Yes, you were. You were clearly saying “mere bigotry” is something the “minority” posters should get over. Like peanut allergy sufferers. And your expanded argument is that it is not as bad as physical violence or calls to violence. That is you making the emotional argument that we shouldn’t have rules about outright bigotry on this message board because it’s not real world violence.
Really bringing up violence as a comparison was the red herring.
But why is articulating bigotry a mere but an anti Semitic slur not?
This is sort of not really the argument I was trying to convey. If I had to condense it to a sentence, minority posters should avoid bigoted threads like people with allergies avoid their allergies. ‘Get over it’ is not what I want you to take away from what I am saying, avoidance is.
This is not accurate, and if I did make that argument, it is a red herring and I rescind it.
~Max
They are both “mere”, but using the fact that calls for violence and actual violence are more dangerous than bigoted language does not support the conclusion that bigoted language is okay. That is a fallacious argument.
~Max
In what other ways are peanuts like bigotry? Not many, is my guess.
We are trying to decide how offensive we are allowed to be on this message board. You don’t want to change how bigoted we’re allowed to be. Talking about violence is rather purposeful distraction from that conversation. Most pointedly so, when you seem to want to keep it up.
Probably not many. I made the analogy expressly to argue for avoidance, if people are offended because bigotry triggers them.
Very well, let’s drop it. The word “mere” is nonessential in my [POST=22025322]post #590[/POST], and I have disavowed the tu quoque that I didn’t intend to make in the first place.
~Max
Here’s the thing though - if I am peanut allergic avoiding is an of course.
Expressions of bigotry though are bullying behaviors and bullying behaviors demand clear responses that they are disapproved of by the entire community, in the real world and in virtual environments.
If someone in my workplace says something racist my leaving the room and allowing it to be said unchallenged is wrong. As boss or manager if I know workers are saying racist or sexist things in the lunch room I have an obligation to police it so that we do not have a hostile work environment.
Which is this more like? A notice that peanuts may be served here or that?
Which won’t keep them from being driven off by* other *liberals who feel the need to punish people for not deferring to the Right. A common behavior here and elsewhere.
The “articulation of ideas” is exactly how on a forum or in a society calls for violence, and then violence itself become acceptable. This is a long-standing conscious tactic of the Right to normalize their beliefs and then make them dominant.
In other words, be driven away so the bigots can take full control of discourse and push their beliefs more openly. And avoiding the bigots won’t work when the bigots kick down their doors and shoot them; which is the endpoint of that pattern.
Are all expressions of bigotry “bullying behaviors” that demand a clear response of disapproval from the entire community? What is your argument supporting that conclusion? I don’t think someone can be an unintentional bully, but I do think someone can be an unintentional bigot, or a bigot who doesn’t wish harm upon others.
I think your workplace analogy fails just like my meeting-of-friends analogy fails. A workplace never wants racism, just like a friend does not serve another friend food they are allergic to. But trendy restaurants serve foods with allergens, and a board dedicated to fighting ignorance presumably will have a space to fight bigotry.
~Max
I’m glad you responded to me, Der Trihs. If I had to choose a member that I understood the least, I think I might choose you. I am very interested in what you have to say.
The general argument that I get from you is that bigotry drives away normal posters, and if we continue to allow bigotry we will lose all of our sensible members and only the bigots will be left. If only the bigots are left, that means people will think bigotry is normal and then they will go and start putting bigoted ideas into action, which is harmful. That is obviously bad and counter to fighting ignorance, therefore we should censor bigotry.
Before I continue, please let me know if I have accurately described your opinion.
~Max
This is seriously ridiculous. We are talking about the rules on this message board, making this message board a better place for conversation. There is no way we are talking about conversations here being directly culpable for “putting bigoted ideas into action”. I seriously doubt DSeid was arguing that - in this thread he is stopping around “only the bigots will be left”.
This is a very suspicious push in direction of the conversation you seem to keep up, even as we “drop” the one from four posts ago.
Uggh, I see you were responding to Der Trih. Regardless, even if that’s what he meant, both of you would be being ridiculous in that case. We aren’t changing the world. We’re talking about changing the environment here.
I was quoting Der Trihs, not DSeid. Neither did I mention “conservatives”, I explicitly left that out of my response.
~Max
Max S. - I’m not allergic to bigotry, I believe it is an evil we should do without. You’re using the wrong analogy - bigotry isn’t an allergy, it’s a virus. Like measles.
Is your advice that the immunocompromised should just never ever go anywhere while the anti-vaxxers get to romp around willy-nilly? Because that just ends in lots more people dying. Or should the community protect its vulnerable members, vaccinate freely, and make the deliberate plague-enthusiasts the pariahs instead?
Yes, all (at least public) expressions of bigotry are bullying behaviors and demand a clear response of disapproval from the community.
Like other bullies bigots often do not think of themselves as bullying. They see themselves as the enforcers of what they believe are the norms, punishing outliers for the good of the group and/or as performance art to elevate their status within the group.
As in all bullying situations a bystander is forced to make a choice. Object or reinforce the behavior either by action or by inaction. Let’s make that absolutely clear: a bystander doing nothing is a choice, a choice that reinforces the bullying behavior.
