OT: tolerance (was Re: Attachment test.)

[rkreiss]

To post:

Our world has been reduced to some extent to 30 second sound bites. With
focus groups, polling and other "modern techniques" most of what we hear has
been refined, test and retested and then homogenized some more before we
hear it.  

Only rarely do we hear things which have not had the content edited. Just
consider the offhand remarks which have been made by some politicians
recently.

I would agree that tolerance has to be 100% but that is never going to
happen.  The problem with your type C is that they will be "tolerant" of
everything to the point when they have lost their freedom as they tolerated
those who would take it away much too long.

I lump political correctness being foisted on us just as bad as McCarthyism
was in the 50's.  We are loosing our right to speak out.  Speech is being
censored by our government is a way that our founding fathers would cringe
at.

Enough said.  Time to get down off my soap box :)

Richard Kreiss

 

-----Original Message-----
From: filepro-list-bounces+rkreiss=verizon.net at lists.celestial.com
[mailto:filepro-list-bounces+rkreiss=verizon.net at lists.celestial.com] On
Behalf Of Fairlight
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 4:46 PM
To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
Subject: Re: OT: tolerance (was Re: Attachment test.)

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:41:08AM -0400, after drawing runes in goat's
blood, Kenneth Brody cast forth these immortal, mystical words:
> On 3/22/2010 11:46 PM, Fairlight wrote:
> [...]
> > The case for arguing against zero tolerance is amusing to me in general.
> 
> I'm not sure what that means.

There is (in non-totalitarian regimes) a general feeling that zero tolerance
for some things is a good thing--especially if it gets popular support
enough to become policy.  So theoretically, if you're against an accepted ZT
policy, you're often against the results of a democratically driven outcome.
But the irony is, many of the democratically driven (or at least popular
opinion-driven) ideologies tend to be overboard and just plain
silly--they're either stating the obvious and trying to legislate morality
(doesn't work, shouldn't be tried), or they're so proposterously without
basis that they don't deserve the benefit of acknowledgement.
Either way, if you argue against it, you're usually stating the obvious that
the sheeple have managed to ignore anyway.  It should just go without saying
that ZT policies don't need to be argued against--they're just usually
wrong, period.

There's a difference worth noting between a ZT policy and a technical
limitation.  Take the anti-HTML email thing...  I'd be for that, obviously.
I'm not going to back away from that stance.  But that's not a ZT policy as
such.  That's imposing a technical functionality limitation.  The difference
between the two is that one is an attempt to herd cats by means of coercion
of various forms, and the other is a case where you simply make it outright
impossible for something to occur by technical means that require no further
human intervention--the system regulates itself without the need for
tolerance/intolerance.  When I was on a server committee for my Call of Duty
4 clan, we tried both methods of enforcement.  The best of the admins and I
both agreed that the more you can make the technology enforce things for you
without human intervention, the better.  There's a huge difference between
-trying- to enforce a policy of any kind at a human level, and "that's just
the way things work".  It may seem like a fine hair to split, since someone
has to implement the technological barrier based on a "policy" to begin
with, but I really think that once you cross from human enforcement to
technological barrier, the nature shifts.  I've seen it happen too many
times to not think so.

As someone that's bucked a lot of systems, I just find it grimly amusing
when people want to argue against a -policy- (especially a ZT one, in this
PC day and age), as opposed to just dealing with something that's
technically implemented so that it's infeasible.  The former is a losing
battle 90%+ of the time.  Can't say I blame them for trying, and quite often
those speaking up have the higher moral ground--but it's usually a losing
cause, even though it also usually amounts to nothing more than speaking
truth and reason.  Saying you can argue against ZT policies is therefore, to
me, like saying you can argue that the sky isn't bright magenta.  Of course
it isn't...but that won't stop the sheeple from claiming it is, if enough of
them have banded together in stupidity to issue an edict that it is and that
you dare not think otherwise under some penalty or another.  

Perhaps I meant more sardonically ironic than amusing.

> What's wrong with "you have a right to be 
> stupid/ignorant/racist/whatever, and to think and say your 
> stupid/ignorant/racist/whatever things, but I have a right to call you 
> out on it, and point out in excruciating detail just how
stupid/ignorant/racist/whatever you really are"?

You had to ask... *laugh* Okay, but my way of thinking about it gets a
little involved.  You -did- ask... :)

This is a three-layer deep system, as I see it:

Group A - Exists and has some trait.
Group B - Exists and feels that Group A is wrong/off/inferior, etc.
Group C - Exists to defend not only Group A, but the very principle that
          any groups that would ordinarily be at Group A status should be
          left alone by any Group B type people.

