When do thoughts and opionions become anyone else’s business? Is merely thinking something that someone else doesn’t like entitled them to insist that you are not “allowed” to think it? I have encountered this attitude before, it disturbs me.
For instance, a person can privately think that interracial marriage is “wrong” (i.e. something they don’t like, something they wouldn’t do themselves.) But if they keep it to themselves (and don’t preach to their kids or anyone else about how interracial marriage is horrible) who are they hurting? (And bear in mind, my sister is in an interracial marriage, so I am DEFINITELY not against interracial marriage!) But I don’t think that someone else’s thoughts about my sister’s marriage are harming her. It’s how they behave, how they vote, that matter. If they can always keep their behavior civil and polite, and not ever hurt her or her family by their actions, hell…who cares? There are bigger fish to fry - like aggressive bigots and racists who are overtly nasty are mean!
This concept could be applied to any issue (the Pit thread was about homosexuality.) My question is, if you cannot find compelling evidence that someone’s thoughts (repugnant as you may find them) are hurting anyone, what is to be done about it? Arguing and discussing the issue is one thing - but should you insist that they have no right to think “bad thoughts” as well?
the subject pretty much describes my opinion, and any words apply especially on the internet. some people object to me using LOL! it indicates i have an over-inflated ego and am to arrogant apparently. mega-LOL!
not to be glib, but if someone has thoughts, which they keep to themself… no one would know, making the point moot.
And yes, you are right on. It is behavior that really matters.
Now… if someone wants to have “thoughts” on a subject, and then chooses to share those thoughts with others, and those thoughts provoke a negative reaction… well, you pays your money, you takes your chances!
I read in the newspaper this morning that the Southern Poverty Research Center, a group of lawyers and poverty rights activists, are suing the Aryan Nation, a white supremacist group, because they (the SPRC) blame the Aryan Nation for inciting people to act against blacks.
Note that they do not claim the Aryan Nation had any part in the violence they cite other than to state publicly that blacks are inferior. They are being sued for thoughtcrime.
Please note that I find the notions of the Aryan Nation as silly as most rational people do. I do find it interesting, that the SPRC had identified certain opinions as not subject to the First Amendment.
Opinions have a way of getting out and becoming patterns of behaviour.
The moment you start to infringe on the liberty of another with your behaviour then you are on treacherous grounds, it has to be justifiable, legally, ethically and morally.
Maybe we need to think ‘bad’ thoughts to evaluate our own beliefs, as such they would then be an intellectual tool.
There are issues today which would have been regarded as bad thoughts only a few decades ago but someone had to question the widely held ‘good’ view to change things.
As long as radical right Jeezers tell to think like they do or perish, I don’t see a problem trying to aggressively educate ignorance where I see it. It’s one thing to say, “This is what I believe based on years of research/faith/personal experience/whatever, and I am well-versed in the absurdity of my belief but I believe it any way” and entirely another to say, “This is what I believe just 'CAUSE!”
Shodan Actually, the lawsuit is based on the actions of some guards from the compound terrorizing a couple who drove by in a car that backfired. (Or at least they’re using in as the basis for the suit. Though I have seen articles that somewhat make it sound as you mentioned. Here’s a link: http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/08/25/aryan0825_01.html
My point is not that you should not discuss or argue with other people’s opinions, hell, well all do that. That’s why we have Great Debates!
But if they merely think something, and you don’t like their thoughts, other than discussing it with them, what else is there to be done? Do you go the next step and tell them they have no right to think a certain thing?
Also, until someone takes action based on their thoughts, they are still just thoughts. When they take that leap to action, a whole new issue starts. But what if they spend their whole life just thinking bad thoughts? Is it a “thought crime”?
Well, you shouldn’t be able to, IMHO. But that’s exactly what hate crime laws attempt to do.
Yer pal,
Satan
[sub]I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Four months, two weeks, five days, 17 hours, 46 minutes and 51 seconds.
5669 cigarettes not smoked, saving $708.70.
Extra life with Drain Bead: 2 weeks, 5 days, 16 hours, 25 minutes.[/sub]
"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey![/sub]
Thanks, yosemitebabe, for bringing this up. The thread you linked to was very disturbing to me, especially lissener’s comments about Saint Zero not being allowed to have an opinion about things that didn’t pertain to him. WTF is going on here? It scares me that people on this board who I have come to respect (like pldennison and manhattan) would feel that because someone did not think like them, they they shouldn’t be allowed to think in a certain way.
Not that there’s anything they can do about it, but it scares me that they would want to.
But how do you “work toward the eradication of such thoughts”? By discussing, reasoning, trying to engage in conversation? Or by telling people who are not DOING anything but thinking that they basically have no “right” to think certain things?
Discussing is fine. We are all for discussing, and debating. As I mentioned before, this is Great Debates! What I am talking about goes a step further than mere debate and discussion. It’s about telling people they have no business thinking something you don’t like.
