The Balance of Decency

[Dry]

So, because there is an unpleasant extreme on both ends, a balance of decency is required, such that people aren't too disgusted or too afraid to participate in the exchange of ideas. What is that balance? How do you encourage oddball/satirical/impolite ideas while discouraging disruptive, hateful rhetoric? Have we lost the balance and veered too far toward one extreme? Is this thread secretly about Apolyton? (No. I mean that. No, it is not.)

The problem I noticed in many debates is the incapacity to understand the difference between ideas and people, between Islam and Muslims, between Christianity and Christians, between socialism and socialists, feminism and feminists... and women...

The more I live on this planet, the more I see people not making/understanding this difference. These people, that I will call ignorants, come in 3 version:
Churchill: Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.
Ignorant1: Ah-ah, told you, Islam is a bad, so here is why we should discriminate against Muslims... blah-blah-blah
Ignorant2: By criticizing my Islam, I feel offended. So I you don't stop, it means you don't care about my feelings, it means you like to hurt me. So you hate me, you're a hater. To stop suffering, I want you to shut up.
Ignorant3: See, Churchill hurts people feelings, he is a bigot and a racist and a hater, we need to silence him.

The debate is difficult because of these Ignorants, 1, 2 and 3. None of them understand the difference between ideas and people.
Ignorant1s are stupid, they may applaud Churchill not understanding what he really said and Ignorant2 & 3 may want to silence Churchill but only because of projection. The least stupid Ignorant3 might fear Churchill's speech might be misunderstood by Ignorant1s.
Ignorant2s are emotional, childish, annoying. Well intended, genuinely offended or hurt, they may attract the compassion of well intended bystanders (Ignorant3s) but they usually don't see why they should not be offended in the first place. Or why their hurt feelings are preventing a healthy debate to happen. Children or teenager are allowed to be Ignorant2s, but adults should not. Ignorant2s are usually ordinary, genuine religion followers, childish adults.
Ignorant3s are a nuisance, they are the true thought police, the evil enemy. While I understand their original, good intended goal to prevent Ignorant1s to spread their hate speech, or to protect Ignorant2s feelings, they too often prevent healthy debate by unleashing their social justice on Churchills, Sam Harris's or Bill Mahers. To be fair, I am worried about the proliferation of Ignorant3s, PC police and SJWs, claiming they want 'protect' those poor Ignorant2s. They will distort other discourse, they will project bad intend in the mind of speakers, then socially and publicly shame them for something they never said or claim in the first place. Ignorant3s are a hindrance to healthy debate, they think of themselves as morally superior, they occupy the moral high ground in societies that recognize them such status. They usually have no understanding at all of the idea vs people difference. They are clerics in religious societies, PC police in PC societies, SJWs in non-adult societies/communities.
Free speech is there to prevent Ignorant3s to silence the debate by claiming moral superiority.

All ideas can be subject to criticism, scrutiny, blasphemy, ridicule, ...
No [group of] people should be subject to any of these, or discriminate against, or hurt, or harmed, or killed.

Any idea, religion, philosophy, politic idea that would suggest otherwise should be tossed in the trash of history.

Absolute free speech for ideas, absolute respect for people.

[Grandpa Troll]

Do you understand why they think its an ignorant and/or racist thing to say though?

I do understand why they say it.

My point is however delving a little deeper.

Same statement however when a black lawman was killed by an armed man (this case black) I agreed that Black Lives matter and was asked which Black Live mattered more?

Really?

I explained in the case I was referring to the Black Lawman was murdered by an armed Felon, the Lawman was murdered and the Felon had many supporters BECAUSE one was a Lawman so automatically they were guilty of an unjust killing. SMH.

I deep down believe all lives do matter and are precious in Gods sight, however when it comes to an out of control individual who seeks harm to the general populous, I wont lose a moment of sleep over them that put others in imminent danger.

Now in Gods eyes ALL LIVES MATTER that to me is enough without breaking down every group that seeks individual acceptance status.

Darned if you do darned if you dont.

