I don’t think I’ll ever be able to come to terms with positions not based on consistent principles. The idea that something is grotesque and awful as long as a certain group is doing it, but it’s perfectly acceptable if another group is doing it. This fluidity of ethics is utterly baffling.
I’m honestly sorry you feel that way. I wish I could make it easier for you. But I think you’re looking through a lens that is fundamentally causing you active distress.
For my part, at least, my principles are as biased, skewed, and inconsistent as anyone’s. But I strive to recognize that I don’t get to determine how someone else feels, or ought to feel, and I try very hard to remain consistent about that. My arguing that older white men have dominated and continue to dominate the cultural zeitgeist–and are not the most helpful narrators of the experiences of those not like them–is not IME racist, ageist, or sexist. Your mileage may vary.
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Nobody is experienced at understanding those who are not like them. For every hurt feeling there are several possibilities which can be boiled down to: 1) the person was wronged, 2) the person is acting irrationally by feeling hurt, 3) a mixture of both.
Your position would only exclude old white males from arguing from a position where he does not have complete knowledge and always assumes that #1 is the only reason someone could be hurt.
My feelings have been hurt many times in my life. Was it always the other person’s fault especially if the person who offended me is from a different racial group? Do you all even listen to yourself?
That’s one hell of job of parsing from a statement where someone says sarcastically that he or she would be fascinated to hear from old white males.
If I said, “Oh great! Now we get to hear from the lesbians in the room” wouldn’t you think that I was dismissing the opinion of someone because she was a lesbian or would you interpret that to mean that lesbians should only have a fair (how much is that?) portion of opinions in the conversation?
I agree. All the more reason to cultivate awareness of one’s own biases and step back when discussing things that we have no understanding of.
Fine. But I don’t get to determine whether or not someone was “really” wronged, or rather someone’s feelings are irrational. Especially when I don’t have a real understanding of their life.
I’m sorry. That sucks, and it’s never a good feeling.
What, what? I’m not blaming anyone for hurting your feelings. Nor am I blaming you for feeling hurt. I’m acknowledging your very real, very legitimate pain, and I’m not calling you irrational for feeling it.
Very often. Not as often as I might like. But I’m trying, Ringo.
eta: It occurs to me that I may have hurt your feelings with my previous sarcasm. You have my sincere apologies; it was out of line and unnecessary, and I totally understand your feeling hurt.
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This makes such insanely good sense, I can’t understand how some people have abandoned the concept.
From what I can tell though, it’s simply a matter of grievance against whites manifesting itself in permissibility in mistreatment. Because whites, the idea goes, have been in power for a very long time and have engaged in terrible acts (slavery, for one), normal ethical mores do not apply when dealing with them. Racism, for example. This is my best understanding.
Gosh, I read that so differently! I read it as pointing out that old white guys pontificating about women and their “equality issues” and how it is either a. impossible or b. has already happened so why are they still whining, has a certain familiar ring to it. Being as they have always had no problem speaking for our experience, our interests, our opinions, our needs.
But I am sure you’re right and I’m wrong, because I’m just one of the people being talked about.
Let’s step back. I was responding to one of the examples in the OP. Imagine I am a white guy who works at a place and I have a female boss. In my estimation, she is abusive, unfair, and makes the workplace one that I do not look forward to coming to because of her.
I go to her supervisor to complain. She tells him that my complaints are unfounded and makes the startling accusation that I simply cannot take directives from a female.
Now, she has made a personal accusation against me which, if true, should probably cost me my job. It is further unsupported unless she has some sort of evidence, which in these situations, they typically do not have such evidence.
As a white guy, and in a position lower in power than the female I am complaining of, should I not have the right to be heard? Should I just “shut up” and understand her feelings? I don’t come from wealth or privilege. My great-grandfather was a coal miner and his son was a factory worker.
I feel that under this situation, 1) the accusation should not be made unless it is supported by some evidence, and 2) the default position should not be to side with the female simply and solely because of past treatment of women in the workplace.
