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In the wake of the mass murder of black parishioners at a Methodist Church in South Carolina, investigations into the perpetrator revealed a deep and violent hatred of minorities, with a particular focus on black people. It was swiftly, and most likely correctly determined that the attack was racially motivated. On his website, "thelastrhodesian.com", and his facebook page, the shooter posed with and represented the flags of Rhodesia and apartheid-era South Africa, and the Civil War era battle flag of Tennessee, more commonly known as the "Confederate Flag." On Thursday, June 18, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the State of Texas does not violate the 1st Amendment by disallowing the printing of license plates with the Confederate Flag on them. On Monday, June 22, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, called Monday on state lawmakers to take down the Confederate flag from the State grounds. Tuesday, July 23, Statues of Confederate Generals are defaced at the University of Texas, in Austin. Officials from State and municipal offices around the country, including Baltimore and New Orleans, call for the further removal/renaming of landmarks bearing reference to Civil War figures. Walmart, Amazon, Sears, Target and eBay all announce the pulling of sales of the Confederate Flag from their stores. Today, its likely a foregone conclusion that the Battle Flag of the Tennessee Army will be scoured from public view, and other icons of Civil War era Southern history will be censored as people begin petitioning to rename parks, remove statues, cover plaques and paint over murals. I think the real question is this: Should we be more concerned about the removal of the Confederate Flag, or more concerned with how quick and easy it was? Should we allow every debate to be solved by declaring whoever calls the other side a racist, "the winner"? Should we do or not do whatever it takes to avoid "racism"?
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Jun 25, 2015 15:01
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CARL MARK FORCE IV posted:When the flag is unquestionably the banner signifying support for a literal Slavers' Rebellion, yes. So what if its questionable? If there is any doubt as to the 'one true meaning' of a symbol, then is it no longer OK to censor that symbol? Does it make a difference if that symbol is being censored by the government, or by the people?
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Jun 25, 2015 16:58
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SlipUp posted:I don't think we should be concerned about the removal or how easy it was. We should allow debates on racism to be settled by outing racists. We shouldn't try to avoid racism, only correct it when it's brought to light. Who gets to 'out' the racists? Who gets to decide who 'is racist', and bring them to light?
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Jun 25, 2015 16:59
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Is there any danger in boiling every person, historic event, place, or group down to a single defining feature, and then judging its merits and whether it should be remembered, honored, or acknowledged on that basis alone? John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin all owned slaves - should we tear down their monuments, too? Che Guevara wrote disparagingly about the inferiority of the black race when he was young - should we burn his shirts? Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are pedophiles - should Amazon take down their films?
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Jun 25, 2015 17:37
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Spun Dog posted:What's your opinion on that? Do you have one or is this more of a "Who watches the Watchmen" type of thread. My opinion is that its bad to treat people and history like legos, where you can just throw out the pieces you don't like; that death of the loyal dissent and tolerance of ideas(even awful ones) is really bad for us. hallebarrysoetoro posted:Were any of those people used as symbols by a group of people who were domestic terrorists who would routinely engage in ritualistic murder that was condoned, if not supported, by local governments? There are countries in the middle east who would say, "yes."
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Jun 25, 2015 17:52
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Tatum Girlparts posted:but at the same time we don't have to pretend they were a valid movement that had goals beyond 'we wanna own them blacks'. validity is probably determined by the winner of the conflict, but to say they had no other objectives is exactly the sort of black and white (pun intended) view of history that I think is bad. Its sort of an acknowledgement that, "Choosing the Right Beliefs" is more important to society than "Understanding History."
