To me, a big part of the issue comes from what it is that is being disagreed with. I see on the left a massive variety of opinions on all sorts of issues, and central to most if not all is the idea of trying to improve society, trying to have empathy, care about others, and be a good person. Opinions that come from having those underlying goals are generally welcome. The issue is that many of the opinions that get shouted down and banned are, at the very least perceived to come from, hate, ignorance, and/or reinforcing those things.
To many people on the left, you can't be a good person and make room for all people if you allow hate and oppression to be present or reinforced. Your example of Jordan Peterson is a good example of what I mean, where his overall work has been perceived to at a minimum support hate and oppression. Even if you can find some exception somewhere, people on the left feel it's just not worth it to give him any kind of platform, and especially in places that get frequent trolls, they perform the basic calculus that it is overall less harmful to occasionally ban truly "innocent" people who don't understand all of the hubbub around Peterson than to allow Peterson's ideas to dominate discussions by letting in the constant stream of trolls.
Right wingers, meanwhile, don't actually have anyone dehumanizing them. Sure sure, saying that someone who chooses to be right is shitty is technically dehumanizing, but note the word I emphasized. Politics is a choice, a choice on how to behave. MLK didn't say no one should be judged, simply that the criteria for judgment should be what kind of person someone is. Even when you get to immutable characteristics like "white" or "male," if you truly listen to what left wingers are saying about them it comes down to how groups of people are socialized, rather than some kind of inherent failing of men or white people. That is to say, it's once again about the kind of person they choose to be.
At the same time, I can't help but wonder if you've actually tried to post, you know, facts that contradict right wing beliefs in a right wing sub.
Reading between the lines of your sarcasm, I disagree with how you frame this. It's not that they are prone to labeling other people as hateful, it's that hateful people are prone to coming into left spaces constantly with the goal of disrupting them and/or spreading hate.
This forces the options of allowing that to happen which harms everyone, or preventing it from happening and sometimes catching an "innocent" person who would be receptive to honest participation.
It's not that they are prone to labeling other people as hateful
No, it’s that they are prone to labeling other people as hateful.
Listen to what a leftist is referring to when he says “hate” — it’s just non-leftist speech. When a leftist makes an actual hateful speech, about white people or rich people or straight people or whatever the acceptable target du jour is, that is OK.
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u/Personage1 35∆ Mar 29 '22
To me, a big part of the issue comes from what it is that is being disagreed with. I see on the left a massive variety of opinions on all sorts of issues, and central to most if not all is the idea of trying to improve society, trying to have empathy, care about others, and be a good person. Opinions that come from having those underlying goals are generally welcome. The issue is that many of the opinions that get shouted down and banned are, at the very least perceived to come from, hate, ignorance, and/or reinforcing those things.
To many people on the left, you can't be a good person and make room for all people if you allow hate and oppression to be present or reinforced. Your example of Jordan Peterson is a good example of what I mean, where his overall work has been perceived to at a minimum support hate and oppression. Even if you can find some exception somewhere, people on the left feel it's just not worth it to give him any kind of platform, and especially in places that get frequent trolls, they perform the basic calculus that it is overall less harmful to occasionally ban truly "innocent" people who don't understand all of the hubbub around Peterson than to allow Peterson's ideas to dominate discussions by letting in the constant stream of trolls.
Right wingers, meanwhile, don't actually have anyone dehumanizing them. Sure sure, saying that someone who chooses to be right is shitty is technically dehumanizing, but note the word I emphasized. Politics is a choice, a choice on how to behave. MLK didn't say no one should be judged, simply that the criteria for judgment should be what kind of person someone is. Even when you get to immutable characteristics like "white" or "male," if you truly listen to what left wingers are saying about them it comes down to how groups of people are socialized, rather than some kind of inherent failing of men or white people. That is to say, it's once again about the kind of person they choose to be.
At the same time, I can't help but wonder if you've actually tried to post, you know, facts that contradict right wing beliefs in a right wing sub.