Equality of opportunity comes with equality of consequence. If women can now be supervisors (which they absolutely should) then they also need to grow thicker skin and take criticism just like a male supervisor should.
But that is not equally true for everybody. In particular, members of minority/disadvantaged groups have a lot more experience understanding the majority/privileged groups, whose members are constantly presented as the “default human beings” representing “universal” feelings and experiences, than vice versa.
For instance, gay people are surrounded with “classic” heterosexual love stories that are assumed to be a shared cultural touchstone for everybody in that culture, while straight people regard homosexual love stories as a specialized “queer lit” niche phenomenon. Female viewers and readers are socialized to identify with male protagonists but not the other way around. Black speakers learn how to use and interpret “white voice” in a nuanced way; for white speakers, using a “black voice” mostly connotes crude minstrelsy or even more blatantly racist mockery.
Sure, nobody understands exactly what it’s like to be somebody different. But members of the culturally dominant group(s), who in their role of “default human beings” are far more likely to encounter only people like them among the protagonists and heroes and representatives and writers and speakers and announcers and leaders and authorities who make up their society’s collective cultural voice, tend to be much more clueless about that understanding than other people.
I definitely agree that the accusation should not be automatically accepted as true unless it is supported by some evidence. I’m not sure how much and what sort of evidence you feel ought to be required merely to make the accusation in the first place.
Pro-tip, though: if you want to reduce the amount of potential evidence that could be adduced to support such an accusation, you should probably stop using the word “female” as a noun to signify “female person” or “woman”. Unless that usage happens to be standard and gender-egalitarian at your workplace—that is, unless you would routinely refer to a male boss or colleague as “the male” in the same way that you’re describing a particular or hypothetical woman as “the female”—then it comes across as somewhat sexist and demeaning.
We have had lots of previous threads explaining that there are many different kinds of societal privilege, and that most people are simultaneously privileged in some ways and disprivileged in other ways.
For example, since white people and men (and heterosexuals) have traditionally been privileged and dominant groups in our society, you inevitably possess white privilege and male privilege and straight privilege, no matter how working-class your ancestors were. But at the same time, you lack the other forms of societal privilege that, say, a woman or non-white person or gay person from a wealthy elite family inevitably possesses.
People can have looks privilege, intelligence privilege, ability privilege, height privilege, whatever. Basically, anything that a culture traditionally regards as a positive or “normal” attribute confers some privilege on people who possess that attribute, relative to the people who don’t.
But there isn’t really any such thing as “net total” societal privilege, where, say, X amount of family poverty cancels out Y amoung of whiteness or maleness. Being comparatively disprivileged relative to wealthier or more aristocratic or more intellectual people doesn’t mean that you aren’t still benefiting from your own traditional privilege relative to non-white and non-male people.
I disagree. Heterosexual romance stories do not accurately portray heterosexual relationships. They meet, fall in love, have problems, work them out, get married and live happily ever after. The stories don’t cover areas like your spouse having the flu and puking all over you in bed.
I’m not sure that these stories do anything to help anyone understand life, not even heterosexuals.
It’s not about “level of grittily realistic detail in romantic relationship”. It’s about “normalization of the whole concept of romantic relationship as intrinsically and naturally heterosexual”.
That is, gay people, like everybody else, grow up steeped in awareness of cultural icons of “romantic relationship” such as Romeo and Juliet, Scarlett and Rhett, Bonnie and Clyde, Adam and Eve, Antony and Cleopatra, Frankie and Johnny, and innumerable others. They are far more heavily exposed to the culturally normalized expectations and conventions of heterosexual romance than straight people are to the concept of homosexual romance.
What you have failed to do is actually establish a lack of consistent principles. You have just asserted it about your ideological opponents.