Take care

Gramps

[Grandpa Troll]

Ignorant1s are stupid,

Umm....Check this out

ignorant
[ig-ner-uh nt]
Spell Syllables
Synonyms Examples Word Origin
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
adjective
1.
lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned:
an ignorant man.
2.
lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact:
ignorant of quantum physics.
3.
uninformed; unaware.
4.
due to or showing lack of knowledge or training:
an ignorant statement.

[stoo-pid, styoo‐]
Spell Syllables
Word Origin
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
adjective, stupider, stupidest.
1.
lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull.
2.
characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless:
a stupid question.
3.
tediously dull, especially due to lack of meaning or sense; inane; pointless:
a stupid party.
4.
annoying or irritating; troublesome:
Turn off that stupid radio.
5.
in a state of stupor; stupefied:
stupid from fatigue.
6.
Slang. excellent; terrific.
noun
7.
Informal. a stupid person.

[BeBMan]

Now, there is an argument to be made that this social shaming is useful because it exposes awful opinions to criticism, which is what the marketplace of ideas is all about. The difficulty, however, is that both indecent speech and the shaming of indecent speech can lead to the same consequence: the chilling of speech. That is, indecent speech can cause plenty of people to withdraw entirely from a social situation because they don't want to be involved with such ugly stuff. But on the other side, the collective shaming of such speech can lead to people being unwilling to speak up at all for fear of being associated with indecent elements.

So, because there is an unpleasant extreme on both ends, a balance of decency is required, such that people aren't too disgusted or too afraid to participate in the exchange of ideas. What is that balance? How do you encourage oddball/satirical/impolite ideas while discouraging disruptive, hateful rhetoric? Have we lost the balance and veered too far toward one extreme? Is this thread secretly about Apolyton? (No. I mean that. No, it is not.)

Dunno how to encourage one/discourage the other in general. My personal "balance" in this depends on whether I get the impression that someone I talk to is genuinely interested in a fair and open debate or not. It's hard to establish for sure without mind-reading of course, but there are a couple of signs, and if I arrive at the conclusion that someone just wants to "be right" regardless of any contra argument or evidence then I examine my other options....

[kentonio]

Now in Gods eyes ALL LIVES MATTER that to me is enough without breaking down every group that seeks individual acceptance status.

Individual acceptance status? Is it not a perfectly rational and reasonable emotional response when you're in fear of your friends and families being killed by the state (however unlikely such an event actually is of course) to ask that people start to think about people of your race as actual humans rather than automatic 'thugs' or 'criminals'? I agree with you that if a violent offender puts a police life at risk, then killing that suspect is probably warranted, but there have been countless cases of black people being treated far differently and worse than whites, and numerous cases where black deaths in custody have gone unpunished or investigations have been hindered or covered up by the police. After centuries of slavery and oppression are blacks just suppose to shrug and say 'ah well, its just a few bad apples'? Even when a 12 year old child is shot by police, and the media trip over themselves to paint him as a thug, when that standard is never applied to a white kid?

The best description I heard of why 'All Lives Matter' is so offensive was to imagine a group of people going into dinner. Each time a plate is brought its grabbed by someone, leaving one guy without food. The next course arrives and the same happens. And again. By the end of the meal the guy is starving and asks whether he could have some food because his hunger matters, to which the group of well fed diners get irate and tell him that EVERYONE'S HUNGER MATTERS!

Or to put it more simply, if BLM have just included the word 'too' on the end of their name, none of this pedantry would be happening.

[Giancarlo]

Did you hear about the mute guy who was shot and killed almost instantly because he tried communicating in sign language? The victim wasn't black, but it still shows how poorly trained so many officers are. And tragedies such as that one, circumvents and tarnishes the justice system in this country.

[Dry]

Umm....Check this out

Man, it took me so long to understand the purpose of your post.
I'm still not sure I got it right though...

I'm guessing you thought I wrote "Ignorants are stupid". The thing is, I wrote "Ignorant1s are stupid".
That is "Ignorants of type 1 as described above are stupid".

