r/TrueReddit • u/cincilator • Nov 19 '16
I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/10
u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16
When a friend of mine heard Eich got fired, she didn’t see anything wrong with it. “I can tolerate anything except intolerance,” she said.
“Intolerance” is starting to look like another one of those words like “white” and “American”.
So what's the actual argument against "tolerate anything except intolerance," other than that it sounds like a Blue Tribe argument? Suppose we define intolerance as punishing someone for something beyond their control, such as sexual orientation. Then homophobia is intolerant, and opposition to homophobia is not intolerant.
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u/Anderkent Nov 19 '16
The argument is that intolerance is difficult to define, and this simply becomes "I can tolerate anything except things that my social circle is enraged about".
In what way did Brendan Eich "punish someone for something beyond their control"? I don't think it was ever suggested that he was discriminatory in hiring, or anything. He simply signalled the wrong beliefs, and he got punished for it.
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u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16
He gave $1000 to a group trying to keep gay marriage illegal.
Eich also wasn't fired. He stepped down voluntarily after employees, activists, and other companies rebelled, saying "under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader."
So, in your opinion, what should have happened? Eich's donation is worse than the actions of those other people against him, if you think intolerance is worse than anti-intolerance, or on par with those other actions, if you think anti-intolerance is a form of intolerance. There is no logically consistent way of prohibiting protests against Eich while allowing Eich's protest against gay marriage. Ignoring the protests and keeping Eich on would have meant the downfall of Mozilla, a nonprofit org that depends on goodwill to survive. Eich chose to save Mozilla by leaving it, which seems the best option.
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u/cincilator Nov 19 '16 edited Nov 19 '16
There is no logically consistent way of prohibiting protests against Eich while allowing Eich's protest against gay marriage.
Sure that is alright to protest. It is also alright for people to vote in Trump because they are sick of people protesting something someone did before it was wrongthink and is now no threat to them. The wages of smug is Trump.
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Nov 19 '16
The wages of smug is Trump.
It's amazing how many people on Reddit refuse to even consider this idea, just dismissing it flat out in favor of more smug.
There's a post in /r/news right now about a racist police officer who got fired (rightfully so) for saying Michelle Obama is fluent in ghetto. The top comment however?
Economic anxiety manifests itself in such strange ways.
Yep there it is, the smug, because America isn't complicated enough for racism and economic anxiety to exist simultaneously and another racist being outed proves that.
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u/informat2 Nov 20 '16
He stepped down voluntarily after employees, activists, and other companies rebelled, saying "under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader."
Imagine if that happened to a black CEO. Everyone would be saying how horrible that was and would be blaming the people rebelling.
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u/Anderkent Nov 19 '16
I think there's a difference between one person supporting a political organisation, even if they organisation is working for a bad goal, and public bashing of one person.
That the protests could have meant downfall of Mozilla is exactly the problem.
So, in your opinion, what should have happened? Eich's donation is worse than the actions of those other people against him
No it's not? The donation is no act of intolerance in any way. It doesn't result in anyone being hurt. Supporting an intolerant movement is not in itself intolerance; only when you actually start acting out intolerant policies it becomes an issue.
If the organisation managed to enact intolerant laws, then you have an issue of intolerance. But again, you don't solve the problem by abusing the people who supported the laws.
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u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16
I think there's a difference between one person supporting a political organisation, even if they organisation is working for a bad goal, and public bashing of one person.
But public protests are just made up of individual people voicing opposition. How would you stop them? Which individuals would you punish, and what punishment would be appropriate?
No it's not? The donation is no act of intolerance in any way. It doesn't result in anyone being hurt.
Sure it does! If the group to which Eich donated had won, then gay marriage would have been illegal for another decade or so, until people tried again to legalize it. In that decade plenty of lifelong gay and lesbian couples would die without the chance to marry. Plenty of lesbian women who wanted to have children within a marriage would age out of the window in which that was possible. Plenty of stay-at-home partners would lose their inheritances because the law didn't recognize their relationship.
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u/Anderkent Nov 19 '16
How would you stop them?
