But there is also a clear trend by progressives to deny that actions explicitly stated to be motivated by doctrines in Islam are actually motivated by them. Which is why the President of the USA feels that in order to not offend people he needs to say that suicide bombings have nothing to do with Islam.
In other words, there seems to be a safe haven for Islam, from the exact sort of criticism you're talking about here for Christianity among a ton of progressives. It's characterized by these guys as "racist", which is why I wasn't in a hurry to accept your earlier characterization of this issue. Including guys who get on CNN to talk about it:
I think that religious beliefs help determine the kinds of actions including the kind of violence that is taken when the motivation is there to act in that way (which is clearly is in the Middle east), but I don't think it provides much of a motivation in and of itself.
^Well, then, I think you're completely wrong and could not disagree with you more.
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Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
This. You used to be able to count on conservatives pushing back against that fundamental tenet of liberalism. But today, it's the dogmatic left who get agitated when the cold light of reason is raised high.
I am noticing more and more that simple blatant untruth is coming disproportionately (certainly not exclusively) from the left. I'm ON the left. I agree with almost everything that could be politically classified as leftist, even in Canada (other than a general lack of understanding of fiscal policy that seems to render that somehow an unimportant factor in some people's eyes).
But it seems to me that people on this side of the political spectrum have become somewhat... dictatorial, is maybe a bad word for it? The idea that there are certain subjects that cannot be talked about, certain jokes that cannot be told, certain ideas that cannot be held, actual facts that can't be discussed because they involve some implication that we don't like, usually having to do with inequality.
We seem to have come up with this narrative about injustice in the world that needs to be corrected and facts are less important than that narrative, because "God dammit, the injustice needs to be corrected and that's more important than what's real! Every time a white cop shoots a black guy it's racism and there is no room for nuance!"
Not that the right cares about facts either, but it seems on that side of the spectrum more to be a problem with tribalism. "Our team says this is the way the world is and should, be, to hell with your team, you lying liars! Global warming is a myth no matter what your scientists say!"
Sorry, that venting was off topic. I'm just becoming super disillusioned with the political discourse generally.
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I am noticing more and more that simple blatant untruth is coming disproportionately (certainly not exclusively) from the left. I'm ON the left. I agree with almost everything that could be politically classified as leftist, even in Canada (other than a general lack of understanding of fiscal policy that seems to render that somehow an unimportant factor in some people's eyes).
Yep. I'm a pro-choice atheist who supported gay marriage before it was cool, wants to see strong public services and infrastructure, and wouldn't be bothered if Alberta put a sales tax in place. And yet I get it in the neck from the left far more often than I do from the right.
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Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
But it seems to me that people on this side of the political spectrum have become somewhat... dictatorial, is maybe a bad word for it? The idea that there are certain subjects that cannot be talked about, certain jokes that cannot be told, certain ideas that cannot be held, actual facts that can't be discussed because they involve some implication that we don't like, usually having to do with inequality.
It's identity politics. It has become a secular religion, with its own credos, shibboleths, and public acts of shaming. I've come to the conclusion that the religious mindset - the abandonment of reason in favour of certainty, utopianism, and a stark us vs them worldview - has not declined at all in the last 50 years, but has instead morphed into a secular strain that is no less dogmatic than the model it replaced.
Basically, most people find it a lot easier to feel than to think, and to divide the world into simplistic dichotomies rather than recognize nuance and empirical facts. The forces of reason and our liberal traditions birthed in the enlightenment are under assault from both sides.
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Originally Posted by fotze
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But it seems to me that people on this side of the political spectrum have become somewhat... dictatorial, is maybe a bad word for it? The idea that there are certain subjects that cannot be talked about, certain jokes that cannot be told, certain ideas that cannot be held, actual facts that can't be discussed because they involve some implication that we don't like, usually having to do with inequality.
Since when are you not allowed to talk about certain topic or make certain jokes?
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We seem to have come up with this narrative about injustice in the world that needs to be corrected and facts are less important than that narrative, because "God dammit, the injustice needs to be corrected and that's more important than what's real! Every time a white cop shoots a black guy it's racism and there is no room for nuance!"
