding your judgement, because the SNP for all its rhetoric and nationalist sentiment generally is prejudicial to addressing your social concerns. An independent Scotland would face the problem of having to increase taxes to sustain the present level of public spending, and joining the EU, (which is part of the independence package), involves signing up to the Euro, that will impose further fiscal constraints. The outcome would be a greater austerity than has been experienced, leaving the disadvantaged worse off. Furthermore, as a Green it seems strange to support a party that has taken on the liability of a redundant airport, though I suppose you might argue that an attraction of the SNP its current leadership has little interest in economic growth on which social progress depends. The critic might conclude that your social concern is bogus because your electoral choices betray a greater preference for nationalism and low, if not zero, growth than social justice. The preservation of the Union, the central plank of Scottish Conservatism, is the sine qua non for the rational left, whose tactical vote should be Tory in a two-horse race with the SNP. Indeed, you will find a number of Labour voters have started doing just that.
Assuming attitudes from voter choice is quite complicated. If one is really introspective one might question whether one's sincerely stated reasons for voting in a particular way are the decisive triggers.
Apart from the bizarre assertion that there is anything essential about the union, those are all factors that have weighed on my decision making. Certainly projecting the economic situation in an independent Scotland is difficult, but I've taken the view that a fairer country that is slightly poorer is a better deal for most folk than staying part of a more unfair country that is slightly richer. My preferences generally run decent UK government > decent independent Scottish government > decent devolved Scottish government. There are things I care about that require me to make a choice between Labour, Green and SNP, one of which is defeating the tories, because there is nothing I can think of that would be made better by having the tories in power, and certainly nothing that would justify the economic and social harm involved.
Prejudice implies a decision based on a lack on information. I have more than enough information about the tories to make a judgement.
My vote in 2019 was a tactical one for the SNP. I wanted to vote Labour, but the urgency of the Brexit situation meant keeping the tories out was more essential. I made the same calculation in 2015 with a less appealing Labour Party. Previously I voted in England where the Green Party is not the same and the constitutional issue was not relevant. There my goal was to send a message, however imperfectly, to Labour about how far to the right they had shifted. In every case my aim as been to achieve a "least worst" outcome in the short or long term. Where I struggle is that I cannot see how you can start from that goal and arrive at the idea that voting tory is the way to achieve it. It just doesn't add up.
Fair play to you. The question is what level of respect you're willing to give to those who, after equal consideration, decide in favour of a slightly richer country that is more unfair?
I suppose that would depend on what their motivations were - I suspect very few of them would be in favour of being personally poorer while the country was richer.
If they look at the constitutional question and reach the conclusion that Scots are going to marginally better off remaining with the UK even if we regularly get stuck with tory governments they'll get plenty of respect from me, so long as they're willing to aid in minimising the length and effects of those tory governments.
Yes, I should probably apologise for at least part of this. I was posting before coffee and engagement of higher processes, which is not a good idea.
However, I think there is value in drawing people's attention to the inherent bias created by treating all individual instances as unaffected by systemic conditions. In this case, class and associated political bias are a real thing on the macro, social level, and will affect interactions between individuals on boards like this. Deference and its structural effects are too well documented to be entirely ignored, or discounted when it comes to individual engagement.
And I'm afraid high-handed outrage comes over very little better than provocation in this respect. The possibility of human decency does not affect the nature of the opinions held by those decent human beings, and if those decent human beings can do nothing other than express personal outrage at attacks on their repugnant opinions, then debate becomes impossible because the opinion is always shielded behind the person, who according to Purg rules is beyond attack.
And, for the millionth time, X group does bad thing Y does not mean that every member of X group is teh evilz. It is shorthand for the effects of the group. This is a normal, human* form of communication.
*At least in English and Spanish. Other languages might vary.
That said, I think everyone thinks it's acceptable for nobody to hire someone who just can't do the work - even after reasonsble accommodation for disabilities. It's irrelevant systematic discrimination based on irrelevant traits that is objectionable. Whereas the act of offering a platform is relevant to the views to be expressed. People offer columns in newspapers partly because they can't say everything they want to say themselves.
As one of those who walked out of a bizarre parish situation, where an overbearing rector and his allies made quite certain that any thrashing out of issues was one-sided (i.e., objectors and their ideas got thrashed) and walking away was a simple survival mechanism (I've had friends who have done the same in political situations), I'm not sure I agree. Religious organizations are not built for thrashing things through, but rather seem to be designed for either convincing/beating down the opposition or not dealing with the issue at hand-- the Quakers have a good approach with waiting until the meeting was of one mind, but we are not so patient these days.
As far as Brexit or even Trump goes, I have long thought that these affiliations were based on how people viewed and affirmed their identities, and had little to do with the policy specifics at hand. This makes "resolving" the issue or convincing anyone to be difficult and perhaps a fantastic notion. I have read little which has changed my mind, but I have often found that shipmates' articulations of their positions informative. As Tanita Tikaram once sang, "different things are good for me."
Where the ship may have foundered perhaps has been in how traditionally-oriented ecclesiastical positions have sometimes been received with party-line hostility. I recall my dissent with how some Canadian Lutherans were treating their agreement with Anglicans was called "hateful." I just dropped out of the discussion, as I saw little point in arguing such language. Perhaps I should have taken my interlocutor to Hell... next time. I have noted that there are fewer obviously-RC shipmates posting. However, I have noted that some of their boards are fading as well. Perhaps it is the demographics speaking, or they have taken to heart Pope Frank's suggestion to shy away from internet debates.