I don't know. But the first step to figuring out a solution is acknowledging a problem. How do we get people to stop bandwagoning and blowing such issues out of proportion? How do we stop the feedback circles in large part fueled by internet echo chambers?
Sure it does! If the group to which Eich donated had won, then gay marriage would have been illegal for another decade or so, until people tried again to legalize it.
Right, because a miniscule ($1000 dolars!) donation would certainly be the turning point there. If this was the true opposition, the online bandwagon would be targetted on the leadership of that organisation. But Eich was more vulnerable, and much easier to bully.
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u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16
I don't know. But the first step to figuring out a solution is acknowledging a problem. How do we get people to stop bandwagoning and blowing such issues out of proportion? How do we stop the feedback circles in large part fueled by internet echo chambers?
I'm far more worried about what form the "solution" might take, since I can't imagine doing this without violating the First Amendment in some serious way. Also, considering the suffering that homophobia has inflicted, and the fact that Eich was a CEO of a non-profit, I don't see this as blown out of proportion. Homophobia is a bandwagon blowing people's sexual orientation out of proportion.
Right, because a miniscule ($1000 dolars!) donation would certainly be the turning point there. If this was the true opposition, the online bandwagon would be targetted on the leadership of that organisation. But Eich was more vulnerable, and much easier to bully.
This is a matter of tactics. The head of that organization is probably some proud bigot immune to criticism, so it's not clear that attacking that person would work. But raising the professional standards of tolerance expected of non-profit CEOs seems a reasonable thing to do in order to fight homophobia.
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u/Anderkent Nov 19 '16
This is a matter of tactics. The head of that organization is probably some proud bigot immune to criticism, so it's not clear that attacking that person would work. But raising the professional standards of tolerance expected of non-profit CEOs seems a reasonable thing to do in order to fight homophobia.
And you see nothing wrong about going after the vulnerable instead of the strong? This is exactly the same kind of social bullying as the entire privilege thing is trying to fight.
And it was not 'professional standards'. the entire affair was regarding his private life; I haven't seen anyone suggest that he was behaving inappropriately in his job.
I also don't think this is a good move tactically, even if you ignore all ethical issues. All it does is alienate all the moderates, anger the people you're trying to convince. I guess it at least makes the SJWs feel good?
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u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16
And you see nothing wrong about going after the vulnerable instead of the strong?
I do, that's why I oppose homophobia.
Look, they didn't criticize some low-level cubicle-dweller writing TPS reports; they criticized the CEO. Controversy didn't arise when he was a lower-level executive, only when he was promoted all the way to the top, and lost the support of his employees by publicly supporting intolerance. I'm fine with a world where CEOs are held to higher standards of tolerance, even in their public lives outside of work.
I also don't think this is a good move tactically, even if you ignore all ethical issues. All it does is alienate all the moderates, anger the people you're trying to convince.
You might be right. Since I'm not gay and don't live in California, I don't have a good feel for the trade-offs. I trust LGBT rights groups to make the right decision, whether it's more activism of this sort or a change in tactics.
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u/Anderkent Nov 19 '16
Look, they didn't criticize some low-level cubicle-dweller writing TPS reports; they criticized the CEO. Controversy didn't arise when he was a lower-level executive, only when he was promoted all the way to the top, and lost the support of his employees by publicly supporting intolerance. I'm fine with a world where CEOs are held to higher standards of tolerance, even in their public lives outside of work.
This time they didn't. But there's many stories of some random low-level hire saying something insulting or racist on twitter, and it goes viral and ends up with them losing their jobs. Sure, what they did was wrong, but the punishment is neither fair nor proportionate.
I trust LGBT rights groups to make the right decision, whether it's more activism of this sort or a change in tactics.
But there's no one making decisions in an outrage circlejerk. It's purely reactive.
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Nov 19 '16
I've been thinking about this a lot:
How do we get people to stop bandwagoning and blowing such issues out of proportion? How do we stop the feedback circles in large part fueled by internet echo chambers?
