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HungryJoe Gristknife from Under the Tree Since: Dec, 2009
Gristknife
#26: Apr 20th 2012 at 2:02:34 AM

Taking moral relativism into account, if you want to make a case for it being objectively worse in a universal context, you really can't.

I'm not saying that altruism is better or worse than racism, just that both solely have the positive/negative value that we assign to them. Neither's inherently evil, neither is inherently good.

However, within the context of our society, assuming you and I both come from fairly generic 1st World states, racism is worse than altruism. However, I would say that racism is also something that tends to be born of ignorance and/or indoctrination, so while it's a character flaw, it's one that we can correct fairly easily. Not something to condone, definitely worth abhorring, but you can "cure" racism, so turning racist rhetoric on its head and saying terrible things about its practitioners, while not all that objectionable, isn't very productive.

Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.
IraTheSquire Since: Apr, 2010
#27: Apr 20th 2012 at 8:40:12 AM

Not something to condone, definitely worth abhorring, but you can "cure" racism, so turning racist rhetoric on its head and saying terrible things about its practitioners, while not all that objectionable, isn't very productive.

Sorry, I don't think I am getting you here. I'm reading "we should not condemn racism and call racists out for their wrong views because it is not productive" in your post.

So how do you expect a racist to be cured without pointing out the inherent problems within that kind of thinking, the bigotry, the unfairness, the simply unrealistic of it all?

edited 20th Apr '12 8:42:45 AM by IraTheSquire

ALibrarianofBabel Since: Apr, 2012
#28: Apr 20th 2012 at 8:44:53 AM

[up] Took the words right out of my mouth. In fact, I would say that "There is no absolute morality, therefore we shouldn't say bad things about racism (or child pornography or anything else abhorrent you care to name)" is the real thing that stifles productive conversation.

Never build a character piecemeal out of tropes.
HungryJoe Gristknife from Under the Tree Since: Dec, 2009
Gristknife
#29: Apr 20th 2012 at 12:21:55 PM

I'm saying that somebody isn't evil just for being racist.

You can explain to them why what they think is wrong.

Also, I really need to tell my 5AM self not to post philosophical ideas.

Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.
joeyjojo Happy New Year! from South Sydney: go the bunnies! Since: Jan, 2001
Happy New Year!
#30: Apr 20th 2012 at 12:35:12 PM

Yeah I can see where you are coming from joe.

We tend to think of racism in the extremes with a white supremacist and violent neo nazis. But the truth is most of the time racism is subtle day to day stuff most of us is guilty of to one degree or another yet don't think of a racism.

edited 20th Apr '12 12:36:10 PM by joeyjojo

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HungryJoe Gristknife from Under the Tree Since: Dec, 2009
Gristknife
#31: Apr 20th 2012 at 1:05:23 PM

Yeah, that's a big part of it.

But I mean, even some jackass in a hood is still human. Just not a particularly good one. They're capable of fixing that though.

Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.
ALibrarianofBabel Since: Apr, 2012
#32: Apr 20th 2012 at 1:18:25 PM

And they're a lot more likely to fix it if the response they receive to spewing racist statements is more "No, shut up, that's terrible" and less "I respectfully disagree, good sir, but we are all entitled to our opinions, which due to subjective morality are all equally valid".

Never build a character piecemeal out of tropes.
HungryJoe Gristknife from Under the Tree Since: Dec, 2009
Gristknife
#33: Apr 20th 2012 at 1:19:19 PM

Well, yeah.

But there's a tendency to demonize people these days.

Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.
FarseerLolotea from America's Finest City Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#34: Apr 20th 2012 at 1:32:55 PM

The character of Archie Bunker wasn't "evil," for instance. Yes, that's a fictional character (and one who was played by an actor who didn't necessarily like the character, but wanted to keep him at least relatively sympathetic, at that). But plenty of people may hold biased views without acting on them to any great degree.

But the moment they try to act on them? Sorry, but moral relativism be damned.

edited 20th Apr '12 1:34:21 PM by FarseerLolotea

HungryJoe Gristknife from Under the Tree Since: Dec, 2009
Gristknife
#35: Apr 20th 2012 at 3:27:38 PM

Well, depends on the act.