So, let me rewrite that more clearly
Ignorants of type 1: They do not understand/see/hear the difference between criticism of Islam and criticism of muslims. They are prejudiced against muslims and think those who critic of Islam are on their side.
Ignorants of type 2: They are of the religion/opinion/belief that you are criticizing. But because they are so emotionally invested in their belief, they see their belief as part of themselves. Criticizing a part of themselves is, in their eyes, criticizing them. They thus feel offended by your crtiicism.
Ignorants of type 3: They do not hear or notice that you are making a difference between the belief system and the people. They jump at your throat because while your are criticizing the belief system of someone, they think your are bigoted against that someone. The idea that you can be harsh on a belief system while at the same time respecting the humans who hold that bilief is beyond their reach. For example, there are people who do not believe in the virtue of seatbelts. When you try to warn them about the dangers of that belief, do you really think it is out of hate ? Ignorants of type 3 seem to think so when it come to religion.

I think ignorants of type 1 are ignorant because of stupidity (=lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull).
I think ignorants of type 2 are ignorant because of excessive emotional investment in their belief system (my belief = me)
While I think some Ignorants of type 3 are genuinely concerned about ignorants of type 1, I also think many of them are more of the moral/thought/PC/... police. They are keen to suspect anyone of bad/immoral thoughts. While you were clear about your critic os Islam, they are quick to say "Well, you said Islam, but deep down, we all know you meant Muslims. Do not deny, you do not fool anyone". Those moralists, those great inquisitors of the thought irritate me the most and I call them evil. They put themselves in the moral high seat and prentend to have the ability to read your mind on impure thoughts. They are ingorant because of superiority complex, arrogance, judgmental mind. They are those who usually prevent the debate of ideas.

[Bereta_Eder]

However history teaches that it's a small leap between demonizing an ideology and dehumanizing the people that espuse them and that can be done on an indivindual level as well.

Let's take mcarthur america. Someone had a belief about promoting human rights, enhancing transperancy, santifying (makinghealthy) the public functioning of the state, increase inclusiveness etc

All it took to have him stripped of his rights was to simply label him/her a communist.


Islamist terrotism is a complicated issue and one that only marginally touches most nations when the people decide to travel to terrorism infested countries (i mean in western europe - noone in their rightmind will go to places like syria or turkey now)


Some blame islam the way they blamed communism (that mainly happens where the cows stand before man - like kansas and whereabaouts for example)

What they don't understand is that communism simply didn't go away, it was absorbed and its absorbion led the the bierth of democracy.

dessilousionedyouths, crazies, racism victims in western societies, all of the above will use the current treand to express themsleves in violent ways.

This will never go away untill the causes go away.
When they do, they would have won but what would have really won is society at large. Of course that's impossible under anarchistic capitalism that uses racism stratification as its main fuel engine

[Grandpa Troll]

Man, it took me so long to understand the purpose of your post.
I'm still not sure I got it right though...

I'm guessing you thought I wrote "Ignorants are stupid". The thing is, I wrote "Ignorant1s are stupid".
That is "Ignorants of type 1 as described above are stupid".

So, let me rewrite that more clearly
Ignorants of type 1: They do not understand/see/hear the difference between criticism of Islam and criticism of muslims. They are prejudiced against muslims and think those who critic of Islam are on their side.
Ignorants of type 2: They are of the religion/opinion/belief that you are criticizing. But because they are so emotionally invested in their belief, they see their belief as part of themselves. Criticizing a part of themselves is, in their eyes, criticizing them. They thus feel offended by your crtiicism.
Ignorants of type 3: They do not hear or notice that you are making a difference between the belief system and the people. They jump at your throat because while your are criticizing the belief system of someone, they think your are bigoted against that someone. The idea that you can be harsh on a belief system while at the same time respecting the humans who hold that bilief is beyond their reach. For example, there are people who do not believe in the virtue of seatbelts. When you try to warn them about the dangers of that belief, do you really think it is out of hate ? Ignorants of type 3 seem to think so when it come to religion.