Consistent principles can still lead to one group being wrong to do something but not another. The totality of the circumstances can be different. One example in liberal thought is the consistent principle that it acceptable to punch up, but not down. Such a principle will inherently affect different groups differently.
If I make fun of a rich, famous person, said person can just easily ignore me. But if a rich, famous person makes fun of me, that can seriously harm my life. Since they are famous, their message will be more widely heard, and it will harm my reputation. But since I am not, I will find it much harder to harm theirs.
Conservatives don’t get away from it, either. One conservative principle is being hard on crime. That inherently means you wind up allowing one group, non-criminals, to do things that would be wrong for the other group, criminals.
In everyday life, you can have stuff like the kid who gets a bigger punishment due to their past actions. It may seem unfair on the surface, but extenuating circumstances can change things.
To prove that one’s moral principles are inconsistent, you need more than just showing a difference in what is allowed in different groups. You need to show that the difference is not based on a consistent principle.
Though, I will note that, as andros says, no human is perfectly consistent. There is a tendency in conservatives to believe they have their morality figured out and are perfectly consistent, while liberals are more likely to accept that their morality will continue to change as we learn more.
In that sense, I will admit we have a fluid morality. But it doesn’t mean it is inconsistent. It means we are open to change.
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How about just not “making fun” of anyone? I know that your rule is an attempt to reconcile your side’s general position about not making fun of appearance while making it okay to talk about Trump being fat or having a spray tan, but it makes no sense, and in decent society, we shouldn’t make sport of anyone. Disagree with them and criticize, sure, but not just make fun.
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Your definition of “groups” destroys the word. The prior poster uses the term as we all understand it, not just a collection of people, but a collection of people that shares a common characteristic where it could be argued that they are a “protected class” such as race, religion, gender, etc. “Criminals” and “non-criminals” are not groups in any meaningful sense of the word.
I’d interpret that to mean you think lesbians have relatively too much influence and voice, which on virtually any issue is a ludicrous notion. Unlike the idea that old white men have (relatively) too much influence and voice, which on most issues is a pretty reasonable notion.
The opinions of old white men have been the dominant - and often EXCLUSIVE - ideology for essentially all of human history, with often catastrophic results for the subject populations. If we are discussing a group’s right to self-determination, I should expect that people who are outside that group should have their voices count for very little.
If I am asking women, “How would you like to be treated?’ the opinions of men on the subject are less than worthless. Likewise, if I ask black people, “How would you like to be treated?” I am not going to give even half a shit what a white person thinks.
Maybe you should realize that the world does not revolve around you, and the advancement of these people does not come at your expense.
Holy shit. You still don’t get it.
There are some things (rape, stealing, bullying, racism) that are either wrong or they’re not wrong. There are no “acceptable” groups for these things. At best you can argue mitigating factors, such as a poor starving man stealing bread. We’ll likely treat him with much sympathy, but stealing from someone would still be considered a bad act that he engaged in.
The problem I see with racism against whites is that it isn’t mitigation at all; racism is simply a socially accepted practice depending on who’s on the receiving end.
There is no significant “racism against whites” in the US. Black supremacists exist, but have almost zero power, zero influence, and zero history of committing atrocities against white people in America. White supremacists, on the other hand, have lots of power and influence (to the point of being praised by the President), and a very long history of atrocities against non-white people in America. White supremacism is the ideology that has done, by far, the most harm to Americans through our history. It’s been the biggest threat to Americans and it still is. Racism against black people is still significant in many of our societal and cultural institutions and practices; racism against white people is not.
If any kind of racism is socially acceptable, it’s the kind that’s been practiced in varying degrees for centuries.
It’s not reasonable - ad hominem is a logical fallacy.
Maybe you don’t think so. In that case, as a white man, your voice is over-represented, and you are making the problem worse.
Regards,
Shodan
No idea what this has to do with anything I’ve said. I made no ad hominem attack on any individual or group in the post you responded to, unless you believe broad criticism of society in general counts as an “ad hominem”.