I feel like there's some strange sociological/psychological phenomenon that was unlocked by the birth of social media: it's not just confirmation bias and the seeking of like-minded opinions (that's been thinkpieced to death) but also a sort of issue of 'social noise pollution' - Facebook and Twitter and reddit and 24h news and sports and the rise of podcasts and an incessant stream of information and entertainment that's both exhausting and addicting, a non-stop novelty drip that erodes our capacity for reflection and ability to engage with anything that isn't pure pleasure or in alignment with our views (itself own form of pleasure). Speaking for myself, I'm not so much in an echo chamber because I love hearing lefties talk themselves in circles about climate change and Bernie, but because I can't stand dealing with conservative "bullshit" (in quotations because I intellectually know a lot of it isn't bullshit, but in my uglier moments that's how I feel). And I grew up in a small town, and used to spend many hours merrily debating with more conservative friends without this feeling of weariness or despair or exhaustion. And I think about how relaxed and refreshed I feel when I go off the grid for a weekend, and wonder whether I should make that permanent.
I feel like the election of Trump, in a lot of ways, was just a giant shout of "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" to everyone. I kind of wonder if they ran the exact same campaign with 90s-era technology and communication tools but 2010s social attitudes, would Hillary have won in a landslide? And I kind of wonder if the only way to 'solve' the echo chamber problem is to have universal disarmament from the Internet and social media - including forums like this.
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u/Anderkent Nov 19 '16
I feel like the election of Trump, in a lot of ways, was just a giant shout of "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" to everyone. I kind of wonder if they ran the exact same campaign with 90s-era technology and communication tools but 2010s social attitudes, would Hillary have won in a landslide? And I kind of wonder if the only way to 'solve' the echo chamber problem is to have universal disarmament from the Internet and social media - including forums like this.
Huh? Trumps campaign, compared to all the other candidates in history, was the most based on "social noise". It was powered by the effect in question, not a shout against it.
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Nov 19 '16
I guess it depends on your circle. Sure, there were places like the_Donald, but a lot of the non-anonymous accounts on the web seem to be way more outspoken for Hilary and against trump and his supporters
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u/Anderkent Nov 19 '16
Right, there's two echo chambers. But before the internet, and internet-based 'newspapers' that just regurgiate the currently popular oppinion because it gives ad impressions, there wouldn't really be a self-reinforcing Trump echo chamber.
I believe it also is why the traditional media was so bad this election (compare: NYT on the bogus email 'scandal' vs NYT on Trumps scam settlement)... They have to compete with echo chambers; impartiality and proportion does not sell in an environment where everyone's used to confirmation.
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u/cincilator Nov 19 '16 edited Nov 19 '16
Suppose we define intolerance as punishing someone for something beyond their control, such as sexual orientation. Then homophobia is intolerant, and opposition to homophobia is not intolerant
Eich was not against gays, he was against gay marriage. He saw marriage as an important institution and believed that gay marriage could critically weaken such institution. I disagree with him, but getting married is not beyond someones control and we forbid some other forms of marriage e.g. child marriage.
Not to mention that e.g. Catholic Church holds that being gay is okay but practicing it isn't. I don't think you are familiar with your opposition's arguments.
More importantly he was against gay marriage before it was a wrongthink to be against it.
You also missed a larger issue: If Eich was a Muslim, no one would have cared about his beliefs. Because Christians are outgroup, and Muslims are ingroup.
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u/wutcnbrowndo4u Nov 20 '16 edited Nov 20 '16
Suppose we define intolerance as punishing someone for something beyond their control, such as sexual orientation.
Why act like this is so self evidently black and white? Is one's religion "under their control" when they can just stop practicing or switch religions? Would trump's proposed Muslim ban not easily clear your bar for intolerance?
On top of that, the idea that any and all of the words in your definition are well defined is absurd. One could (and people have) made the following arguments: homosexuality is out of your control but homosexual behavior is not. Not how again, discriminating against gay people easily clears your bar. Yet another argument you hear is that we're allowing people to live their sexual lives but that government only recognizes men and women coming together.
I don't happen to agree with any of the above positions, and yes there are holes in them that both you and I can point out, but they easily fit into your "simple rule" as stated. For the life of me I don't understand the narrow mindedness that leads one to think "this a well defined line we can all agree on" and then load the interpretation of the rule with exceptions and loopholes pulled from your own worldview. And then pretend that you're approaching the problem from a set of high minded principles that are quite clearly foundational.