Workplaces historically often DID not only allow but even want racism and sexism. And it took SCOTUS in 1986 (Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson) declaring that creating a hostile work environment against a class of workers (in that case specifically women) is NOT protected free speech and is not allowed.
Your last analogy is frankly specious.
The question is if this “trendy restaurant” is to serve bigotry as part of its menu at all, and if it is will minimally be very clear that the ingredients are are allowed only in very specific dishes and that strong guidelines are followed to prevent cross-contamination. Except we aint so trendy, so maybe better to say if this lunchroom will allow those eating there to bring in bigotry and jelly sandwiches from home, and if so do they need to stay at a specific clearly identified bigotry-allowed table or will the others be restricted to the labelled bigotry-free table.
Where that analogy fails is merely that there is great disagreement over whether any specific sandwich contains bigotry or not.
MrDibble,
Unfortunately your bigotry is a virus/anti-vaxxer analogy makes the exact opposite point you want it to. Given that our society has them, the most important things for us to accomplish are addressing the fears so that most are immunized, and to prevent them from clustering and reaching any local critical mass. The key always is herd immunity. As a pediatrician I engage with the more common vaccine hesitant parents. Any anti-vaxxer beliefs won’t infect me and I do have a real number of parents who end up getting their kids immunized who would not have if I had not engaged. That is the way to prevent deaths, you aim to get enough immunized so you have herd immunity levels. By your virus/anti-vaxxer analogy the question is to which degree this place is as unto is a school in which are onus is on protecting a vulnerable population by prohibiting attendance by those not up to date on their vaccines, and to what degree we are more like my office where the onus is on administering the vaccines and on educating parents about their safety, efficacy, and need?
OK, so if I’m understanding this analogy with antivaxers correctly:
The Dope is like a virtual doctor’s office, in which those infected with unpleasant or dangerous ideas can pass on their viruses to those whose mental armor is insufficient to resist them, resulting in intellectual impairment and/or emotional distress. Engaging with the infected (bigots) will immunize at least some against the harmful ideas, but allowing any of them in the virtual waiting room (i.e. as Dope members) poses an unacceptable risk to communal mental health.
Makes sense, I suppose. It’s why I hardly ever read letters to the editor or comments sections anymore. :smack::eek:
Yes. It’s not simply a Straight Dope issue, it’s something happening across our entire society. With great success on the part of the bigots. The bigots have largely taken over public discourse as well as the government, and are making major inroads towards putting their bigotry into action.
Seems to me that it’s nigh on impossible not to be with Jenny and likewise - not to be with Johanna.
If you are immunocompromised and there is a measles outbreak, my advice (and I am not a doctor) is to avoid unnecessary exposure to people who might have measles and see a doctor if you notice a rash. If you are on immunoglobulin replacement therapy, I don’t think vaccination is as effective, but the IG therapy provides some protection. Also, people with immunodeficiencies might actually become infected from live-attenuated vaccines such as with MMR. That leaves avoidance (and IG therapy, if indicated).
If you must compare bigotry to a viral disease, what exactly does that make the Straight Dope? But I think DSeid answered that question very well.
~Max
So, for example let’s say someone posted “It is immoral to marry a widow; widows ought not to remarry”. Such a position reasonably leads to and demonstrably has resulted in widows committing suicide (cite: Neo-Confucianism). Do you think the post is bigoted (sexist)? I do. Do you think the post constitutes bullying? I do not necessarily think it is bullying.
My definition of bullying requires malice. An unintentional bully is very much an oxymoron to me. But someone who hasn’t thought their position through may not realize that their way of thinking, if made commonplace or put in to action, would necessarily cause harm. Mix in a little ignorance, and a person can think widow chastity is moral while widow suicide is immoral.
Or perhaps, they think of themselves as using sound logic to reach the truth or achieve some moral good. Not only might a bigot see “punishing outliers” as a necessary evil, they might not see themselves as punishing anybody at all.
As another example, I don’t think somebody who presents arguments for a racial theory of intelligence necessarily thinks they are enforcing any norms or punishing any outliers for the good of some group, or engaging in performance art. They could see themselves as telling an inconvenient truth. It’s on the rest of us to shoot down those arguments.
That is an excellent criticism. Many of the great debates of our time, and lots of politics, and lots of mundane thoughts, and lots of humble opinions, and lots of art, are based on or influenced by bigotry.
So since we’re rolling with the specious analogy of a restaurant that serves trendy foods, I think I’ll make some of those customers allergic to eggs. The restaurant doesn’t decide what foods are trendy - the population at large does. Many of the popular foods require eggs, so many that it is impractical to create an egg-free menu and still be serving trendy foods (an egg-free menu would scare away customers).
There are multiple ways to deal with this. One way is to split the restaurant in two, one side with eggs and one side without. This would be like designating certain forums for bigotry (alternatively, designating certain forums as safe spaces). The downside is that you have segregated your restaurant/message board.
Another way is to clearly mark the menu items that may contain eggs. Unfortunately lots of dishes may contain eggs. The customer can also ask the waiter/waitress whether a particular dish contains eggs. You can also let a customer with an allergy to ask for a dish to be made without the eggs (if possible).
I am not sure if that can or should be replicated on this message board. I am very much reminded of that scene from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life where the couple orders a conversation from the menu.
~Max