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Jun 25, 2015 17:58
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The Warszawa posted:Blarzgh, is the issue that state-sponsored uses of the Confederate flag will be ceased or is there a genuine concern that the flag will be totally redacted from history? I don't think it helps the debate to say this, but I honestly couldn't care less about the Confederate Flag. I'd probably care more if they came for this:  because its racist against Mexicans; that flag is much more representative of what I consider to be my State's history.I'm really more concerned that we're losing the freedom to have dissenting views, in this age of internet outrage and twitter lynchings. Its distressing to me that someone can lose their job over a twitter comment, and that the largest retailers in the country will immediately cow-tow to only the perception of public pressure. Hey, no problem right? We're only eliminating Racism. You don't like Racism, do you? In my mind, its not about what we're stamping out. "Well don't have such wrong opinions, and we won't string you up for it!" is, in my view, a dangerous way of advancing the pricipals of 'tolerance' and 'fairness' and 'equality' that our society supposedly espouses.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:09
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Berke Negri posted:What were the other core objectives of the confederacy that overshadow protecting slavery and enshrining enslaving black people as a universal right? See, this is the bullshit that bothers me. You're more interested in proving what not-a-racist you are than you are in having a discussion. Its not your fault, its whats popular now - 15 years ago, people could discuss the nuance and theory and historiography without fear of being labeled 'evil' or 'racist' or whatever. I really think its bad to try and stamp out all dissent with shame, even if that dissent is really bad.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:17
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blackguy32 posted:But that isn't limiting anyone's freedom to have dissenting views. You can have all the dissenting views you want, and we can call you an rear end in a top hat for it and be outraged about it and refuse to partake in the business you work at. Why shouldn't we tolerate people we disagree with? Why should we engage in financial coercion to force people to pretend to agree with us? What happens when the twitter comments that you want to make are unpopular? The Warszawa posted:See, I guess I don't see it as losing the freedom to have dissenting views so much as I see it as exercising the freedom to change our views and the outward-facing of our governments. For me, the issue of flag censorship is just a starting point to analyze and debate the New Flesh of the age of internet outrage. The Warszawa posted:There's also a question of what's going to constitute "our history" as demographics shift - you say you're worried about taking away the history of your state because a flag may be seen as racist against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, but if a state is its people then what happens when your state is majority Mexican-American? We should engender tolerance for the minority and their views and culture and history, absolutely. poo poo, the math says I'll be one in 25 years. Can you imagine the outrage if me and a bunch of my white friends petitioned to have a statue of Chief Sitting Bull torn down, because it represented rebellion and murder or, would it not be ok, because Sitting Bull and his tribe saw themselves as OwlFancier posted:"noble defenders of liberty ... protecting their lands from the evil big gubmint" History changes and moves - beliefs are fluid throughout time. Villianizing people, and stamping out dissent is bad, no matter how right you are. It affects me that we don't believe that anymore.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:37
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The Warszawa posted:I think that the removing Confederate flag from state houses is a really bad jumping off point for this discussion, not in the least because it wasn't driven by internet outrage at all but by a radicalized individual committing an act of terrorism explicitly because of the ideals that flag was arguably raised on the statehouse grounds to represent. You're probably right. I came here to express my frustration with the fact that even though we've increased our ability to communicate by a thousand fold, we've boiled down the tone and depth of our conversations to, "Nuh uh, you're the [racist/sexist/evilest] because you don't agree with me." And what I got was, "So what, are you a racist or something? You would even defend the confederate flag and the South? How could you possibly argue that the millions of people in the South weren't all evil racists all the time and had no other desires?" Particularly when I didn't make any of those points, and I said I don't even give a poo poo about the flag.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:47
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sean10mm posted:We've got the motives in writing from the legal bodies that made secession and the Confederacy come into being, acting like why they did what they did is buried in some kind of impenetrable subjective fog is being disingenuous as hell. Put more plainly, it's a flat-out dishonest way to frame the question. You're like the only person who'e worried about that in this thread. I think you came here looking for a particular fight, and decided, "well by god, if no one else is going to have this fight, then I'll just beat myself up over it!"
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Jun 25, 2015 18:48
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Believe me, I understand the difference between a 1st Amendment violation and society generally. I'm not concerned about the government, but more about the tone we are taking as a society. I really do think its dangerous to constantly vilify everyone we disagree with.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:53
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The Warszawa posted:You might want to pick up Jon Ronson's book on public shaming, I think it has a lot more cogent examples that would probably serve as better bedrocks for discussion of the issues you want to raise. Thats probably much more constructive; will do.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:55
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GlyphGryph posted:If that's the conversation he wanted, yeah, he chose exactly the wrong topic... No, I think it was the right topic for the discussion, absolutely; there is nearly nothing more flammable than race, and almost nothing more demonstrable than history. The 'confederate flag'almost certainly either means Pride or Prejudice to everyone, regardless of the source or veracity of those feelings. Its a topic where there is plenty of tinder for the sort of base and abrasive communication I thought I'd find. Quite frankly, I'm probably less convinced of my original argument than when I started. I felt like this conversation couldn't be had at all without emotions running too hot and the tone devolving into personal attacks and vilification; the underlying issue certainly veered off topic (what was the civil war really about), but thats fine. After going back and re-reading the thread to this point, its only been a handful of people who've relied on sweeping generalizations, line-in-the-sand rhetoric, and straight personal attacks on others. I think there are more people here dedicated to having a conversation (regardless of topic) than there are people dedicated to having an argument. And I think thats good.
