cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/13958637
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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The fastest way to an echo chamber is to ignore everyone who disagrees with you.
You should be intelligent enough and convicted in your understanding of any point you argue strongly, that you will be able to identify an irrational or false argument.
Otherwise when someone you disagree with has a good point that improves your view point, you will miss it.
Take the show always sunny in philadelphia. The characters are all examples of absolutely terrible people. We use their idiocy, bigotry, racism and general prejudice to further confirm our beliefs and views on any topic.
It is healthy to listen to bad takes.
This isn't 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.
There's 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.
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.
"Jews are greedy" = Racist statement
"Immigrants are violent" = Racist statement
"Asians are better at math" = Racist statement
"White people don't season their food" = I don't give a fuck personally (am white) but yes there is some level of racism in the statement
"Dreadlocks are dirty" = racist statement
"Israel is an genocidal state" = not a racist statement
"People native to Tibet, the Andese, and the Ethiopian highlands are better adapted to high altitudes" = not a racist statement
"white people have historically been more responsible for subjugating other races" = not a racist statement
Some things are worse than others, but the point isn't to just shun anyone who says something bigoted. It's to shun anyone who is bigoted and truly believes that they are correct so they won't engage with arguments that they are presented. Or to shun centrists who argue for "finding a middle ground" between the bigoted position and the correct one.
I fell down the alt-right pipeline in highschool, and now I'm 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 gulag... But the trick is that no matter what, democratic platforms shouldn't be given to those ideals. You shouldn't be able to run on a platform of blocking trans healthcare, deporting a made up number of ""illegal immigrants"" (undocumented migrants), or fucking "being a dictator on day one". And defending those acts also should be heavily looked down upon.
That's a pretty good definition, but it's definitely not easy.
How about this sentence: "Chinese tourists are loud, obnoxious, have no respect for the places they visit, and are harming our city."
Obviously, that's an opinion but is the opinion racist?
Another example: "Whenever I read a story about an elderly Asian being attacked in my city, it's always by a black man."
Racist? Or just an observation?
The point I'm getting at is you really shouldn't use absolutes. "Never engage" sounds nice but in practice that philosophy tends to lead to ever-narrower echo chambers. Because over time, the scope of what is "racist" 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 it's easier than you would suggest. If you're 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 it's inherent to all Chinese tourists, then yes. It's racist. That easy. In this particular scenario, saing "the're harming our city" is particularly something i would investigate. Now you might ask "well how do you determine if the person thinks it's inherent?" And well... you can't. Not really. But if I respond to the person with "well, there might be things influencing youe experience. Not every Chinese tourist is rude, in fact a lot of tourists are rude worldwide", they can either respond by reflecting on the opinion and realize over a larger disussion that maybe it's just rich tourists in general that are rude, and the Chinese tourists that they've met have seemed somewhat wealthier... or they say "no, they're all rude it's just their culture." The latter response of course being a refusal to engage with the discussion. You can continue trying to convince them if it's a friend or family or you're just really persistent, but at a certain point... Some people will not change their mind in 1, 2, 5, 10, or even 100 discussions on the topic and it's better to say "I understand your experience, but you are factually wrong, and we won't consider your opinion for lawmaking and social outcomes"
Still pretty easy, I might ask for clarification if I heard that, but given the wording you've provided, it doesnt set off any dogwhistle alarms in my head. "Whenever I see a natural disaster in Florida on the news, it's always a hurricane" is a lot different that "Hurricanes only hit Florida" or "Florida only gets hit by hurricanes"
If I gave you the impression that I was advocating for "never engage" I'm sorry but that's not my position, and it's 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 it's 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 "everyone should have the same rights" and "I want to ban/hurt/endanger this group" or "this group's mere existence endangers our own" should go with them.
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I'm feel as thought most people in the thread have been rather nuanced. If nothing else, I feel I have been. The only "absolutist" thing being said is "bigotry shouldn't be tolerated". Do you mind providing an example of this that doesn't just point at the intolerance paradox?
I don't see nuance here. I see a lot of "you disagree with me, therefore BLOCKED" in this thread and it's unfortunate. The basic idea of yeeting "centrists" is very problematic.
From my reading, all the people doing blocking that I've 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.
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 doesn't mean there are no sound arguments for other things you disagree with.
Frankly, anyone can point at something that is morally wrong and say it's wrong. That doesn't 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 can't arrive at what is right without knowing what is wrong and you can't 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 don't think anyone was making the argument to block everyone who disagrees with you. If someone wants to do a social intrigue game in DND I'm going to think that's not the best tool for the job, but I'm not going to block them.
If someone's like "women shouldn't be allowed to vote" then that's a whole different kind of disagreement.
I don't know if that's true? I don't need to see every variation of racist argument to identify racism is bad. You don't 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 doesn't understand or reason well into siding with bigotry.
All this discussion of "well people should know and be able to reason" 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 it's been gaining traction, particularly in eastern states from what I've read.
Bigotry and hatred don't need a platform. They do fine on their own. Giving them shelter only creates issues. You don't need to see their arguments because their arguments don't 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 don't 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.
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 they've 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, it's perfectly okay to have people arguing in good faith while coming to different conclusions. there can be disagreement and that is healthy as you've said.