Hate speech? Tricky topic, especially if you're a big fan of freedom of speech. It's not OK but the risk to our society of putting significant limitations on it seems to me too great to counteract in all but the interpersonal level.

A lynching or something like that? Yeah, the motivation doesn't justify the action, and the action is never justified.

Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.
juancarlos Faith in the self. Since: Mar, 2012
Faith in the self.
#36: Apr 20th 2012 at 3:49:31 PM

I think even most constitutions (Including the American one) specify hate speech as an exception to the Freedom of Speech amendment.

There's a reason for this and it's that there's no such thing as an alwas good concept. Everything can be taken to an unreasonable or undesireable extreme.

"My life is my own" | If you want to contact me privately, please ask first on the forum.
HungryJoe Gristknife from Under the Tree Since: Dec, 2009
Gristknife
#37: Apr 20th 2012 at 4:08:47 PM

Nope, first amendment is entirely unrestricted (and since this is also the freedom of religion bit, that's a very good thing), there are some state and local laws, most of which are reasonable, but some which are not, that reign certain things in.

If we really had restrictions on freedom of speech why would we have things like the WBC to worry about?

Germany's banning the swastika from display outside of historical contexts and the fact that holocaust denial is illegal both bother me deeply. I'm more bothered by the fact that these laws are not entirely unreasonable, but I really feel like its a major imposition on an individual's rights not to be able to put on show how hateful and vile they really are.

I hate Illinois Nazis. But I still don't have the right to drive them off a bridge. However, they need to be aware that the responses their exercising their rights might provoke from outside the law.

edited 20th Apr '12 4:09:48 PM by HungryJoe

Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.
pagad Sneering Imperialist from perfidious Albion Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Sneering Imperialist
#38: Apr 20th 2012 at 4:35:17 PM

The swastikas thing mostly pisses me off because it's extremely hard to find model kits of German WW 2 planes that actually have them to put on the tailplane now.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.
ElRigo I'm freezing! Send help! from Baja Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Awaiting my mail-order bride
I'm freezing! Send help!
#39: Apr 20th 2012 at 4:38:14 PM

I still don't get why would Anyone in this day and age would want to identify themselves as a nazi. I mean, its almost as if they wanted to be Obviously Evil.

HungryJoe Gristknife from Under the Tree Since: Dec, 2009
Gristknife
#40: Apr 20th 2012 at 5:10:48 PM

Yeah, it's a mystery alright.

A lot of them are just attention seeking assholes, I think.

Charlie Tunoku is a lover and a fighter.
ElRigo I'm freezing! Send help! from Baja Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Awaiting my mail-order bride
I'm freezing! Send help!
#41: Apr 20th 2012 at 5:21:31 PM

Hey, If I indentified myself with what is probably the only group of people you don't feel bad about murdering in videogames I would at least change the name and logo so I dont give the classical nazi vibe of being the most evil thing in the universe. Then again, If I had some sense I would not be in the nazi party in the first place.

TheBatPencil from Glasgow, Scotland Since: May, 2011 Relationship Status: I'm just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love
#42: Apr 20th 2012 at 5:40:05 PM

[up]x3 I think that there are people out there - troubled folks, mostly - who like the attention that comes with associating with the most ridiculous thing imaginable. You know how some people will do things in their youth just to be as different from people as possible? It's like that, but Up To Eleven and with some serious life issues in play.

Anyway, the old freedom of speech thing. As I see it, you inherently have the right and freedom to do whatever you want up until you violate the rights of someone else. In my book, publically spreading hatred against a section of society is both against public order and violates the right of these people to live in peace.

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)
joeyjojo Happy New Year! from South Sydney: go the bunnies! Since: Jan, 2001
Happy New Year!
#43: Apr 20th 2012 at 5:53:01 PM

I I remember listening to radio interview of an reform klan member. He said they basically go trolling for poor white troubled youths and give them a way to feel powerful.

edited 20th Apr '12 5:53:26 PM by joeyjojo

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ElRigo I'm freezing! Send help! from Baja Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Awaiting my mail-order bride
I'm freezing! Send help!
#44: Apr 20th 2012 at 7:03:34 PM

And that is how gangs are made. Kids this days need to learn about self esteem.