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Jun 29, 2015 15:40
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I feel like we should shift our objective from being Tolerant toward being Tolerable. Tolerance, as a singular principal, is a race to the bottom; without any guiding features its a bum-rush to the lowest common denominator. Tolerance is framed in the negative. "Don't [whatever]. Refrain from [whatever]." Working toward the acceptance of one form of tolerance is necessarily intolerance of its opposite. Tolerance thirsts for restraint, inaction. Tolerance naturally relies on categories and definitions to survive. It must identify groups or ideas to tolerate. Tolerance asks us to sit back and identify, catalog, and make value judgment about others. I think that if we try harder to be Tolerable instead, we are instantly striving for all the things Tolerance as a concept espouses - kindness, understanding, compassion, fairness - all in the discharge of an affirmative duty. Its a call to action, be be a better person to others, and ignores all the definitions that Tolerance needs to maintain to survive. It craves human interaction, and doesn't shy away from discomfort or challenge. It asks us to ignore the things that separate everyone, and affirmatively put good into the world. Its a bad bit to judge people entirely on what they think, or what you think they think, or what they say they think. Its no good to issue value determinations of other people, on any grounds really, but particularly on the basis of something they said or seem to believe. That world is Temper Tantrum Thunderdome, where, so long as you "Are the Rightest" you can act however want; treat people however you want, call them names, accuse them of whatever - all under the banner of tolerance. Its like children playing king of the hill with social issues. I think its better to just try to be nice to people in general. Even the people you don't like.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:14
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OwlFancier posted:You got a weird idea of what those words mean. They're simplistic expressions of a complex concept; should we care more about what we believe, or more about how we treat others? I also think being Tolerable means something completely different than "changing yourself to suit the whims of everyone else." That's some kind of instantaneous, subservient polymorphy. Its not about garnering approval from others. If you're tolerable, it just means you try to get along well with others. You respect them, you are kind to them. And yes, I think you should still try to be kind to people who are acting unreasonably. I don't think society is best served by a burden-shifting framework of social responsibility. I think its better to just be kind to other; specifically I think its more important to be kind than it is to be right.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:48
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GlyphGryph posted:Censuring ideas and mindsets is the entire loving point of society, it is what the word means and what it is for. I don't think this is a widely held belief. GlyphGryph posted:I think your opinion is absolutely deplorable, from a moral, practical, and strategic perspective. It's also clearly dishonest (and inherently hypocritical) Deplorable? Do you really mean that? If you're asking for clarification of my point, its that I think we should start placing more value on how we treat other people, and less value on how or what they think.
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Jun 29, 2015 16:55
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OwlFancier posted:I do that because I'm generally tolerant of idiots, and generally fond of the reasonable. Whether they find me tolerable or not is entirely their issue as far as I'm concerned. And I guess my point is that I think we should be more concerned with whether other people find us tolerable. When we order lunch, or get on the bus, we say, "excuse me", or "please" and "thank you" to total strangers. Its common human courtesy. Why would we treat someone else differently, because we happen to disagree with them on an issue?
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Jun 29, 2015 16:59
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OwlFancier posted:My god, I wonder what the phrase, "being tolerant" means. Thats what I'm saying! 'Being tolerant' in today's social debate just means 'picking the right side and making GBS threads on those who disagree.' Thats why I think its a flawed platform. By definition, we aren't 'being tolerant' when we condemn or judge others on the way they think, no matter how wrong they are.
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Jun 29, 2015 17:04
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OwlFancier posted:"just because you might disagree with some fundamental aspect of a person's being, doesn't mean you should be a oval office about it." I 100% agree with this part of your post. I think we should emphasize this more. SedanChair posted:Should we condemn or judge others when their thoughts manifest in harmful actions? Like, what judges and juries do? The Warszawa posted:Can't condemnation and judgment be distinguished? I don't know that I intended a difference. What I mean is that people tend to treat "judgment" of others as a hall-pass to be lovely to them. I think we call "being lovely to people" condemning them now. Yes, I think we should stop censor/censuring racism and start fixing it.
