I think there’s a difference between keeping someone important in your life and attempting to convince them to change their views, and permitting someone on a message board to post vile things. In either situation, there should be a cut off point.
I think @MrDibble is right. It’s a lot easier to see the racism or sexism or hate when it’s directed at you. Speaking up about it is an important way to educate everyone else about it.
Geez, that’s batshit insane.
There’s also a difference between throwing someone off a message board and prohibiting them from posting vile things on the message board.
That’s admittedly easier to execute on message boards that routinely delete inappropriate content.
You call it “holy-than-thou”, I call it “not putting up with people like the ones I had to run from in fear in my youth, who whipped me in my teens, who hunted my sister down for running for Student Representative Council, who shot at me when I was at Uni…”
And yes, I am like this in “real life” too (not that I buy into the false dichotomy that this board is somehow not real)
Let me tell you a little story - one of my absolute best friends from Uni, a guy I used to go out clubbing with until just a couple years ago, a guy I spent more than half my life being friends with, who was also friends with a bunch of other PoCs, came round to dinner a couple years ago, after I hadn’t seen him for a couple years. A little while into the dinner, he started talking up Jordan Peterson, Trump, and some local equivalents, and decrying BLM and the local equivalent movements. Then he went into black intelligence… I have no idea if that was all always simmering under there, if his disappointment at a failed academic career had made him bitter (not that he didn’t have a successful commercial career, and inherited wealth as well), or what, but still - I no longer have that friend.
And it would be the same if they were my uncle, my father, my wife. Some things are beyond the pale, open racism is one of them. Racism makes one not a “nice guy”.
And SlackerInc and I shared some tastes in books, movies and music, but I would never want to have a beer with the racist fucker.
It’s a huge fallacy that debate is only a logical exercise, and I refuse to bow to that absolute bullshit.
I don’t think this is a commonly-held view, would you care to elaborate?
So you’d like him more if he were merely a racist?
I say again, for possible penetration: civility is overrated.
If you equate being holier-than-thou with incivility, this might be a relevant remark. It isn’t, and I don’t.
Our experiences growing up are very different. I now understand your attitude a bit more.
Rhetoric is as much a part of the trivium as logic or grammar, and logos is only one part of that, ethos and pathos are just as vital.
But I could give a fuck whether it’s “a commonly-held view”, who gives a shit what hoi polloi don’t know about debate?
Aside from mentioning Operation Wetback, Clothy used “wetback” exactly once outside of the Pit. I’ll amend my comment to say that he likely would not have been banned if he had stayed the hell out of the Pit.
I’ll defer to your experience with him. I only ever occasionally dipped my toes into Great Debates, so never noticed that.
It’s probably a distinction without a difference, but I would describe that as being an asshole, rather than a troll, though. A troll, to me, is a poster whose sole raison d’être is pissing off other posters. Whatever else his faults, Shodan had other interests, posted in non-political fora, and had a sense of humor, traits absent in what I would call trolls.
Damn, I wish I had you with me at family gatherings. Your courage and diplomacy outshine mine.
Do you do birthday parties?
.
I’ve got a couple of friends who are thoughtful, well-reasoned Conservatives. Their views (and their style) are nothing like the posters mentioned here. They have often said that today’s Republican Party is by no means Conservative.
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In two decades here, I have wondered this at least once a week (during the Paterno Paper Towel Tube thread it was five times a day).
I just canNOT imagine some of the devious debating tactics and name-calling that I’ve seen here being used in a bar with friends.
This is worth its own thread, but I’ve got to run (literally; got a rugby game to go bleed at…).
So you equate an accusation of being “holier-than-thou” with an accusation of civility?
Let me just cut right to the point, in case I’m being unclear: I don’t give two shits who is being more or less polite, more or less civil, more or less holy, or more or less humble when on one side the argument consists of bigotry, and the other is, like opposed to that.
But to me it seems like some of you… disagree with that. You’d rather have a nice conversation with a bigot than an unpleasant conversation with some who is not only not a bigot, but, like, opposed to bigotry. And maybe that’s what this thread is ultimately about. Where can people go to have a nice, open conversation with unabashed bigots, in which their bigoted views can be expressed, but without getting into the pit?
Opposed to anti-bigotry, I suspect you mean. Yes, I think you’re right.
I’m willing to have a conversation with someone over whether they’re being misogynistic and how that impacts culture and their social environment. I’ve done that here, in fact. If it doesn’t sink in, then I’m happy to tell them to fuck right off. Same deal with racism, ableism, homophobia, etc. I have to say that it gets downright exhausting. So depending on the person, or the conversation, or how fed up I am, I’ll skip straight ahead to fuck right off.
Honestly, if people aren’t getting at least a clue about all of these things by now, it feels like intentional bias.
Also, @Heffalump_and_Roo - it’s hard to read this thread as anything other than shit-stirring. Yes, this is the Pit, and yes, I am accusing you of trolling.
Here’s the thread. It’s kind of tedious shit to read, but it’s where I formed my impression of him as a fundamentally dishonest poster–and the more he called me a “fucking liar,” the more astonishingly hilarious his own lying became.
It is a bad thing if you can’t get past your emotional reaction and reason about a subject. Because until you do, it will only be a terror that you can rant and cry about, and not something that you can logically counter. Ranting and crying about it might feel good, but it doesn’t actually get you into a position where you might be able to actually do something about the problem you’re ranting and crying about.
I’m not a robot, but when I encounter a problem that makes me unhappy, I don’t sit an cry about it, because that does fucking nothing. I don’t even feel better about it after crying, I only feel worse. Thinking about how to address and stop it from reoccurring, that goes plenty far. I feel awesome after doing that.
So, yeah, purely emotional reactions are generally useless and a bad thing.
Is that what you think racism, misogyny, and homophobia are grounded in? Facts and logic that can be refuted with more of the same?
Nope, but I don’t think you’re going to counter them without logic. Even if you’re going to just somehow contain them, you’ll have to get over your emotional reaction and think about the problem they present.