But this is exactly the point. You say, "If you see common sense in there anywhere, show it to me. If there are reasoned, reasonable grounds for supporting Trump, even if you don't agree with the view, you should be able to lay them out." Yes indeed. But that kind of discussion isn't going to happen if we stick our fingers in our ears, go "la la la" and declare them (every single one of them!) to be "enemies of common sense" and therefore not worth responding to as human beings.
Look, I've listened to the Trump supporters too, and I have them in the family, and I understand the temptation to bash your own eardrums in so as not to hear one more word on the subject. But that isn't going to change them. Maybe nothing will change them--but maybe I'm wrong on that, and the only way to find out is by talking. Discussing. Refuting all the bullshit and attempting to see if there is any good thing left at the bottom when we're done. And giving them the opportunity to explore our positions in return, which they consider to be bullshit but may (through exposure--and NOT flippant dismissal) actually come to consider as something that makes sense for them, too.
You spoke of "enemies of common sense." Perhaps they are. Perhaps not. But we don't have to treat them as personal enemies on the Ship--people so far beneath contempt that we talk over them, past them, never to them, except to fling a passing insult.
No need to apologise to me. I felt bad that it was your particular post I picked on to make the point. But whatever...
I'm suggesting neither provocation NOR high-handed outrage. I'm suggesting logical debate. If a person shows up with an utterly indefensible position, very well; it will take that much less time to demolish it. If they turn up to have some smidgen of sense somewhere in the midst of the dross, kudos to whoever uses logical, thought-out back and forth to rescue that smidgen of sense and bring it to daylight.
It is far, far better to interact with the real people themselves, be they Trump supporters, conservatives, Republicans or Orcs from Mordor, than it is to fling passing class-wide insults at a caricature of them as we pass on by.
There are thousands of people out there who have not been told what transgender people find offensive and do not move in places where they will encounter them. Being ignorant of what is offensive is not the same as being deliberately offensive, something the liberal-minded need to be reminded of.
The reaction of someone who is inadvertently offensive and finds out would be horror tinged with embarrassment followed by fulsome apologies. If that is what happens then I don't think you're going to get large numbers of people calling for their head. Thing is, people opining on trans issues on twitter generally know exactly what they're saying and how offensive they're being.
First, by all means, draw attention to systemic bias and deference issues and whatever you like. This would make a great thread topic. I've got nothing against that.
And if you do find a poster who holds opinions you find repugnant, and who refuses to engage in debate, choosing rather to shriek and clutch his/her pearls? Call the idiot to Hell. That is what Hell is for. Or if you prefer to be a little more merciful on a given occasion, point out on the wannabe debate thread in Purg that they ARE in fact doing this, and refusing to offer any reasons for their opinions, and let the rest of the Purg denizens besiege them with requests for evidence, facts, logic. That's what Purg is for.
It is not possible for someone to last forever on the Ship who does nothing but spew repugnant opinions and, when challenged, howl "You're oppressing me! I refuse to give you any explanation, data or logic to support my position!" Such a person will wind up challenged, then in Hell, and certainly under hostly/Adminly discipline sooner or later. You won't have to endure them long.
But during the brief time you DO endure them, your attempt to lure them into a reasonable discussion (as opposed to a mutual slinging of facile one liners) just might might MIGHT work a miracle, and get them to reconsider. Which would be worth it, don't you think?
(And hey, failing all else, you will at least have the right to say, "Oh yeah, I once debated an actual breathing [fill in despised group HERE] and this is what they were like"--instead of taking the Daily whatever's caricature of said group, as so many do.)
Yes.
Fixed quoting code. BroJames Purgatory Host
For starters such things vary between cultures. Calling someone "coloured" in the UK makes you look ancient and clueless at best and racist at worst. In South Africa (if I've understood correctly) it remains the accepted term for certain mixed heritage populations. The use of certain vulgar terms for female anatomy vary substantially in how severely they are regarded, and whether they're considered misogynistic or merely rude, including by many women. I would consider it a matter of courtesy to try and be aware of such things, and to accept with good grace if one makes a mistake and is corrected, but demanding that everyone keep track of evolving attitudes to language without error is asking a bit much.
It depends what you mean by "OK with" doesn't it?
What you are presented with at an election is a choice between (usually) two options. What I find myself doing (at least, when I could vote - I haven't actually been able to vote anywhere for more than a decade) is choosing the least bad of the viable options presented to me.
This doesn't mean that I'm OK with everything on the manifesto of the party I vote for, let alone any non-manifesto action they may have taken or be expected to take - it means that I think that they are, in total, better than the other choice. That's rather a different statement than "OK with".
If you present me a choice between the leopards-eating-people's-faces party and the spaniels-chewing-people's-ankles party, I'm going to vote for the doggies. That doesn't mean in any sense that I'm OK with ankle-chewing - I just think it's better than face-eating.
If those are my choices, then what I should do is vote for whichever of the two I think does least harm, and then campaign publicly against any kind of animal chewing body parts, and hope to attract enough support for my no-chewing-of-body-parts campaign that one or both parties changes their policy.
Sure, but given the enormities perpetrated by the tories I have great difficulty imagining what could possibly lead you to regard them as the lesser evil. By "ok with it" I simply mean "either approve or don't care enough to put it ahead of something else they want".