So, essentially it is the reverse stupidity. We have seen that one extreme is harmful, therefore we must go to the opposite extreme.
Yet there are situations which require someone being on the middle of the scale—not a bully, but also not someone scared of conflicts. For example, when people are doing things wrong, someone has to tell them. If everyone is avoiding conflicts all the time, then one incompetent employee can ruin a company, or one incompetent government official can ruin a country. The conflict doesn’t necessarily have to be personal; one possible way of saying “your company is horribly inefficient” is to found a competing company.
However, it is not true that all aggressivity is frowned upon by intellectuals. The taboo applies more strongly to men, and covers only physical violence plus speech that feels like it would incite physical violence. Other forms of violence are tolerated. -- For example, if you hear some guy saying something politically incorrect, it would be unacceptable to slap him, but it is acceptable to call his boss, make him fired, and let his children starve. (That is: physical violence = not okay; social and economical violence coming from the right kind of people = okay.) Actually, if you were a women with the right kind of credentials, it would probably be even acceptable to slap him; and he would be frowned upon for fighting back.
By which I am saying, that the idea of “let’s make everyone unable to fight”, although it leads to some negative consequences, is actually just a facade for something more complicated, roughly “let’s make people unable to fight, unless they are members of our tribe”. Disarming your opponents is not a new idea; the original part here is the one which also calls for disarming everyone neutral. (People mostly don’t care about neutrals, they focus on their enemies. But it is more strategical to first disarm everyone using the memes of global disarming, and then find excuses for why your members belong to a different magisterium.)
So, essentially it is the reverse stupidity. We have seen that one extreme is harmful, therefore we must go to the opposite extreme.
Yet there are situations which require someone being on the middle of the scale—not a bully, but also not someone scared of conflicts. For example, when people are doing things wrong, someone has to tell them. If everyone is avoiding conflicts all the time, then one incompetent employee can ruin a company, or one incompetent government official can ruin a country. The conflict doesn’t necessarily have to be personal; one possible way of saying “your company is horribly inefficient” is to found a competing company.
However, it is not true that all aggressivity is frowned upon by intellectuals. The taboo applies more strongly to men, and covers only physical violence plus speech that feels like it would incite physical violence. Other forms of violence are tolerated. -- For example, if you hear some guy saying something politically incorrect, it would be unacceptable to slap him, but it is acceptable to call his boss, make him fired, and let his children starve. (That is: physical violence = not okay; social and economical violence coming from the right kind of people = okay.) Actually, if you were a women with the right kind of credentials, it would probably be even acceptable to slap him; and he would be frowned upon for fighting back.
By which I am saying, that the idea of “let’s make everyone unable to fight”, although it leads to some negative consequences, is actually just a facade for something more complicated, roughly “let’s make people unable to fight, unless they are members of our tribe”. Disarming your opponents is not a new idea; the original part here is the one which also calls for disarming everyone neutral. (People mostly don’t care about neutrals, they focus on their enemies. But it is more strategical to first disarm everyone using the memes of global disarming, and then find excuses for why your members belong to a different magisterium.)