Should a group that considers itself to be inclusive of others to the largest extent possible tolerate the company of a person who acts divisively, intentionally excluding certain other people in the group from activities that they organize through that group?
If you call yourself inclusive of others, you should include everyone, regardless of their effect on others in the group. Obviously there will be limits; someone that is hostile to the interests of the group as a whole clearly would not be welcome, but does that extend to people who intentionally undermine the inclusiveness of the group by intentionally excluding others? Should the group bend to the divisive person’s will of excluding a certain person from activities they organize under the group’s banner, or should the person bend to the will of the group and be forced to be inclusive if they organize such events?
I’m going to guess that the answer for most people will depend on just why someone would be divisive with respect to the group’s activities, but in general assume that there’s just one particular person that someone has decided on an arbitrary basis to exclude someone. I’m thinking of things like “I don’t like people born on February 12” or similar traits that no one either understands the enmity behind or agrees with the person’s characterization as including that trait. I’m not particularly interested in justifiable reasons for excluding people (bad hygiene, for example), as they could be reasons the whole group might exclude someone. Consider just the case where one person doesn’t like some particular person but would have no reason to believe that such a basis would cause anyone else to not like them.
This is going to be so dependent on the situation that it’s nearly impossible to answer in a hypothetical.
In general though, the group has to maintain itself. If someone is intentionally being hostile and causing others to leave, for the good of the group that person needs to go, no matter how inclusive the group as a whole would wish to be.
The rule of thumb I’ve always followed is that when a person deliberately undermines the “mission” of the group, it’s time to go. Persons who attempt to divide the group (e.g., by shutting other members out) usually fall into that category.
The classic example of this is when conservatives try to charge liberals with being hypocrites, because, while liberals favor diversity and inclusion, they reject and exclude bigots, who, themselves, argue vigorously for the rejection and exclusion of gays, or blacks, or women, or Jews, or Muslims, or immigrants, or people who open the wrong end of their soft-boiled eggs.
No, there is no hypocrisy in an inclusive group rejecting a would-be member who holds exclusivist views, nor in such a group rejecting a troublemaker of any other stripe.
The miracle is how incredibly inclusive a great many groups actually are. A typical Universalist-Unitarian church will take in nearly anyone who isn’t actively brandishing a tulwar at the moment.
Now I want to know what a tulwar is (I’m provisionally leaning toward some sort of edged weapon, but not ruling out a cudgel).
Grin! Sort of like a scimitar or a cutlass: a curved-blade sword.
Here’s a mean-lookin’ one.
This really sounds like a situation caused by a combination of theGeek Social Fallacies, so you might want to read over those.
What you’ve stepped into here is a variation on the classic freedom paradox:
We all agree that everyone should be free, totally free to do anything they want, period, end of story.
Umm, except of course infringe on the freedom of someone else.
So should we have mechanisms and means for stopping people from infringing on the freedom of anyone else? Of course such mechanisms by their very nature have to infringe on the freedom of those who are doing the infringing. Well, what if there’s abuse, and the people who are allegedly infringing only on the freedom of those infringing on the freedom of others are actually infringing on the freedom of people who are not infringing on anyone else’s freedom?
In practice, I think it is important to define one’s group. Even if your group selfdef is “anyone who likes to hang out and party” and you intend to accept anyone without prejudice, this gives you a vantage point from which to say “Umm, this person who has come here amongst us in order to stop the party and make everyone disperse is doing things in violation of what we’re here for” and ask them to leave.
I detest groups that create a zillion rules and a long list of designated infractions in the name of creating a “safe place” for people. They nearly always devolve into autocracies or plutocracies governed by the rule-enforcers and cheered on by a few bootlickers. Short simple descriptions of purpose should be sufficient.
But within the limits of that disclaimer, I think that much is useful. If you’ve gathered in order to be a support group or social group or political group or whatever, you should tolerate a wide range of differences but you should not be expected to tolerate and include someone whose actions or statements indicate an intention to trash the entire agenda that you’ve gathered for.
Wow. I’m surprised I’ve not seen that before, given it’s been around over a decade.
A number of people have commented on this with the impression that I’m talking about someone who is intentionally trying to break the entire group apart or something similar. I’ve referring mainly to when it’s just one person who doesn’t tolerate one specific other person for what are effectively arbitrary reasons.
I’ve been on both sides of this experience multiple times, and the number of groups that it’s happened with has nearly caused me to withdraw from society, as absolutely every group seems to take exactly the opposite tack as me when dealing with problems like this in their group. If someone doesn’t like me and constantly excludes me, it’s obviously my fault, I should deal with it. If I don’t like someone, I’m forced to deal with them even though I don’t want to, and it’s my fault I don’t like them.
Basically, it’s always my fault. I’ve already given up and effectively stopped trying, because I’ll always do the wrong thing.
This story seems to have real-life relevance to the OP - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/05/ukip-banned-from-gay-pride-march-after-partys-inclusion-stokes-anger - in which the UK Independence Party (bit like the US Tea Partiers - right-wing business interests under the guise of grass-roots activism) were disallowed from joining the Gay Pride march in London, the organisers of which are inevitably framed as the ‘real’ bigots.
Though in this case it seems like an obvious PR stunt - if they’re allowed to march, UKIP gain Inclusivity points - if not, they can play the martyr.
