Reminds me of this old story:
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MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip 1 week agoThe social contract of tolerance doesn’t extend to those who are intolerant. They are outside the protection of Tolerant Society’s protection, and the Tolerant are free (and, in fact, strongly encouraged) not to tolerate them, because they aren’t covered.
CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 6 days ago
MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
Definitely one of my favorites, and illustrates the point effectively.
Bgugi@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That view is fine and dandy with an an omniscient lens of who’s the reactionary intolerant and who is the originator of intolerance.
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Group A: “I am intolerant of (group) because they need to go back to their own country and not live in mine.”
Group B: “I am intolerant of (group) because they don’t tolerate other ethnicities.”
This guy: “but who was intolerant first?”
vas@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Wrong question. It doesn’t matter who was “first”.
If the first group stops, the problem is gone.
If the second group stops, the problem is not gone but likely growing.Bgugi@lemmy.world 1 week ago
You both completely miss the argument. Cile is strawmanning, vas is again viewing from the omniscient or opposing viewpoint.
Virtually all intolerants perceive themselves as victims. Permitting “intolerance of intolerance” is just accelerationist, “might makes right” ideology.
Bgugi@lemmy.world 1 week ago
This perspective only works if there’s an ambient view of who’s a reactionary intolerant versus an originating intolerant.
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Do the Nazis ever claim they are intolerant of minorities because the minorities were intolerant to them?
Bgugi@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Unironically yes? Replacement theory, blood libel, global elitism… Whatever the angle, lots of -isms expouse roots in victimhood.
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 1 week ago
This guy obviously didn’t get that memo
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 1 week ago
I really love that story. He is a better person than me. I really wish I still had hope for my fellow man like he does, but trump’s second election fucking broke me. People who I used to think were smart and empathetic were jumping on the “fuck your feelings” bandwagon.
I’ve lost hope. I’ve lost love. I only have anger anymore.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
I find that assassinating prominent political figures helps me feel better.
ExtremeUnicorn@feddit.org 1 week ago
How nany have you killed today?
FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 1 week ago
.338 Lapua for the soul
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 1 week ago
I don’t know your friends. But I’d argue there’s at least some reasoning for this.
If trade policies like globalization have harmed your economic status, offshoring a lot of the jobs you’d previously held, and you were having trouble feeding your family, wouldn’t you vote for the person you thought could fix this? Wouldn’t you say ‘fuck your feelings, I need to feed my family so I’m sorry if you have trouble putting the sex you want on your passport I’m more worried about feeding my family’? At least in concept?
I think that’s where a lot of that sentiment came from. The people of the nation are hurting, and part of Trump’s message always was ‘I see you hurting and I want to fix it’. Dems are totally tone deaf in their messaging. A huge % of the populace gets left out of the ‘American Dream’ and they say nothing. And in recent years they focus a lot on social justice issues and identity politics while ignoring the elephant in the room. It’s why those good people are saying fuck your feelings (IMHO at least), because if the choice is your feelings or their livelihood, then of course they’ll tell your feelings to shove off.
Of course it didn’t work out that way- government cutbacks, tariffs, foreign policy, all handled in such a ham-fisted non-strategic way that whatever benefit might have been gained was instead lost. And now it’s the little guy suffering, so you see a lot of people renouncing their votes.
All I’m saying is keep in mind some of those people who said ‘fuck your feelings’ thought they were fighting for a greater good. I don’t believe they turned malicious. Some did I’m sure, but not all of them.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 1 week ago
Thanks for trying to help keep me grounded.
agent_nycto@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’d argue he isn’t tolerating white supremacy, he’s found a good way to counteract it. If he tolerated it he wouldn’t do anything.
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 1 week ago
It’s BY tolerating it (or more specifically, the people who espouse it) that he fights it.
And I think that’s the key difference- tolerating intolerance (the action), vs tolerating the intolerant (the people).
I think we would all (probably including Mr. Davis) agree that the action of intolerance should not be tolerated. For example, if a local movie theater wants to have ‘whites only’ movie nights, that should not be tolerated and in fact we should all aggressively fight back against such things wherever they happen.
But what of the intolerant person? What of the theater owner in the above example? Should we run him out of town? Tar and feather him? Refuse to talk to him?
The KKK folks he encountered are used to intolerance- threats, shouting, protests, etc. They know they’re not popular, but that helps feed the belief that they are right. They’re used to it. They’re NOT used to being welcomed by anti-racists.
And thus Mr. Davis got through to the racist- by tolerating the intolerant, not by tolerating intolerance. It’s a subtle but vital difference.
agent_nycto@lemmy.world 6 days ago
There’s two wolves in me. One ages with this and the other says nazi punks fuck off and thinks they should be punched.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
I don’t know that he didn’t get it. He just hadn’t a different method of fighting back. Not everyone is going to be able to go around knocking them out. The vast majority of people won’t in fact. There are still other tools they can use to stop the spread, or, in rare cases, reverse it. You have to be careful to not legitimize it though if you’re doing something like that.
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 1 week ago
This thread got me thinking a little more about Mr. Davis.
We talk about ‘not tolerating intolerance’ but I think there’s a second level-- there’s the intolerance (the actions of the racist), and then there’s the intolerant (the racists themselves). It’s easy and simple to group the two together- we don’t want racism, we don’t want the KKK, we don’t want KKK members, all of you go fuck yourselves with your burning cross and go die in a fire (preferably in another county).
I don’t think Mr. Davis would tolerate intolerance any more than you or I. But I think what he does is tolerate the intolerant person, engage them in conversation, treat them like a human being. And THAT can help fix intolerance- by reaching out to the intolerant people and trying to bring them into the larger community and heal them, rather than shunning them and reinforcing their stereotypes.
MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
“Hate the sin, love the sinner”, so to speak.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
Yep, and it has the potential to be very effective. I think we need both of these —punching Nazis and talking with them to change their views.
Another big issue that goes with this is a lot of people will say that if their were bigots once then they should be shunned. This is very harmful though. If we do that then their only reasonable option is to double down. If they lose their group and also can’t be accepted by the rest of society then they’re never going to do that.
I think this problem is much larger than only this right now too. People make their opinions equal to them as a person. They feel if they change their opinion then they’re failing as a person. This isn’t true though. Changing your opinions when you’re shown new information is a sign of strength.
liuther9@lemmy.world 5 days ago
He is an outlier. Simply impossible for me and most of other people to be so selfless, social, patient and dedicated.
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 4 days ago
Why?