Bigotry allowed, pointing it out forbidden

About This Message Board
61

No, it derives from a failure of tolerance. At least from my point of view.

Terms such as ‘bigot’ and ‘racist’ are freighted with huge emotional weight. That weight is such that the use of them in debate renders further debate untenable. Hence I dislike seeing them pop up in Great Debates. Even when used to describe an argument or point of view they invariably become connected with the poster and can therefore be interpreted as a means by which to insult or demean said poster. At a minimum they can become ad hominen - and that’s no good in Great Debates at all.

In short, Tom and I seem to be in agreement. Find a workaround.

62

It’s ironic that you would critcize “armchair psychologist” as part of your defense of the practice of calling people bigots. I appreciate that you’re attempting to forstall that criticism by saying the criticism is “incorrect” when directed at you. But it’s ironic nonetheless.

But I do agree with your apparent position that it’s all about whether the “armchair phychologizing” is correct or incorrect in a given case. Personally, I think the notion that people yelling “bigot!” are motivated by the desire to intimidate and personally discredit their opponents is generally on stronger grounds than the claim that such opponents are motivated by bigotry. YMMV.

63

It’s true that some posters are associated with racism and bigotry. What’s funny is you think that’s the fault of people pointing out their racism and bigotry.

64

I think post #9 is under-inflated.

65

How is that any different than merely asserting something is bigoted?

66

The point is that a bigoted argument is by definition wrong, just like a superstitious argument, whereas an assholish or cruel argument could be right or wrong. Similarly, there is a moral dimension to accusations of both bigotry and ignorance.

The most you can say for a ban on observing that an argument is bigoted is that bigotry carries marginally more of a moral dimension than observations of ignorance or superstition. But I don’t think that’s categorically true. It would depend on the kind of bigotry and the kind of superstition/ignorance. I think being an anti-vaxer probably carries more moral opprobrium than, say, being a person who thinks all fat people are lazy.

You can argue that accusations of bigotry are used as a tool to shut down debate, but it’s not really true. What usually happens when someone is called a bigot is that an argument ensues over whether or not they are, in fact, a bigot. That can be as useful as any other discussion, focusing on much the same issues that would have been addressed in the absence of the label (which would be part of the subtext anyway).

The concern about the PC police shutting down discourse by pointing out prejudice is, as ever, vastly inflated.

67

Both calling something an assholish argument or a bigoted argument is a comment on the person making the argument.

Bigotry as defined assumes either intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself or an unfair dislike of other people or ideas, right? It’s a lazy shortcut assuming facts not in evidence. If the facts of the matter are available, they should be able to be presented without relying on the shortcut that more often than not is used as a way to disparage the person making the argument.

68

If by “wrong” you mean “untrue”, then no, it isn’t. Which is what I have mentioned in the past.

That is what I am talking about - the debate about whether or not it is true ends, because the accusation of bigotry takes it for granted that the argument proposed is untrue. So AFAICT it is really true.

That is, you are correct in stating that it does not shut down debate - it merely derails the original debate and starts another.

IOW, this -

[QUOTE=Jonathan Chance]
No, it derives from a failure of tolerance. At least from my point of view.

Terms such as ‘bigot’ and ‘racist’ are freighted with huge emotional weight. That weight is such that the use of them in debate renders further debate untenable.
[/QUOTE]

Regards,
Shodan

69

Suppose you argue that people should never walk under ladders, because your uncle did once and he was diagnosed with cancer the very next day. We could say that your argument is an unwarranted causal inference. Or we could label you superstitious. The latter certainly does carry some meaning beyond you having made an error of logic. It connotes a certain mistaken worldview about how events are connected. So in that sense we are taking a “lazy shortcut assuming facts not in evidence” about your worldview and also making a comment about the person as well as the argument.

So does that mean we ought not label such observations as superstitious if we are in GD? I think that restriction would hamper rather than enhance discourse. It would ask us to ignore the root cause of the disagreement, which lies in some more fundamental premises about the world. So I think you have to explain why observing that an argument is bigoted is different. It is not different because of the assumptions it makes or because of the reflection on the worldview of the person making the argument–both are true for lots of observations about arguments that are permitted in GD. It must be different because it is somehow more insulting or more discourse-destroying. I don’t see that either thing is categorically true.

