The fastest way to an echo chamber is to ignore everyone who disagrees with you.
This isnāt about the entire set of people who disagree.
It is a waste of time to engage some kinds of people. They are not acting in good faith.
Thereās a Sartre quote about it
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
I believe it helps to be able to identify bad faith actors. If you have never heard their arguments before then you run the risk of not realising its a bad faith argument. This could mean you end up taking them seriously.
Who said there was? Dont try to strawman this. You are missing the point. And your condescension is unwarranted.
No, there is no sound argument for racism, and when you hear an argument for it, you identify its nonsense and move on. But that doesnāt mean there are no sound arguments for other things you disagree with.
Frankly, anyone can point at something that is morally wrong and say itās wrong. That doesnāt make YOU right. Thats just essentially virtue signalling.
I disagree with fascists and racists too. But im sure there is something else out there we disagree on, such as whether or not you should block people who disagree with you.
My point is that you canāt arrive at what is right without knowing what is wrong and you canāt know what is wrong if you block everyone who disagrees with you.
You also cant rule out a person having a good take just because they also have some bad takes.
I think some of the confusion here might be that this comic is specifically referencing booting out bigots and their apologists.
if someone is willing to argue in bad faith (in this case, specifically bigots), there is no reason to listen to that or anything else they have to say since theyāve shown they are willing to argue in bad faith at all. I also think anyone who is an apologist of them is also not worth listening to because they are in bad faith by proxy.
that being said, itās perfectly okay to have people arguing in good faith while coming to different conclusions. there can be disagreement and that is healthy as youāve said.
such as whether or not you should block people who disagree with you.
I donāt think anyone was making the argument to block everyone who disagrees with you. If someone wants to do a social intrigue game in DND Iām going to think thatās not the best tool for the job, but Iām not going to block them.
If someoneās like āwomen shouldnāt be allowed to voteā then thatās a whole different kind of disagreement.
My point is that you canāt arrive at what is right without knowing what is wrong and you canāt know what is wrong if you block everyone who disagrees with you.
I donāt know if thatās true? I donāt need to see every variation of racist argument to identify racism is bad. You donāt need to know the full set of possibilities to pick a good one. Like, you probably have reasonable interactions with dogs on the street and never considered going on all fours and aggressively pissing and howling before.
This only applies though if the bigot or their apologist is willing to have an honest discussion with good intentions. The problem with tolerating them is that they do not have any respect for truth, or in having an honest discussion. Engaging with that is beyond pointless as the best it serves is to show people that already understand it to be bad that it is bad. And at worst it will confuse someone who doesnāt understand or reason well into siding with bigotry.
All this discussion of āwell people should know and be able to reasonā falls flat when you look at examples around the world where intolerant bigots were tolerated. The US and Germany are two examples I can think of off the top of my head. The US has a felon, fascist, wannabe dictator as one option and he has an honest chance of winning. Then in Germany they are having essentially a resurgence of the Nazi party in AfD and itās been gaining traction, particularly in eastern states from what Iāve read.
Bigotry and hatred donāt need a platform. They do fine on their own. Giving them shelter only creates issues. You donāt need to see their arguments because their arguments donāt come from reason but from spite and they have no intention of fair engagement.
The US has a felon, fascist, wannabe dictator as one option and he has an honest chance of winning. Then in Germany they are having essentially a resurgence of the Nazi party in AfD and itās been gaining traction, particularly in eastern states from what Iāve read.
I would argue that both cases are products of echo chambers rather than insufficient moderation.
I mean, those bigots donāt silence themselves when you ban them. They are still talking, just in forums that will ban you for daring to rebut them.
Because censorship creates the echo chambers that allow bigotry to thrive, censorship is a much greater problem than bigotry.
Easy. Something is racist if it essentializes characteristics of a person or group, based on their skin colour or ethnic group; or if it makes derogatory assumptions about a cultural item/act/thing.
āJews are greedyā = Racist statement
āImmigrants are violentā = Racist statement
āAsians are better at mathā = Racist statement
āWhite people donāt season their foodā = I donāt give a fuck personally (am white) but yes there is some level of racism in the statement
āDreadlocks are dirtyā = racist statement
āIsrael is an genocidal stateā = not a racist statement
āPeople native to Tibet, the Andese, and the Ethiopian highlands are better adapted to high altitudesā = not a racist statement
āwhite people have historically been more responsible for subjugating other racesā = not a racist statement
Some things are worse than others, but the point isnāt to just shun anyone who says something bigoted. Itās to shun anyone who is bigoted and truly believes that they are correct so they wonāt engage with arguments that they are presented. Or to shun centrists who argue for āfinding a middle groundā between the bigoted position and the correct one.