I think ignorants of type 1 are ignorant because of stupidity (=lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull).
I think ignorants of type 2 are ignorant because of excessive emotional investment in their belief system (my belief = me)
While I think some Ignorants of type 3 are genuinely concerned about ignorants of type 1, I also think many of them are more of the moral/thought/PC/... police. They are keen to suspect anyone of bad/immoral thoughts. While you were clear about your critic os Islam, they are quick to say "Well, you said Islam, but deep down, we all know you meant Muslims. Do not deny, you do not fool anyone". Those moralists, those great inquisitors of the thought irritate me the most and I call them evil. They put themselves in the moral high seat and prentend to have the ability to read your mind on impure thoughts. They are ingorant because of superiority complex, arrogance, judgmental mind. They are those who usually prevent the debate of ideas.

I feel, based upon my limited education however clear understanding of a definition in a dictionary, that Ignorant People are not necessarily stupid. No matter how ignorant this does not mean they are automatically stupid.

I may be wrong however the definition clearly states lack of knowledge. It does NOT say lack of ability to reason nor does it say lacking comprehension capability.

I agree with what you are getting at in the fact that it seems unreasonable in the various examples however just feel it would be more correct if it were Example one: I feel people are stupid. Be it stupid or not that is your call upon your opinion. However if a person has access to 20 facts or 20 experiences and makes a reasonable decision based upon what information they have been exposed to. Now if they had additional experiences or had additional facts laid out to them, and are now "aware" or enlightened yet choose to ignore facts they have perfect understanding of then perhaps one could call them stupid.

I am not trolling you, being an asshat or grammar nazi, merely pointing out that if a person is lacking knowledge (not the capability to learn mind you) then that person is not necessarily stupid yet more ignorant than anything.

I am also not a college graduate merely survived on God's earth for 57 years and attended school of hard knocks with a discipline of lesson learned through life's experiences.

Take care

Gramps

[Grandpa Troll]

Let's take mcarthur america. Someone had a belief about promoting human rights, enhancing transperancy, santifying (makinghealthy) the public functioning of the state, increase inclusiveness etc

Would you be referring to General Douglas MacArthur or Senator Joseph McCarthy?

Just trying to understand where you are coming from...

Regards

Gramps

[Ben Kenobi]

If one wants to be a religious right wing fanatic, there are plenty of christian private colleges out there where indoctrination is more valued than learning.

Apparently segregation is alive and well today.

[Giancarlo]

Apparently segregation is alive and well today.

How is that segregation, praytell? I'm just stating fact.

Christian private colleges hate it when someone actually learns something.

Oh and one being a religious right wing fanatic is a STUPID CHOICE they make. It's like being a douchebag. You weren't born a douchebag. You chose to be a douchebag. Get the picture? If you didn't want to be a douchebag anymore, you would get an attitude adjustment. Just like one being a religious right wing fanatic... one can easily abandon their bigotry and stupid belief system.

[Ben Kenobi]

Christian private colleges hate it when someone actually learns something.

Completely false, but again, emblematic of prejudice.

Oh and one being a religious right wing fanatic is a STUPID CHOICE they make. It's like being a douchebag. You weren't born a douchebag. You chose to be a douchebag. Get the picture? If you didn't want to be a douchebag anymore, you would get an attitude adjustment. Just like one being a religious right wing fanatic... one can easily abandon their bigotry and stupid belief system.

Like you did? You're right, I choose to be a Christian and a conservative. I am happy with my life. Are you happy with yours?

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm happy with my decision to become a Catholic conservative. Are you happy with your decision to leave what you believed behind?

[Giancarlo]

Completely false, but again, emblematic of prejudice.



Like you did? You're right, I choose to be a Christian and a conservative. I am happy with my life. Are you happy with yours?

I didn't choose to be gay. I was always this way. I put myself through sheer anguish in trying not to be gay. I realized I was born this way and there was no "choice" in that matter. I could either accept myself or be miserable.

You chose to be an *******. That's your own prerogative. You're a self centered bigot.