And when I use the term “Thought Police” and “thought crime”, I do not (as yet) mean it literally. There is no mention here of “advocating legislation”, at least by me. I am talking about an attitude, which, alas, I suspect I have detected in you, lissener.
Think what you want, say what you want. Expect a response.
Would anyone have a problem with me telling a racist, unequivocally, that they are wrong to be a racist, and thay they shouldn’t have such thoughts?
I simply fail to understand how saying such a thing would be so horribly frightening. The racist, in turn, is entirely capable of thinking me wrong to say such a thing to him. Where does that make it wrong for me to say he’s wrong?
I never meant “right” in the Constitutional sense. I meant it in the sense that I have no right, say, to tell a concentration camp survivor to just get over it. Of course I have a constitutional right to say whatever I want; that’s never been in doubt. But I maintain I have no human, moral right to say so.
There is a big distinction between saying “you shouldn’t have such thoughts” and saying “you have no right to have such thoughts”
Sure, he says you’re wrong, you say he’s wrong…that’s a Great Debate. That’s not what we are discussing here.
Morally? To tell someone who went throught the Holocaust that they need to get over it? You would be a moral asshole to say that to someone. But you would have the right to think it. That’s what this OP is about - that even if a person’s thoughts are morally repugnant to you, they have the RIGHT to think them.
The thing that made me stand up and take notice of your attitude was this quote (and many other comments authored by you) on the aforementioned thread, lissener.
We all have a right to our opinions, we all have rights to THINK whatever the hell we want. Even if others find our thoughts morally wrong.
Thoughts and actions are not the same thing. If someone sits in their living room having bad thoughts all damn day, they have that RIGHT.
I agree, though I feel you’ve reduced the argument to its most absurd simplicity. But nonetheless I agree. If I’ve failed in my many attempts to explain the difference between what I said in the previous post, in the context of the previous thread, then I have failed to explain the difference.
I give up. A few people understood the distinction, and more did not. My failure, but short of repeating myself ad nauseum, I give up. If you feel like reading the entirety of the other thread, you may get a better sense of what I was trying to communicate. If not, well, not.
You know, yosemitebabe, it really gets on my tits when someone reduces an entire argument to it’s most distilled, distorted parts and then pretends that the whole argument can be represented by that one single decontextualized fragment.
You failed to share with everyone here that my first post after the one from which you lifted my most oversimplified (guilty) exaggerated (guilty) overstated (guilty) hyoperbolic (guilty) declaration began like this:
If this had been a verbal debate, we’d have stopped, hashed out the meta-sub-debate about how I’m using (or misusing) the words “right” and “opinion” and moved on, making progress toward understanding as we go. Instead, you’ve got this one greatly-expanded-upon and annotated statement to go back to, discarding the subsequent discussion, and worrying it like a cold sore you can’t keep your tongue away from.
Unfortunately, every time you feel the need to rehash old ground, you feel you must take the rest of us on a ride with you by posting it as a new thread.
No one disagrees with you that thoughts are private things that no one else has the right to dictate.
The decontextualized statement was my clumsy attempt to insist that I have a right to unequivocally tell someone they’re wrong. I’m sorry you misunderstood: it was my fault; many others misunderstood. But the argument you’re having is with that misconception of what I said, not with what I actually meant to communicate. So you’re arguing with no one.
There are a few things I’d like elaborated from the other thread, though.
You took great offense (and I am not saying that you shouldn’t have) over the idea that Saint Zero did not approve of homosexuality. So, the drill is, you argue with him, you tell him he’s wrong, he explains how he feels, hopefully some sort of exchange of ideas will come of it.
But what if someone who holds such a viewpoint (I’m not saying Saint Zero, just someone) and after lengthy debate, still is not convinced of the error or their thoughts. They still retain the thoughts you don’t like. They are not doing anything, there is no evidence that they will ever do anything. They are pretty much minding their own business. But they just fold their arms and say “Still thinkin’ it!” What do you do? Obviously you think they’re an idiot for having such thoughts, but what do you do? The discussion is over, they still believe what they believe, think what they think. What next?
As the racists who were once the political majority in this country were, over a long period of time and hard work, marginalized and driven into the darkness from whence sprung their unenlightened beliefs, you continue to work to drive homophobes into the closet they built for homosexuals.
This is what I mean by fighting to eradicate the thoughts in question. You can’t force someone not to have such thoughts, but you can fight the cultural artifacts that support and spread such thoughts: you can expose these thoughts to the light and hope they shrivel and die.
But there comes a time when debate must be finished. The time came in the sixties when the only people who were interested in prolonging the debate were the people interested in preserving the status quo; at a certain point further debate is simply a stalling tactic. As a friend of mine said when she read the previous thread, calls for further debate and patience and education are disingenuous: the people who haven’t been educated by now don’t want to be educated.
And I don’t mean that I want to outlaw debate, or even try to prevent others from debating. Just that I’m going to side with any movement that’s through debating and has moved onto demanding.