Sarkastique Hey, gorgeous from Baltimore Since: Dec, 2010
Hey, gorgeous
#45: Apr 21st 2012 at 3:27:55 AM

Most people I've discussed this with view my opinions as racist, or at least racialist, so I'll give you my two cents. Even if you don't find it racist, I like shooting the breeze about different points of view, so here's mine:

I don't think there are any inherent differences between the races. The concept of race itself is more than a little suspect, but it's useful enough in everyday conversation that I won't bother puttng in scare quotes.

The apparent differences between the races (other than obvious things like facial features or skin color), aren't racial, they're cultural. That doesn't mean that everyone of a particular race is going to partake in that culture, or that they have an inherent tendency toward it. Nobody, for instance, is genetically programmed to wear a sari, or to eat Mc Donalds instead of dogs. It just means that people who are too different - for real or perceived reasons - to fully integrate with each other are invariably going to develop a distinct cultures with unique bugs and features.

I think the reason for racism is part fear, part ignorance, part kin selection, and partly the fact that some cultures are simply better than others in certain areas (and, conversly, worse in certain areas). Tribal witch doctors in the Amazon are simply not up to par with "white" western medicine. When it comes to having strong family relationships, though, you're probably better off living in a clan-based society like that, than America's divorce-ridden, often fatherless culture.

Point is, people highlight that their culture has, in a given area(s), achieved more than another culture, and rather than investigating the reason for it, they just assume that people from their tribe, or their faith, or their pigmentation are somehow inherently superior. Needless to say, genetics blows this out of the water. It's a pretty common-sensical belief, if you ask me, but it's also verifiably false.

I think if you listen to what all but the most hard-core, "scientific" racists say these days, that's basically why racism survives and thrives, overtly or covertly. People look at Africa and say "black people can't even feed themselves, but white people have the technology to mock them for people all over the world to see!" Rather than any sort of rational investigation into why this is, people just assume that there's some sort of voodoo magic that gives white people bonus stats in the womb.

As you can see, that's basically my explanation for all sorts of bigotry, not just the kind based on skin color.

edited 21st Apr '12 3:31:14 AM by Sarkastique

Memento Mori
Cassie The armored raven from Malaysia, but where? Since: Feb, 2011
The armored raven
#46: Apr 21st 2012 at 5:05:40 AM

I guess it's my turn?

A little fair warning. You can think of me as a racist after reading, but please, PLEASE don't call me one. There are people worse than me

My core belief about this racial issue is that I believe that every ethnic type of human out there was born such a way through history and evolutionary struggle. And since my race was of the same way, I have no reason to descriminate against anyone born of the same process at all. However, I do look down on certain ethnicities, just because I don't find them appealing

That's about it really. Anyone else wanna descriminate, that's their schtick. I won't go so far as to form a club and look down on people I prefer to do so myself, together

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...
FarseerLolotea from America's Finest City Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#47: Apr 21st 2012 at 6:20:38 AM

The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In its 9-0 decision, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine and held that "insulting or 'fighting words,' those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech the prevention and punishment of [which] ... have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."

And as for WBC? That's a matter of nearly half of their clan being attorneys on the lookout for loopholes.

0dd1 Just awesome like that from Nowhere Land Since: Sep, 2009
Just awesome like that
#48: Apr 21st 2012 at 9:04:02 AM

[up][up][up]That's not racist at all. That's basic sociology.

And regarding something that was said earlier, I agree that someone can be racist but not necessarily be a bad person overall. My best friend really hates Asians for some reason (though at least he admits he's kinda racist for doing so).

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Loid from Eastern Standard Time Since: Jun, 2011
#49: Apr 21st 2012 at 9:12:19 AM

"but it's not inherently evil,"

When has racism done any good?

"Dr. Strangeloid, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Cleanlink" - thespacephantom
0dd1 Just awesome like that from Nowhere Land Since: Sep, 2009
Just awesome like that
#50: Apr 21st 2012 at 9:21:03 AM

Well, arguably, if we look at profiling as a form of enforced racism, it's helped catch some criminals. Not saying it doesn't do harm (and it certainly does) but there are some ways people have spun it into positive things.

But I'm just playing devil's advocate here. Racism is bad, mm'kay?

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

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