Practically, it’s pretty unreasonable to demand a discussion, even about something related to whatever is being discussed.
As for liking saying it, a couple of years ago my restraint just dried up overnight. The smart thing to do would be to shut up at the very least, but I literally have a compulsion to wade into situations that I view as unjust. It doesn’t matter that I can’t change a damn thing, it doesn’t matter if every man and his dog hates my guts, it seems that it’s all about me voicing my refusal to consent no matter what that costs me or how pointless it is. Beats me why that is. It sure hasn’t made my IRL any more fun or peaceful.
The people that frequent this site are going to give you the fairest hearing you’re likely to find anywhere. If you want to discuss something, bring it up! Be civil, and reasonable, and rational, but also be prepared for disagreement.
But don’t treat us as guilty of something that we haven’t done. Beware of distributed hypocrisy!
Since the cost of asking is so low it pays to ask frequently (and often in ways that people may not like).
If you care only about getting what you want and not at all about not annoying other people. In a public forum, where there’s one of you and a great many other potentially-annoyed other people, that’s an attitude that can end up doing substantial net harm.
I can’t be anyone but myself
I think this is an example of what Daniel Dennett calls a “deepity”: it’s ambiguous between something that’s clearly true but has no interesting implications, and something that would have interesting implications if true but may well be false.
So, obviously you are the person you are, and whatever anyone does it will remain true that you are the person you are. This is a triviality, and it tells us nothing. For instance, it’s no argument against dissembling or hypocrisy or tact or politeness or whatever; you can do any of those things, or not do them, and it will still be true that you are the person you are.
But it seems like you want to draw stronger implications. Something like ”… so I have to behave authentically, I shouldn’t try to hide my opinions and attitudes in any way, and they aren’t going to change.” But for any of that to follow, “I can’t be anyone but myself” needs to mean something much stronger and more debatable.
A place doesn’t need to be a “social club” for it to matter how your actions there affect other people.
I own my mental reaction to physical pain too, but you still harm me if you slap me in the face and I think that’s a reason not to do it.
I have changed my thinking on some things, including some rather large ones, in ways other than by talking to people. In any case, I don’t think “Here’s a fun experiment: look up the correlation between children raised by single mothers and criminality in those children/adults. Then look up the rates of single motherhood in the black community.” is the way anyone starts a conversation when their purpose is really learning and possibly changing their ideas.
(Also, it seems like you’re accusing me of some sort of inconsistency for saying that you should leave some opinions unexpressed but also wanting you to be open to changing those opinions. That’s rather unfair since I haven’t in fact said anything about being open to changing those opinions.)
No one is asking you to lie for social gain. No one is asking you to lie at all, or suggesting that you should. If someone says “Hey, Stuart, do you think black people are worse than white people?” or whatever, I would encourage you to tell the truth. (Though I am guessing that if someone asked you that straight out, you quite likely would “lie for social gain”. That’s your decision.)
Let me remind you of the actual history here, which doesn’t involve anyone suggesting that you should lie. You want to talk about certain topics. You said “Since the cost of asking is so low it pays to ask frequently”. I pointed out that you appear to be considering only the cost to you and that there are other costs borne by others if you are unpleasant about it (as you put it ”… to ask frequently (and often in ways that people may not like)”). So: what I’m actually suggesting you might do is to not “ask in ways that people may not like” for the discussions you would like to have. No lying involved: it’s purely a matter of not doing a particular thing in a particular way. And the reason I am suggesting you might do that is because the result may be that other people are annoyed (at having a discussion of something else interrupted by your attempts to talk about the shortcomings of black people and culture, or at having insulting things said about them and their culture). Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean by “social gain”, but to me “for social gain” means “to improve my own social position”, and that’s not what I was suggesting at all.
If “my conduct affects only my reputation” means that it doesn’t affect anyone else’s reputation then it’s probably true (though, I dunno, in some circumstances it might affect the reputation of your parents or teachers, maybe: “wow, did they never teach you X in high school?”). But it does, none the less, affect other people. The costs of one person’s behaviour do not only affect that person.
Maybe it will help if I give some other examples where a “compulsion” to speak your mind on a particular issue would affect other people and might be a bad idea for that reason.
You think the person you’re talking to is really ugly. So you drop “wow, you’re really ugly” into the conversation. Possible adverse consequences: they are upset; the conversation is derailed and less productive.
You think the person you’re talking to is really sexy. So you say “you are the sexiest woman I have seen in weeks”. The ongoing conversation is part of a business meeting. Possible adverse consequences: they feel you aren’t taking the ideas you’re actually supposed to be discussing seriously and just see them as a piece of meat; the company you’re working for loses a contract it would otherwise have got, so lots of people are poorer; the other person, who repeatedly finds herself treated in this way by male colleagues and doesn’t like it, leaves an industry she otherwise enjoys in the hope of better treatment elsewhere.