I fell down the alt-right pipeline in highschool, and now Iām a nonbinary leftist landing somewhere between social democracy and anarcho-communism. I of all people have to believe in not just sending bigoted people to the gulagā¦ But the trick is that no matter what, democratic platforms shouldnāt be given to those ideals. You shouldnāt be able to run on a platform of blocking trans healthcare, deporting a made up number of āāillegal immigrantsāā (undocumented migrants), or fucking ābeing a dictator on day oneā. And defending those acts also should be heavily looked down upon.
Thatās a pretty good definition, but itās definitely not easy.
How about this sentence: āChinese tourists are loud, obnoxious, have no respect for the places they visit, and are harming our city.ā
Obviously, thatās an opinion but is the opinion racist?
Another example: āWhenever I read a story about an elderly Asian being attacked in my city, itās always by a black man.ā
Racist? Or just an observation?
The point Iām getting at is you really shouldnāt use absolutes. āNever engageā sounds nice but in practice that philosophy tends to lead to ever-narrower echo chambers. Because over time, the scope of what is āracistā or not tends to increase. Because anyone who argues for something being not racist is seen as a suspected racist.
This kind of absolutism is why Leftism always descends into a circular firing squad imo. You can list guidelines, but there will always be a large gray area of context-dependent statements. When you take a subjective, variable, or vague thing and try to apply absolute guidelines to it, bad things happen.
I still think itās easier than you would suggest. If youāre willing, please bear with me as I have a lot to say in response (as you can see)
How about this sentence: āChinese tourists are loud, obnoxious, have no respect for the places they visit, and are harming our city.ā
If they (the person in the example) think itās inherent to all Chinese tourists, then yes. Itās racist. That easy. In this particular scenario, saing ātheāre harming our cityā is particularly something i would investigate. Now you might ask āwell how do you determine if the person thinks itās inherent?ā And wellā¦ you canāt. Not really. But if I respond to the person with āwell, there might be things influencing youe experience. Not every Chinese tourist is rude, in fact a lot of tourists are rude worldwideā, they can either respond by reflecting on the opinion and realize over a larger disussion that maybe itās just rich tourists in general that are rude, and the Chinese tourists that theyāve met have seemed somewhat wealthierā¦ or they say āno, theyāre all rude itās just their culture.ā The latter response of course being a refusal to engage with the discussion. You can continue trying to convince them if itās a friend or family or youāre just really persistent, but at a certain pointā¦ Some people will not change their mind in 1, 2, 5, 10, or even 100 discussions on the topic and itās better to say āI understand your experience, but you are factually wrong, and we wonāt consider your opinion for lawmaking and social outcomesā
Another example: āWhenever I read a story about an elderly Asian being attacked in my city, itās always by a black man.ā
Still pretty easy, I might ask for clarification if I heard that, but given the wording youāve provided, it doesnt set off any dogwhistle alarms in my head. āWhenever I see a natural disaster in Florida on the news, itās always a hurricaneā is a lot different that āHurricanes only hit Floridaā or āFlorida only gets hit by hurricanesā
āNever engageā sounds nice but in practice that philosophy tends to lead to ever-narrower echo chambers.
If I gave you the impression that I was advocating for ānever engageā Iām sorry but thatās not my position, and itās seemingly not the position of many of the other people in the thread. No one reasonable is saying to exile people for disagreeing on a retirement funding policy, or whether itās better to put your child in sciences or arts, etc.etc. What is being said per the tolerance paradox is that intolerance should not be tolerated and the people that try to compromise between āeveryone should have the same rightsā and āI want to ban/hurt/endanger this groupā or āthis groupās mere existence endangers our ownā should go with them.
Because anyone who argues for something being not racist is seen as a suspected racist.
š§
This kind of absolutism is why Leftism always descends into a circular firing squad imo.
Iām feel as thought most people in the thread have been rather nuanced. If nothing else, I feel I have been. The only āabsolutistā thing being said is ābigotry shouldnāt be toleratedā. Do you mind providing an example of this that doesnāt just point at the intolerance paradox?
I donāt see nuance here. I see a lot of āyou disagree with me, therefore BLOCKEDā in this thread and itās unfortunate. The basic idea of yeeting ācentristsā is very problematic.