I don't know if it's so much that as it is a reaction to the immediate denial that racism exists in today's world or could have been a factor in the shooting. It may not be that a cop who shoots an unarmed black person is consciously racist, but we do know that there is a lot of institutionalized racism in most police forces, that there is systemic racism against black people that is more likely to cause them become involved in an altercation with police, and sometimes there are just flat-out racist cops. You're right that sometimes it's not very nuanced, and sometimes people get it wrong, but it's somewhat understandable when that #### is so prevalent and black people have to deal with it every day of their lives.
Yep. I'm a pro-choice atheist who supported gay marriage before it was cool, wants to see strong public services and infrastructure, and wouldn't be bothered if Alberta put a sales tax in place. And yet I get it in the neck from the left far more often than I do from the right.
It's identity politics. It has become a secular religion, with its own credos, shibboleths, and public acts of shaming. I've come to the conclusion that the religious mindset - the abandonment of reason in favour of certainty, utopianism, and a stark us vs them worldview - has not declined at all in the last 50 years, but has instead morphed into a secular strain that is no less dogmatic than the model it replaced.
Basically, most people find it a lot easier to feel than to think, and to divide the world into simplistic dichotomies rather than recognize nuance and empirical facts. The forces of reason and our liberal traditions birthed in the enlightenment are under assault from both sides.
If anything it's become worse for some as there are no secular creeds reminding people to love their enemies and so on being preached to the members of the group on a weekly basis as is the case with most major religions (if your devoted anyhow)
Identity politics is the scourge of the left. You can only talk about social justice related issues if your a member of the "oppressed" group. Vice versa is fine though becuase some obscure study indicated that the "oppressed" are able to imagine the positions of the "privilege" some minuscule amount better than vice versa.
It's no wonder useless terms like reverse-racism, reverse-sexism, reverse-classism etc have entered our lexicon. Those that hold to identity politics say such things don't exist because you can only be racist, sexist, etc against the "oppressed" group. This is of course nonsense. reverse racism, sexism, etc don't exist because there is just plain old racism, sexim, classism, etc, regardless of who it's directed to, how privileged they are, or who is saying it. That's not to say that they are distributed equally among the population; that would be equally ludicrous.
I find it far more frustrating to discuss religion and politics with the far left than with the far right. At least he far right will let you say your piece without flying off the handle before appealing to their worldview to explain why they are not convinced.
Since when are you not allowed to talk about certain topic or make certain jokes?
Ask comics (Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld come to mind) who won't perform on college campuses anymore. Or, hell, this comes to mind.
It's become an sort of nebulous set of secular blasphemy laws predicated on not offending anyone.
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I don't know if it's so much that as it is a reaction to the immediate denial that racism exists in today's world or could have been a factor in the shooting.
This is not a thing. In order to find someone who thinks racism doesn't exist you have to look for Westboro-Baptist-Church level kooks. Or shock jock provocateurs who don't really mean what they say, I guess, too.
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It may not be that a cop who shoots an unarmed black person is consciously racist, but we do know that there is a lot of institutionalized racism in most police forces
This is another issue that seems to have come up lately: mind reading. It's been a bit of a slippery slope from things like, "I don't hate gays, I just don't agree with their lifestyle" being not very subtle code for "I don't like gays", to in just about every situation, extremely sensitive left wing people imagining that they can read minds and guess the underlying conscious or subconscious motivation behind every belief or action. Again, the right doesn't generally do this.
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You're right that sometimes it's not very nuanced, and sometimes people get it wrong, but it's somewhat understandable when that #### is so prevalent and black people have to deal with it every day of their lives.
There it is. Right there. You just did exactly what I was talking about. The narrative is bolded. In pursuit of the narrative, in fighting that injustice, there are errors, but it doesn't matter if we're right or wrong because conquering the injustice is more important than what really happened.
I used to do this a lot, too, especially with gay rights issues. I still do it sometimes and have to re-examine some stuff. This isn't a way to have a discourse.
Clifffletcher: Identity politics is a problem but it's a bit different from what I'm talking about here. Identity politics is how tribalism seems to have manifested itself on the left side of the spectrum - "you're not part of our group so your opinion on this topic isn't valid", etc. Whole other discussion.