You walk past a church and notice that there’s some sort of service going on inside. You go in and shout “There is no god! Your religion is bullshit!”. Possible adverse consequences: many people’s day is just a little bit less pleasant because someone shouted at them when they were trying to pray.
You walk past a church and notice that there is a concert going on inside. (A string quartet, let’s say.) You go in and shout “There is no god! This church’s religion is bullshit!”. Possible adverse consequences: many people’s day is just a little bit less pleasant because their music-listening was disrupted.
(In each case there are also possible adverse consequences for you but I assume you’re already able to see those. There are also possible not-adverse consequences. The only point I am making with these examples is that saying things you sincerely believe to be true can be hurtful to other people, disrupt conversations, etc.: the adverse consequences are not only borne by you.)
I didn’t say anything about “social norms”. Please stop making guesses at my opinions and motivations; you keep getting them wrong.
I don’t in the least think that my “public claims of offence” are a good reason for you to change your behaviour. I am arguing that the possibility that what you say, how you say it and where you say it might result in many other people being annoyed, upset or distracted from things that are valuable to them might be a reason for you to change your behaviour.
However, it seems that anything I say that would involve your actions being motivated at all by other people’s well-being or preferences just bounces off, literally as if I hadn’t said it or had said something entirely difference. Perhaps you just 100% don’t care about anyone else but yourself, in which case indeed I am wasting my time raising such issues.
Indeed I don’t make a distinction between speech and action, because speech is one variety of action. Sometimes it’s a variety of action that has relatively slight consequences: “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me”, as the schoolyard saying has it. But sometimes not so much: the words “I sentence you to death”, said by the right person in the right context, are about as consequential as any action gets.
I don’t know what “lexical traps” you think I’m trying to set, but I’m not trying to trap anyone, I don’t think you’re Satan, I can’t imagine why anyone would think that “who a person is makes everything they say wrong or a lie”. Again, it seems as if you’re arguing with some imaginary figure who is (forgive me for saying) much stupider than I actually am, and it’s not helping.
I am glad to see that you agree that the examples I gave are ones where saying particular things would be a bad idea, but it seems as if you may have entirely misunderstood the point of those examples, which was simply to demonstrate that sometimes saying a thing can have adverse consequences for other people besides the person saying it. You’ve responded as if I were saying that I would expect you to say those things; I wouldn’t, and it’s not relevant whether you would.
And, once again, the way you came into this discussion—“Here’s a fun experiment: look up the correlation between children raised by single mothers and criminality in those children/adults. Then look up the rates of single motherhood in the black community.”—looks to me very much more like its goal is “spreading ideology” and not at all like bravely speaking out against injustice (your first attempt at framing it) and even less like trying to challenge, refine and update your own ideas (your second attempt at framing it).
I dare say we are fundamentally different in various respects, but nothing you’ve said gives me the impression that your mental model of me has very much in common with the reality.
Practically, it’s pretty unreasonable to demand a discussion, even about something related to whatever is being discussed.
The people that frequent this site are going to give you the fairest hearing you’re likely to find anywhere. If you want to discuss something, bring it up! Be civil, and reasonable, and rational, but also be prepared for disagreement.
But don’t treat us as guilty of something that we haven’t done. Beware of distributed hypocrisy!
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If you care only about getting what you want and not at all about not annoying other people. In a public forum, where there’s one of you and a great many other potentially-annoyed other people, that’s an attitude that can end up doing substantial net harm.
I think this is an example of what Daniel Dennett calls a “deepity”: it’s ambiguous between something that’s clearly true but has no interesting implications, and something that would have interesting implications if true but may well be false.
So, obviously you are the person you are, and whatever anyone does it will remain true that you are the person you are. This is a triviality, and it tells us nothing. For instance, it’s no argument against dissembling or hypocrisy or tact or politeness or whatever; you can do any of those things, or not do them, and it will still be true that you are the person you are.
But it seems like you want to draw stronger implications. Something like ”… so I have to behave authentically, I shouldn’t try to hide my opinions and attitudes in any way, and they aren’t going to change.” But for any of that to follow, “I can’t be anyone but myself” needs to mean something much stronger and more debatable.
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A place doesn’t need to be a “social club” for it to matter how your actions there affect other people.
I own my mental reaction to physical pain too, but you still harm me if you slap me in the face and I think that’s a reason not to do it.
I have changed my thinking on some things, including some rather large ones, in ways other than by talking to people. In any case, I don’t think “Here’s a fun experiment: look up the correlation between children raised by single mothers and criminality in those children/adults. Then look up the rates of single motherhood in the black community.” is the way anyone starts a conversation when their purpose is really learning and possibly changing their ideas.
(Also, it seems like you’re accusing me of some sort of inconsistency for saying that you should leave some opinions unexpressed but also wanting you to be open to changing those opinions. That’s rather unfair since I haven’t in fact said anything about being open to changing those opinions.)
No one is asking you to lie for social gain. No one is asking you to lie at all, or suggesting that you should. If someone says “Hey, Stuart, do you think black people are worse than white people?” or whatever, I would encourage you to tell the truth. (Though I am guessing that if someone asked you that straight out, you quite likely would “lie for social gain”. That’s your decision.)