From my reading, all the people doing blocking that Iāve seen were against my opinion and against the meme and were more inline with the centrist position. I would be happy to have evidence otherwise though
but if you are lazy or dumb debater, it is quite easy to label anything with any negative word you pull out of your hat in order to avoid the discussion that is hard for you.
This isnāt about the entire set of people who disagree.
It is a waste of time to engage some kinds of people. They are not acting in good faith.
Thereās a Sartre quote about it
I believe it helps to be able to identify bad faith actors. If you have never heard their arguments before then you run the risk of not realising its a bad faith argument. This could mean you end up taking them seriously.
Let me help you out:
There are NO sound arguments for racism, fascism etc.
None.
There is no point in listening to racists and fascists.
Ever.
Who said there was? Dont try to strawman this. You are missing the point. And your condescension is unwarranted.
No, there is no sound argument for racism, and when you hear an argument for it, you identify its nonsense and move on. But that doesnāt mean there are no sound arguments for other things you disagree with.
Frankly, anyone can point at something that is morally wrong and say itās wrong. That doesnāt make YOU right. Thats just essentially virtue signalling.
I disagree with fascists and racists too. But im sure there is something else out there we disagree on, such as whether or not you should block people who disagree with you.
My point is that you canāt arrive at what is right without knowing what is wrong and you canāt know what is wrong if you block everyone who disagrees with you.
You also cant rule out a person having a good take just because they also have some bad takes.
I think some of the confusion here might be that this comic is specifically referencing booting out bigots and their apologists.
if someone is willing to argue in bad faith (in this case, specifically bigots), there is no reason to listen to that or anything else they have to say since theyāve shown they are willing to argue in bad faith at all. I also think anyone who is an apologist of them is also not worth listening to because they are in bad faith by proxy.
that being said, itās perfectly okay to have people arguing in good faith while coming to different conclusions. there can be disagreement and that is healthy as youāve said.
I donāt think anyone was making the argument to block everyone who disagrees with you. If someone wants to do a social intrigue game in DND Iām going to think thatās not the best tool for the job, but Iām not going to block them.
If someoneās like āwomen shouldnāt be allowed to voteā then thatās a whole different kind of disagreement.
I donāt know if thatās true? I donāt need to see every variation of racist argument to identify racism is bad. You donāt need to know the full set of possibilities to pick a good one. Like, you probably have reasonable interactions with dogs on the street and never considered going on all fours and aggressively pissing and howling before.
This only applies though if the bigot or their apologist is willing to have an honest discussion with good intentions. The problem with tolerating them is that they do not have any respect for truth, or in having an honest discussion. Engaging with that is beyond pointless as the best it serves is to show people that already understand it to be bad that it is bad. And at worst it will confuse someone who doesnāt understand or reason well into siding with bigotry.
All this discussion of āwell people should know and be able to reasonā falls flat when you look at examples around the world where intolerant bigots were tolerated. The US and Germany are two examples I can think of off the top of my head. The US has a felon, fascist, wannabe dictator as one option and he has an honest chance of winning. Then in Germany they are having essentially a resurgence of the Nazi party in AfD and itās been gaining traction, particularly in eastern states from what Iāve read.
Bigotry and hatred donāt need a platform. They do fine on their own. Giving them shelter only creates issues. You donāt need to see their arguments because their arguments donāt come from reason but from spite and they have no intention of fair engagement.
I would argue that both cases are products of echo chambers rather than insufficient moderation.
I mean, those bigots donāt silence themselves when you ban them. They are still talking, just in forums that will ban you for daring to rebut them.
Because censorship creates the echo chambers that allow bigotry to thrive, censorship is a much greater problem than bigotry.
Cool. Great. Now define whether something is racist or not.
Easy. Something is racist if it essentializes characteristics of a person or group, based on their skin colour or ethnic group; or if it makes derogatory assumptions about a cultural item/act/thing.
āJews are greedyā = Racist statement
āImmigrants are violentā = Racist statement
āAsians are better at mathā = Racist statement
āWhite people donāt season their foodā = I donāt give a fuck personally (am white) but yes there is some level of racism in the statement
āDreadlocks are dirtyā = racist statement
āIsrael is an genocidal stateā = not a racist statement
āPeople native to Tibet, the Andese, and the Ethiopian highlands are better adapted to high altitudesā = not a racist statement
āwhite people have historically been more responsible for subjugating other racesā = not a racist statement
Some things are worse than others, but the point isnāt to just shun anyone who says something bigoted. Itās to shun anyone who is bigoted and truly believes that they are correct so they wonāt engage with arguments that they are presented. Or to shun centrists who argue for āfinding a middle groundā between the bigoted position and the correct one.