It’s a little hard to follow this in the abstract (but that might just be my Irish genes). I think what generally happens is something like this:

Poster A: American Catholics are inherently less intelligent on average than other people.
Poster B: That’s just anti-Catholic bigotry. American Catholics aren’t even a distinct genetic population. Plus, there is no statistical evidence for this.
Poster A: No, it isn’t bigotry. Some of my best friends are Catholics. And they are a distinct genetic population, even if the borders are murky, because of the history of the spread of Catholicism in the world and the history of immigration to the US. And the statistical evidence is surprisingly robust
Poster B: But they are only a distinct population in the way that any arbitrary grouping would be, and you’ve grouped them this way to analyze their intelligence only because of the history of anti-Catholic sentiment in which you are participating.

Etc.

Without the narrative about bigotry, the argument might have played out pretty similarly. But the bigotry discussion also (potentially) gets are part of the disagreement in a way that might not get addressed otherwise–in this case, why the poster is grouping American Catholics together for analysis in the first place.

70

Which is fine, except you left off the next steps.
Poster A: It’s not an arbitrary grouping, it reflects historical migrations, and here is the evidence that leads me to conclude this. Would you like to address the statistical evidence?
Poster B: That’s a bigoted statement, therefore it is wrong. Why do you hate Catholics? Why does the board allow bigotry?
Poster A: Here is a study that gives evidence of what I have said. It shows that, on average, self-identifed Catholics have about 80% of their genetic background in common. Here is another study that shows that self-identifed Catholics have negative outcome X, and the evidence of the study indicates that it is not entirely caused by anti-Catholic bias.
Poster B: There is no such thing as Catholicism.
Poster A: What about the studies?
Poster B: You said “Catholic” and you meant “Roman Catholic”. Therefore everything you said is wrong.
Poster A: But what about the studies?
Poster B: There is no distinct group known as Catholics. This is proven by the history of the Avignon Papacy. When did you start to hate Catholics? Why are you so bigotted? I think the mods should not allow these kinds of threads.

Etc.

Regards,
Shodan

71

The problem with your example is that both sides agree about the basis for the assertion, and the only question is whether this should be labeled superstitious. That’s not the case here. An analogous case involving ladders would be:

Poster A: No one should walk under ladders because such-and-such study once proved that it’s dangerous.
Poster B: That study is bogus, so you’re obviously just motivated by superstition. Probably your uncle once walked under a latter and got hurt.
Poster A: No, I’m not, I happen to think this is a valid study.

Don’t see where it adds a lot.

72

The above two posts show that sometimes accusations of bigotry or superstition can be unwarranted or unhelpful. I agree. Indeed, I’d say the former is wrong at least half the time.

But so what? That’s true of lots of observations about arguments that happen freely in GD. Probably the worst offenders are posters who label everything as motivated by partisanship. I’ve seen that derail far more threads than accusations of bigotry. If there isn’t something about accusations of bigotry that make them uniquely insulting or derailing then they ought not be treated differently.

73

Well for my part, I’m not really interested in arguing about SDMB rules. My purpose here is just to comment about the role in threads that accusations of bigotry generally play. The mods can decide how they want to deal with it.

74

I think the term is loaded. You identify it above, that it makes a comment about the person as well as the argument. I think it makes a comment more about the person than the argument, but YMMV. The idea is that there should not be a need to make a comment about the person to refute the argument. In your example, the same conversation could be had without the commentary on bigotry - that line of discussion offers no informative value to argument pro or con.

I feel similarly about accusations of racism that are thrown around haphazardly. It’s lazy and intended to stifle rather than further debate.

75

Of course lazy accusations of bigotry are bad. Just like lazy accusations of partisan hypocrisy, or lazy accusations of superstition, or lazy accusations of cognitive bias, or lazy accusations of poor reading comprehension. None of those add to the discussion, even when they are limited to observations about a particular statement or argument.
But that doesn’t mean that warranted discussions of bigotry don’t exist or have no value.

And, sure, even genuinely bigoted claims can be dissected without reference to their history, motivations, and larger implications. Similarly, we could address 9/11 Truthers or Anti-Vaxers with strictly limited discussions of metallurgy and herd immunity alone. But we don’t. And that’s because, often, there is value in discussing the larger contexts.