Let me remind you of the actual history here, which doesn’t involve anyone suggesting that you should lie. You want to talk about certain topics. You said “Since the cost of asking is so low it pays to ask frequently”. I pointed out that you appear to be considering only the cost to you and that there are other costs borne by others if you are unpleasant about it (as you put it ”… to ask frequently (and often in ways that people may not like)”). So: what I’m actually suggesting you might do is to not “ask in ways that people may not like” for the discussions you would like to have. No lying involved: it’s purely a matter of not doing a particular thing in a particular way. And the reason I am suggesting you might do that is because the result may be that other people are annoyed (at having a discussion of something else interrupted by your attempts to talk about the shortcomings of black people and culture, or at having insulting things said about them and their culture). Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean by “social gain”, but to me “for social gain” means “to improve my own social position”, and that’s not what I was suggesting at all.
If “my conduct affects only my reputation” means that it doesn’t affect anyone else’s reputation then it’s probably true (though, I dunno, in some circumstances it might affect the reputation of your parents or teachers, maybe: “wow, did they never teach you X in high school?”). But it does, none the less, affect other people. The costs of one person’s behaviour do not only affect that person.
Maybe it will help if I give some other examples where a “compulsion” to speak your mind on a particular issue would affect other people and might be a bad idea for that reason.
You think the person you’re talking to is really ugly. So you drop “wow, you’re really ugly” into the conversation. Possible adverse consequences: they are upset; the conversation is derailed and less productive.
You think the person you’re talking to is really sexy. So you say “you are the sexiest woman I have seen in weeks”. The ongoing conversation is part of a business meeting. Possible adverse consequences: they feel you aren’t taking the ideas you’re actually supposed to be discussing seriously and just see them as a piece of meat; the company you’re working for loses a contract it would otherwise have got, so lots of people are poorer; the other person, who repeatedly finds herself treated in this way by male colleagues and doesn’t like it, leaves an industry she otherwise enjoys in the hope of better treatment elsewhere.
You walk past a church and notice that there’s some sort of service going on inside. You go in and shout “There is no god! Your religion is bullshit!”. Possible adverse consequences: many people’s day is just a little bit less pleasant because someone shouted at them when they were trying to pray.
You walk past a church and notice that there is a concert going on inside. (A string quartet, let’s say.) You go in and shout “There is no god! This church’s religion is bullshit!”. Possible adverse consequences: many people’s day is just a little bit less pleasant because their music-listening was disrupted.
(In each case there are also possible adverse consequences for you but I assume you’re already able to see those. There are also possible not-adverse consequences. The only point I am making with these examples is that saying things you sincerely believe to be true can be hurtful to other people, disrupt conversations, etc.: the adverse consequences are not only borne by you.)
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I didn’t say anything about “social norms”. Please stop making guesses at my opinions and motivations; you keep getting them wrong.
I don’t in the least think that my “public claims of offence” are a good reason for you to change your behaviour. I am arguing that the possibility that what you say, how you say it and where you say it might result in many other people being annoyed, upset or distracted from things that are valuable to them might be a reason for you to change your behaviour.
However, it seems that anything I say that would involve your actions being motivated at all by other people’s well-being or preferences just bounces off, literally as if I hadn’t said it or had said something entirely difference. Perhaps you just 100% don’t care about anyone else but yourself, in which case indeed I am wasting my time raising such issues.
Indeed I don’t make a distinction between speech and action, because speech is one variety of action. Sometimes it’s a variety of action that has relatively slight consequences: “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me”, as the schoolyard saying has it. But sometimes not so much: the words “I sentence you to death”, said by the right person in the right context, are about as consequential as any action gets.
I don’t know what “lexical traps” you think I’m trying to set, but I’m not trying to trap anyone, I don’t think you’re Satan, I can’t imagine why anyone would think that “who a person is makes everything they say wrong or a lie”. Again, it seems as if you’re arguing with some imaginary figure who is (forgive me for saying) much stupider than I actually am, and it’s not helping.
I am glad to see that you agree that the examples I gave are ones where saying particular things would be a bad idea, but it seems as if you may have entirely misunderstood the point of those examples, which was simply to demonstrate that sometimes saying a thing can have adverse consequences for other people besides the person saying it. You’ve responded as if I were saying that I would expect you to say those things; I wouldn’t, and it’s not relevant whether you would.
And, once again, the way you came into this discussion—“Here’s a fun experiment: look up the correlation between children raised by single mothers and criminality in those children/adults. Then look up the rates of single motherhood in the black community.”—looks to me very much more like its goal is “spreading ideology” and not at all like bravely speaking out against injustice (your first attempt at framing it) and even less like trying to challenge, refine and update your own ideas (your second attempt at framing it).
I dare say we are fundamentally different in various respects, but nothing you’ve said gives me the impression that your mental model of me has very much in common with the reality.