I fell down the alt-right pipeline in highschool, and now Iām a nonbinary leftist landing somewhere between social democracy and anarcho-communism. I of all people have to believe in not just sending bigoted people to the gulagā¦ But the trick is that no matter what, democratic platforms shouldnāt be given to those ideals. You shouldnāt be able to run on a platform of blocking trans healthcare, deporting a made up number of āāillegal immigrantsāā (undocumented migrants), or fucking ābeing a dictator on day oneā. And defending those acts also should be heavily looked down upon.
Thatās a pretty good definition, but itās definitely not easy.
How about this sentence: āChinese tourists are loud, obnoxious, have no respect for the places they visit, and are harming our city.ā
Obviously, thatās an opinion but is the opinion racist?
Another example: āWhenever I read a story about an elderly Asian being attacked in my city, itās always by a black man.ā
Racist? Or just an observation?
The point Iām getting at is you really shouldnāt use absolutes. āNever engageā sounds nice but in practice that philosophy tends to lead to ever-narrower echo chambers. Because over time, the scope of what is āracistā or not tends to increase. Because anyone who argues for something being not racist is seen as a suspected racist.
This kind of absolutism is why Leftism always descends into a circular firing squad imo. You can list guidelines, but there will always be a large gray area of context-dependent statements. When you take a subjective, variable, or vague thing and try to apply absolute guidelines to it, bad things happen.
I still think itās easier than you would suggest. If youāre willing, please bear with me as I have a lot to say in response (as you can see)
If they (the person in the example) think itās inherent to all Chinese tourists, then yes. Itās racist. That easy. In this particular scenario, saing ātheāre harming our cityā is particularly something i would investigate. Now you might ask āwell how do you determine if the person thinks itās inherent?ā And wellā¦ you canāt. Not really. But if I respond to the person with āwell, there might be things influencing youe experience. Not every Chinese tourist is rude, in fact a lot of tourists are rude worldwideā, they can either respond by reflecting on the opinion and realize over a larger disussion that maybe itās just rich tourists in general that are rude, and the Chinese tourists that theyāve met have seemed somewhat wealthierā¦ or they say āno, theyāre all rude itās just their culture.ā The latter response of course being a refusal to engage with the discussion. You can continue trying to convince them if itās a friend or family or youāre just really persistent, but at a certain pointā¦ Some people will not change their mind in 1, 2, 5, 10, or even 100 discussions on the topic and itās better to say āI understand your experience, but you are factually wrong, and we wonāt consider your opinion for lawmaking and social outcomesā
Still pretty easy, I might ask for clarification if I heard that, but given the wording youāve provided, it doesnt set off any dogwhistle alarms in my head. āWhenever I see a natural disaster in Florida on the news, itās always a hurricaneā is a lot different that āHurricanes only hit Floridaā or āFlorida only gets hit by hurricanesā
If I gave you the impression that I was advocating for ānever engageā Iām sorry but thatās not my position, and itās seemingly not the position of many of the other people in the thread. No one reasonable is saying to exile people for disagreeing on a retirement funding policy, or whether itās better to put your child in sciences or arts, etc.etc. What is being said per the tolerance paradox is that intolerance should not be tolerated and the people that try to compromise between āeveryone should have the same rightsā and āI want to ban/hurt/endanger this groupā or āthis groupās mere existence endangers our ownā should go with them.
š§
Iām feel as thought most people in the thread have been rather nuanced. If nothing else, I feel I have been. The only āabsolutistā thing being said is ābigotry shouldnāt be toleratedā. Do you mind providing an example of this that doesnāt just point at the intolerance paradox?
I donāt see nuance here. I see a lot of āyou disagree with me, therefore BLOCKEDā in this thread and itās unfortunate. The basic idea of yeeting ācentristsā is very problematic.
From my reading, all the people doing blocking that Iāve seen were against my opinion and against the meme and were more inline with the centrist position. I would be happy to have evidence otherwise though
but if you are lazy or dumb debater, it is quite easy to label anything with any negative word you pull out of your hat in order to avoid the discussion that is hard for you.