So maybe it does come down to whether discussions of bigotry are more often lazy and unhelpful than other similar accusations. I suspect any personal sense on that issue (from any of us) owes much to confirmation bias and views on the merits of various social and political issues, rather than the actual trend of lazy accusations and derailings.

Is it really necessary to preemptively moderate derailing rather than waiting for a couple more posts to see whether any particular discussion of bigotry remains on topic or not?

76

You know, I thought of truthers or anti-vaxers when I was trying to think of an example but thought they weren’t on point because I kind of agree with using those labels. Confirmation bias indeed.

In any case, regarding the portion I quote above, I don’t think there is a preemptive moderation going on. At the point where Tom stepped in there was already derailment. His instruction pertained to that one thread alone so I don’t see a big issue there.

77

With respect, that huge emotional weight derives from the harm caused by bigotry and racism. If bigotry and racism were forbidden from the board, it might make sense to avoid labeling them. But allowing bigoted, racist arguments makes sense, within the board’s mission of fighting ignorance; ignorance has to be exposed before it can be fought.

At the same time, if folks make these emotionally fraught arguments, blame should not be placed on those who label the arguments. The emotional harm caused by (for example) telling members of the board that they belong to an intellectually inferior race, or telling members of the board that their sexual preference renders them unfit to marry the person they love, is incontrovertibly worse than the harm caused by telling members of the board that they are making bigoted arguments.

Uh, no it’s not. A bigoted argument is an argument that falls without the assumption of inferiority of a specific class of people, when that assumption is unwarranted. There’s no psychology involved except the psychology involved in assuming people are using words in a standard fashion.

That’s not my position.

Exactly. Calling someone a member of an inferior race, even if done with scientific-sounding language, even if done in a putatively impersonal manner, is much more of a problematic debate tactic than pointing out that an argument rests on the unwarranted assumption of inferiority of a particular class of people.

Saying something is assholish is saying it’s the thing an asshole would say. It’s not specific; it’s not necessarily pointing out a flaw in an argument. As someone earlier said, an assholish argument can also be correct. A bigoted argument, by definition, cannot be correct, and calling the argument bigoted is pointing out the specific kind of flaw from which it suffers.

Again, it’s not the end of the argument. Unless it’s bleedin obvious in what way an argument is bigoted, the charge against the argument should be supported. But when you’re offering such support, it’s a perfectly valid complaint to make about someone’s argument. And any moral tinge to the charge is a tinge actually attached to making that sort of argument.

78

There was no derailment going on. The closest anyone came to a derailment is when jtgain offered this bit:

If he’d been modded for this snide content-free snippery, I could understand that. But he wasn’t, and I understand that as well.

The next part of what he said was perfectly on-point:

Here, he’s claiming that while his argument shared a superficial similarity to recognized bigoted arguments, those similarities are irrelevant and do not indicate that his arguments are similarly bigoted. This is a perfectly valid rebuttal to charges of bigotry. Claims that charges of bigotry can’t be rebutted are clearly wrong.

Of course, if Tom hadn’t stepped in to quash discussion, the next step for someone convinced this was bigotry would be to build a case that, yes, the similarities are relevant. And of course, this line of discussion is perfectly relevant to a thread about ending a specific sort of discrimination, inasmuch as the discrimination treats one class of people as inferior to another. If that treatment is unfounded, then the discrimination is bigotry and should be opposed.

The question of whether these laws–and the arguments that support them–are bigoted goes to the heart of the thread. Quashing discussion of it out of fear that some people will have their feelings hurt (or, as Tom so charmingly implies, out of fear that they’ll be murdered by racist gangs) is pointless and creates, instead of negates, derailment.

79

Saying something is bigoted is saying it’s the thing a bigot would say. It’s not specific; it’s not necessarily pointing out a flaw in an argument. It does not point out the specific kind of flaw from which the argument suffers.

If it did that, there would be no need to use the label - a person could simply point out the specific kind of flaw from which the argument suffers. What value does calling the argument or person making the argument a bigot add?

I’m not sure if I accept that a bigoted argument is by definition wrong - unless you are using a non standard definition. Here’s what I get from Google: “Having or revealing an obstinate belief in the superiority of one’s own opinions and a prejudiced intolerance of the opinions of others.” Nothing in that definition speaks to rightness or wrongness.

80

The irony is deep