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Clifffletcher: Identity politics is a problem but it's a bit different from what I'm talking about here. Identity politics is how tribalism seems to have manifested itself on the left side of the spectrum - "you're not part of our group so your opinion on this topic isn't valid", etc. Whole other discussion.
I think they're related. A remarkable number of crusaders in the identity politics movement are white males. They don't hesitate to denounce other white males - in fact the license to do so, and the balm of self-righteous white-knighting, is one of the appeals of the mindset. The core of the dogma is that there's a hierarchy of privilege, defined by gender, sexual orientation, and race*. In any dispute, those lower on the hierarchy hold the moral high ground. Straight white males are at the top of the hierarchy. Everyone else is a victim of varying degrees. And once you're cast as a victim, every hurt you feel or could possibly feel must be anticipated and avoided. That's how you end up with trigger warnings on college campuses. It's also how we've seen the range of acceptable public expression become narrower and narrower. The new left realizes it can't really control much besides language, so language and the presentation of people in media have become their battleground. And like the puritanical Christians who they resemble so much in temperament, the weapons they employ are shame and ostracization. Some tenets, some beliefs, simply cannot be questioned.
The movement is essentially anti-rational and anti-liberal. Read the reviews for Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature. For the sin of documenting the dramatic decline of human violence over the last 5,000 years, Pinker brought down a firestorm of criticism from the left. He dared to substantiate the improvement of the human condition with empirical facts. Sadly, there's nobody so reluctant to recognize progress as a modern progressive.
* Notably absent is class, which gives an insight into the background and sensitivities of the adherents.
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Ask comics (Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld come to mind) who won't perform on college campuses anymore. Or, hell, this comes to mind.
It's become an sort of nebulous set of secular blasphemy laws predicated on not offending anyone.
Okay so you are allowed to make these jokes then. You're just more upset because some people find them upsetting and are expressing that they are upset by them, yes?
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This is not a thing. In order to find someone who thinks racism doesn't exist you have to look for Westboro-Baptist-Church level kooks. Or shock jock provocateurs who don't really mean what they say, I guess, too.
Totally not true. I have lots of friends on the right who think that racism is made up or exaggerated by black people, First Nations, etc. This doesn't even get into the whole whack of people who have the "persecuted white dude" syndrome and truly believe that minorities somehow have it better than them because of programs such as affirmative action.
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This is another issue that seems to have come up lately: mind reading. It's been a bit of a slippery slope from things like, "I don't hate gays, I just don't agree with their lifestyle" being not very subtle code for "I don't like gays", to in just about every situation, extremely sensitive left wing people imagining that they can read minds and guess the underlying conscious or subconscious motivation behind every belief or action. Again, the right doesn't generally do this.
I you picked a pretty poor example because being gay isn't a lifestyle choice, unless we're actually talking about specific ways that gay people live their lives that somehow differentiates them from lifestyles lived by straight people. Otherwise, yeah, "I don't like gays, I just hate their lifestyle" sounds like pretty weakly coded bigotry. If I say "I don't hate blacks, I just hate their lifestyles," I would absolutely be a racist.
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There it is. Right there. You just did exactly what I was talking about. The narrative is bolded. In pursuit of the narrative, in fighting that injustice, there are errors, but it doesn't matter if we're right or wrong because conquering the injustice is more important than what really happened.
Is it? I'm pretty sure I said that I understood it, meaning that I can empathize with why it happens while at the same not excusing or defending the behaviour. You're a lawyer, right? How was your reading comp score on your LSAT? (kidding)
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Clifffletcher: Identity politics is a problem but it's a bit different from what I'm talking about here. Identity politics is how tribalism seems to have manifested itself on the left side of the spectrum - "you're not part of our group so your opinion on this topic isn't valid", etc. Whole other discussion.
I just wanted to add to this, because I see it a lot from people who don't understand the context of why this happens. Where do you get most of your material when researching issues related to minorities? Who do you talk to about these issues? How much time have you spent in the communities or talking with minorities affected by police violence? It'd be like me offering my opinion on how to stop cocaine use in the NHL. I have zero experience being an NHL player or living in that culture, so how exactly is my expertise more valuable than the people who have or are?