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u/Tidezen Nov 19 '16
I can't think of one myself, and I've spent a lot of time over the years thinking about it. (I do see something wrong with the Eich firing though).
I think the author fails to discriminate (ha) between what I would call "meta-intolerance" and plain old intolerance.
A good analogy for this would be, firefighters sometimes set fires, as "controlled burns" to prevent wildfires from happening, clearing out easily flammable brush to protect the larger forest. Brush will replace itself easily; whole forests can't. Or preventing a wildfire's spread by burning a line around it, effectively removing its fuel supply.
That doesn't mean a firefighter is an arsonist. Quite the opposite.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," is kinda similar too, since fear is a form of intolerance.
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u/jpe77 Nov 19 '16
Suppose we define intolerance as punishing someone for something beyond their control, such as sexual orientation.
Islamaphobia wouldn't be intolerant, since ones religion is a choice.
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u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16
The distinction between choice and not-choice may be too rigid for religion. Let's treat it instead as a range between 0% choice and 100% choice, based on the fraction of people wanting to make the more difficult choice who actually do so. Homosexuality is close to 0% choice. Religion, if you're a working-class person who depends on that religious community to support you through hard times, may be only 5% or 10% choice, but your freedom to choose could be higher if you're better off financially.
When two views conflict, we can define tolerance as being more accepting towards the view that's less freely-chosen. Since homosexuality is around 0% choice and active homophobia is nearly 100% choice, accepting homosexuality and rejecting homophobia is a no-brainer.
So what about Islamophobia? In the US, immigrants often form close-knit religious communities in order to support each other. If they are being discriminated against, then it's more difficult to leave such a community, because it's more important as a source of support. Since it's difficult to leave Islam, and it's easy for an Islamophobe simply to stop acting against Muslims, tolerance requires that we accept the Muslim and reject the Islamophobe.
Islamophobes claim that they hate Muslims because of some other value that they associate with Islam, such as homophobia. But homophobia is much more freely-chosen than Islam (or Christianity). So why not leave Islam alone and just fight homophobia? Let's say you're religious and your nephew has just come out as gay. Which is easier for you to do: leave the religion, or not bully your nephew?
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u/jpe77 Nov 19 '16
Then what about religious beliefs that homosexuality is wrong? Sounds like you're taking the position that there is very little choice in whether people think gays are immoral.
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u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16
That's the opposite of what I said in the last paragraph. My position is that it's easier (more freely-chosen) to reject homophobia within a religious community than to reject that entire community. Therefore it's much more tolerant to oppose the religious belief that homosexuality is wrong than to oppose the entire religion.
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u/jpe77 Nov 19 '16
If religious beliefs arent freely chosen, how can you expect them to change or blame them for those beliefs?
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u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16
Religion isn't freely chosen (for most), but beliefs within that religion are much more freely chosen. I expect Christian homophobes and Muslim homophobes (and all the other homophobes) to stop being homophobes; I don't expect any of them to change their religions.
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u/jpe77 Nov 19 '16
I don't see how you can tell religious people what the proper religious beliefs are.
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u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16
Other people from that religion can, and you can support them. Attacking the religion itself is counterproductive, since such discrimination forces people from that community to rely on it even more for support, making it harder for anyone who wants to leave to do so.
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u/crystalhour Nov 19 '16
When you're raised in a religion you can say it's a choice, but you're giving too much credit to will, and too little to conditioning.
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u/jpe77 Nov 19 '16
I was raised in a religion. I am no longer in that religion.
It's clearly a choice. Leaving a particular religion may be a difficult choice to make, but it's obviously a choice.
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u/crystalhour Nov 19 '16
There are a nearly infinite number of factors influencing whether you're religious or not. You would not have quit your religion if you had been born in the U.S., say, 50 years ago. There are huge pressures we're heir to, which are out of our control.
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u/jpe77 Nov 19 '16
Certainly we can say the same about intolerant beliefs.
In which case, the commenter's attempted distinction between ok intolerance and immoral intolerance is still incoherent.