Now, let's take the case I've most often seen exemplified--bigotry of
various forms.

You've got "target group" (race, orientation, religion, whatever kind of
group) in Group A's spot.  You've got those that dislike those people in
Group B.  You have a growing majority in Group C that preach tolerance for
all Group A type people.

Then you get a bigot (Group B) making a comment.  Group C immediately jumps
on them for being "wrong" (whether there's basis in fact or not), simply for
being intolerant.  What this attacking of the bigot does is shift the
attacked bigot and those attacking them each down a level.
The Group B bigot is suddenly in a Group A situation--their "thing" or
"whatever" is being bigoted.  Actually, they're there from the start--their
viewpoint is always their "thing"--but the act of being castigated by Group
C people effectively highlights this fact.  What it also does, however, is
turn Group C people into Group B people that are attacking Group A
people--just ones they don't have a problem with attacking.  At which point
we have "Bigots against Bigots", which is an ironically recursive loop.
Geoff Tate wrote a deliciously ironic line in one song on Queensryche's
"Operation: Mindcrime" that goes, "Erradicate the facists..."  The irony
never fails to hit me.  And this is essentially more of the same irony.

Essentially, "tolerance for all" would theoretically be fine, if it were
applied evenly across the board.  The problem is, in most cases I've seen
over the years, it isn't.  Group C would have you believe that they're above
it all, but they aren't.  They're no more leaving the Group B people alone
than they want Group B to leave Group A people alone.

In the end, everyone's a Group A of -some- sort.  The true nature of "live
and let live" would be to just leave everyone at Group A, and stop drawing
attention to -any- differentiating qualities--simply accept people as they
are.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work that way, and people keep
reducing themselves and eroding their higher moral ground by engaging in
this sort of moral caste system war.

So to answer your question, there's nothing wrong with "letting" someone be
themselves, but what's wrong with being able to call someone on something is
the fact that it creates Group B, which necessitates (in theory) the
existence of Group C to "fight (or right) the wrongs" of the former.  The
real solution is to simply accept that everyone is a Group A at heart, that
not all Group A's are inherently good or bad, and to just leave well enough
alone.  It's not a case of right/wrong traits having different levels of
justification for being called out--in fact, the reality is that no trait
should be singled out, right or wrong.  The second you call any Group A on
something, whether it's a positive, negative, or neutral quality, you create
Groups B and C, and the vicious cycle commences.  So the right to be
"whatever" I'll agree with.  But the right to cite people for being
"whatever" essentially is a destructive process no matter what the
"whatever" is...and shouldn't be a right at all.  If someone calls someone
for being intolerant, they're really no better than the intolerant person,
and indeed descend to their level.  That's what's wrong with (what I took
away from) what you said, IMHO.  There shouldn't -be- a right to denigrate
anyone, technically--even for being wrong or stupid.  Not ideally.  The
second you grant the right to denigrate for any reason, you lose control
over its use/misuse/appropriation.

Live and let live might actually work fine...if everyone would just shut up
about it and -do- it.  The problem is, it has to work 100% across the board,
equally, or it degenerates into a huge morass of hypocrisy when the extra
two groups are invoked.  The whole system working smoothly relies upon
keeping everyone, right or wrong, at the only single layer that should
exist--Group A, everyone has some "thing/whatever".  Anything beyond that
single layer invokes a moral caste system destructive to peaceful harmony.

I think Bill Vermillion put it pretty eloquently one time we discussed
tolerance, and he said (I'm paraphrasing) that tolerance was essentially
useless rubbish, what it needs to come down to is simply mutual respect.
He had a valid point, IMHO.

> I don't think you need to worry about anyone on this list calling you 
> "politically correct".

If they do, they need a reality check.  :)

In an effort to condense the thread...

I saw JP's note as well.  JP, I actually like that quote the more I reread
it.  There is truth there.  Thanks for sharing, JP.  That ranks up there
with many of the gems Bill Campbell has pointed out over the years that
really make me think.

Which point puzzles me, though.  Most things like that go way back to
historical figures.  One wonders whatever happened to our civilisation.
It's not just the eloquence of speech that's diminished drastically over
time, but seemingly the clarity of thought and willingness to actually think
deeply have also declined.  Maybe I don't read enough non-fiction, but you
don't hear things like that even being quoted of people that were born in
the last 50-100 years very often, if at all (I can't think of a single
case).  Just reinforces my opinion of how stupid we've become as a society.
There's a lot of depth gone missing.

mark->
--
Audio panton, cogito singularis,
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