My wife is a woman. When we talked about the election, she cited the following issues as important to her:
Affordability of education.
Funding for long-term health care.
Jobs and unemployment.
Those issues seem to be getting a lot of coverage in this campaign.
I don't think the bolded have gotten nearly as much coverage as the niqab. We can talk in terms of issues that affect women but I think there are also issues that are specifically women's issues, such as the niqab, that have gotten very little discussion. We saw all of the leaders except Trudeau and May duck the women's issues debate. There's been very little talk about tackling violence against women, sexualized violence, the pay gap, Harper's cuts to various programs that benefit women, safe legislation for sex-workers, etc. Each of those things deserve more airtime than the niqab debate, IMO.
Okay so you are allowed to make these jokes then. You're just more upset because some people find them upsetting and are expressing that they are upset by them, yes?
This is not what is happening. The response to these jokes is not, "I didn't like that joke and was upset by it", it's "you should not joke about that subject". The only way to describe it is, as I said before, a sort of non-religious prohibition on blasphemy.
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Totally not true. I have lots of friends on the right who think that racism is made up or exaggerated by black people, First Nations, etc. This doesn't even get into the whole whack of people who have the "persecuted white dude" syndrome and truly believe that minorities somehow have it better than them because of programs such as affirmative action.
That's different than saying that racism doesn't exist.
It's also just true to say that affirmative action positively benefits minorities. In that specific instance, then, the minority has it "better". That is obvious. That is the point of affirmative action. That doesn't mean affirmative action is wrong, in any particular instance, of course.
This is an issue that should be addressed - why we have to generalize and discount specific issues faced by people who are generally privileged simply because they are generally privileged? Look at a specific issue and evaluate it in context... Is that so hard?
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I you picked a pretty poor example because being gay isn't a lifestyle choice, unless we're actually talking about specific ways that gay people live their lives that somehow differentiates them from lifestyles lived by straight people. Otherwise, yeah, "I don't like gays, I just hate their lifestyle" sounds like pretty weakly coded bigotry. If I say "I don't hate blacks, I just hate their lifestyles," I would absolutely be a racist.
I think you missed my point - I agree that that's weakly coded bigotry. What I was saying is that we seem to have proceeded down the slippery slope here where it's now become appropriate to assign motive to just about any behavior and suggest, "what you really mean when you say that is X".
If you can't have a conversation taking someone at their word on social issues, you can't have a conversation at all. I'd prefer to pretend I naively believe that the guy who says he isn't homophobic but just doesn't like the "gay lifestyle" is being genuine than have straw men put up everywhere the instant anything controversial is discussed.
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Is it? I'm pretty sure I said that I understood it, meaning that I can empathize with why it happens while at the same not excusing or defending the behaviour. You're a lawyer, right? How was your reading comp score on your LSAT? (kidding)
Your post exemplified the attitude I was identifying generally so I pointed it out. Also, my score was fantastic, thanks. Logical games, though, was a disaster. And I took modal logic. Just... what's the point of the game thing? /derail
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I just wanted to add to this, because I see it a lot from people who don't understand the context of why this happens. Where do you get most of your material when researching issues related to minorities? Who do you talk to about these issues? How much time have you spent in the communities or talking with minorities affected by police violence? It'd be like me offering my opinion on how to stop cocaine use in the NHL. I have zero experience being an NHL player or living in that culture, so how exactly is my expertise more valuable than the people who have or are?
Expertise and experience is of absolutely no value in analyzing the truth content of a proposition. If I make a statement about values (this is a good thing vs this is a bad thing), or a moral statement (we should do X), nothing about me matters vis a vis that statement. It is either right or wrong on its own merits.
The issue I have is that the reaction to a statement is heavily influenced by the ethnic background or sexual orientation or other inherent quality of the maker of that statement. I'm not a woman, but there is literally nothing I could say about, for example, the ethics of abortion, that would be made more or less correct if I were.
This is different from an experiential statement (e.g., "having an abortion is a horribly traumatic experience"), but we seem to have conflated these things.
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Does anyone else find it pretty depressing that this has been virtually the only issue that's been paid attention to by Canadians during this campaign?
fyp
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