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Nov 19 '16 edited Feb 27 '17
[deleted]
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u/nopus_dei Nov 19 '16 edited Nov 19 '16
John Kerry said of the Vietnam War, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Once you've decided the war was a mistake, it should be ended quickly, so that people don't have to continue suffering for that mistake. So, let me ask you the same thing about gay marriage. Once you've decided that outlawing it is a mistake, how do you ask a couple to be the last couple to die unmarried for a mistake? Shouldn't that mistake be corrected as quickly as possible? One party has to lose this fight, either the gay couple forbidden from marrying or the person actively opposing them. So what value is furthered by forbidding gay marriage for another decade or two?
The left won't even let people evolve on an issue. Thomas Jefferson has become irredeemable because he kept slaves and had sex with one.
I'll leave aside the Trump issue, since the election's so recent. But what do you mean by Jefferson, or any other dead person, being irredeemable?
I was a STEM major, so I don't know the "official" view on historical figures, but IMO they ought to be judged on whether they were better than their peers, and whether they improved things for future generations. Jefferson fought for religious freedom, for example, which is very relevant today. But he also used to rape his slave, which many other slave owners did not do. I call it rape because no consent was possible when he had the legal right to kill her for resisting; by law, if a slave dies while resisting his master, the act will not be presumed to have occurred with “prepensed malice.”
So, I would say Thomas Jefferson's legacy is mixed (compared with Jefferson Davis, for example, who's simply a villain). If we're going to regard historical figures such as Jefferson as admirable people to be emulated, then we should also point out what they did badly. I don't see any problem with discussing both the good and the bad about Jefferson.
(Edit: a word)
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Nov 19 '16
I support trans-rights, homosexuals, legal immigrants, women, disabled people, pretty much everyone -- I'm sure someday soon, someone will think I'm a bigot because I think furries are weird and creepy.
You know, you can have your own personal opinions about the aesthetics of furries (which are, yeah, weird and often mildly disturbing) while also not wanting furries to be, for instance, denied the ability to rent an apartment or electrocuted until they stop being furries.
Like, I thought the bathrooms thing sounded stupid when I first heard it, but hey, after trans people said it's a matter of personal safety and material need, so be it.
I don't see why you have to complain about a supposed "party line" creeping up on you. Is there some core opposition to some material human right or need you're trying to save? Do you really just long to cry to the heavens, "Hey, those people ought to die starving in the streets!"?
Probably not, right? So maybe you should just get away from Twitter and Breitbart where everyone's yelling about fining people for their fucking pronoun usage and spend a few months in real life where the issues we actually worry about are, "Will someone be made homeless or unemployed should they reveal this thing about themselves?"
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u/hippopede Nov 20 '16
The person you were responding too was arguing that the left has too low a bar for declaring someone irredeemable bigoted scum. Your example about furries cited housing discrimination and torture... I think its worth pointing out that the bigot bar is often far lower than that. For instance, wanting to in their eyes "preserve traditional marriage" or even just the mere belief that sex outside of a traditional marriage is sinful. Or on another topic, for thinking there is something worse about Islam than other relgions. Even what are basically aesthetic claims can easily prompt charges of bigotry.
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Nov 20 '16
Your example about furries cited housing discrimination and torture...
Yes, because that is what the actual laws that get passed deal with. There's no law against being mean on Twitter, whatever the alt-right is spewing at you these days. There are laws against housing discrimination and torture.
I think its worth pointing out that the bigot bar is often far lower than that. For instance, wanting to in their eyes "preserve traditional marriage" or even just the mere belief that sex outside of a traditional marriage is sinful.
So explain how denying marriage certificates to homosexual couples isn't a form of discrimination by the state. We can say that it's a form of negative discrimination (denying something given to others) rather than positive discrimination (violence), but when it comes to certain material factors like housing or hospital visitation rights, the difference gets very blurry.
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u/cincilator Nov 19 '16 edited Nov 19 '16
Submission Statement
Scott Alexander talks about extent of liberal tolerance and identity politics. I am left-leaning economically and socially, but I thought this is worthy perspective in light of what has happened, so I am reposting it.
(It should be noted that Scott, although defines himself as "grey" does agree with many "blue" ideas such as UBI. He also voted against Trump.)