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Jun 29, 2015 17:44
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If you are both asking about Blarzgh's 10 Step Plan to Eliminate Racism, I can tell you that internet-shaming people is not on the list. I think Racism is a bigger discussion than this conversation would like to make it, where the institutional effects of two centuries of social inequality are much more pressing than the Jesse Jackson meme Uncle Dan posted on his facebook page. And to say that trying to shame people for their opinions has been more effective than education, legislation, literature, organization, volunteering and protest in combating racism is disingenuous, I think.
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Jun 29, 2015 18:09
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Pohl posted:That article doesn't really have much to do with this discussion. Unless you are saying we should jail people for being racist assholes. No, this article goes to the heart of what I'm talking about. Everyone here is arguing for the utility of 'calling out' racists, as a tool for combating racism. I think its a long and complicated discussion about whether blowing up @jim_bob69 on twitter for using the n-word does anyone any good, or if its just makes us feel better to identify and ostracize someone. Does it just steel the resolve of the subject and his like-minded? I also think there is a much deeper conversation about what "racism" is; is it really just what Nana thinks about black people? Is it a socio-economic disparity, and all of its underlying pillars? If you could wave a wand and eliminate every economic and political disparity between blacks and whites, would the deeply held beliefs of a dying generation even matter to you anymore? Would waving that wand lead, over time, to the changes in the hearts and the minds of the people at large? I think there are more productive ways to discuss these issues, and its my belief that internet shaming doesn't hold the utility that other people believe it does.
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Jun 29, 2015 18:37
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GlyphGryph posted:Man, you've really moved those goalposts a lot over the course of this thread. We're getting down to the last tatters of your argument now, aren't we? Page 1: blarzgh posted:Should we allow every debate to be solved by declaring whoever calls the other side a racist, "the winner"? Should we do or not do whatever it takes to avoid "racism"? Page 7: blarzgh posted:I think there are more productive ways to discuss these issues, and its my belief that internet shaming doesn't hold the utility that other people believe it does. I feel like I've remained pretty consistent.
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Jun 29, 2015 18:43
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Main Paineframe posted:"Tolerance" means that we should be accepting of others, while "being tolerable" means that other people should go out of their way to act in a way that won't offend us - it's basically victim-blaming. You took, "stop worrying so much about what people are, and start worrying more about how you treat them." and interpreted it as "telling someone to be tolerable is victim-blaming" and I don't know how.
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Jun 29, 2015 18:49
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Pohl posted:They aren't willing to wait decades anymore for their message to resonate. You're probably right, and its a curious case what kind of difference that makes? Are new changes going to be less resilient to challenges in the future because they happened too rapidly to be well thought out? Is there a risk of abdicating parts of the political process for quick, sweeping changes? I've heard it said that "the worst laws are the ones named after someone." because legislators will run to their committees to pump out a new law in response to a singular tragedy; a law that doesn't really work to the effect is was intended because the impetus for the new law was so unique. Along the way, other legislators are afraid of social(political) pressure to stand up to the law, even in an effort to improve it, because they don't want to be seen as "opposed" in any way.
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Jun 29, 2015 19:03
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zeroprime posted:Maybe if there had been debate on a blanket ban of all displays of the flag this would have been a good way to broach the topic of how social groups can counter-productively criticize something, but it just doesn't seem the case with an object that should be in a museum rather than flying at the state capitol. In my opinion a 'tone' argument, as I've seen it called here, works better where there isn't much debate to be had about the outcome. Should it have been or be a different process is an easier debate to have when the result is the same. Its kind of the opposite of like a 'voter registration' debate, where process=outcome, voter registration pretty clearly suppresses one category of votes, so its nearly impossible to separate the 'process' portion of the debate from the 'outcome.'
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Jun 29, 2015 19:12
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Mormon Star Wars posted:If you really want to see people get mad, burn a neo-confederate book. Hash tag SouthernLivesMatter
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Jun 29, 2015 19:46
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Mormon Star Wars posted:You set that baby on fire and you make the racists and the free speech people have a conniption fit. You're on to something: maybe the best way to start sorting people into social groups is to build a pyre, toss a specific book on it, and see who shows up in protest. Edit: Fallout: Equestria
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Jun 29, 2015 19:56
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