I’m not trying to describe the people who disagree with me as wanting to bring back slavery or supporting burning down the whole Middle East; that isn’t my point and I apologise if I was unclear.
As I understood it, the argument levelled against me was that: people who say they’re really angry about terrorism are often idiots who hold idiotic beliefs, like, “let’s send loads of tanks to the Middle East and kill all the people who might be in the same social group as the terrorists and that will solve everything!” and in the same way, people who say they’re really angry about racism are the kind of people who hold idiotic beliefs like “let’s ban all science that has anything to do with race and gender!” and therefore it was reasonable of them to assume, when I stated that I was opposed to racism, that I was the latter kind of idiot.
To which my response is that many people are idiots, both people who are angry about terrorism and people who aren’t, people who are angry about racism and people who aren’t. There are high levels of idiocy in both groups. Being angry about terrorism and racism still seems perfectly appropriate and fine as an emotional arational response, since terrorism and racism are both really bad things. I think the proper response to someone saying “I hate terrorism” is “I agree, terrorism is a really bad thing”, not “But drone strikes against 18 year olds in the middle east kill grandmothers!” (even if that is a true thing) and similarly, the proper response to someone saying “I hate racism” is “I agree, genocide and lynchings are really bad”, not “But studies about race and gender are perfectly valid Bayesian inference!” (even if that is a true thing).
I’m not trying to describe the people who disagree with me as wanting to bring back slavery or supporting burning down the whole Middle East; that isn’t my point and I apologise if I was unclear.
As I understood it, the argument levelled against me was that: people who say they’re really angry about terrorism are often idiots who hold idiotic beliefs, like, “let’s send loads of tanks to the Middle East and kill all the people who might be in the same social group as the terrorists and that will solve everything!” and in the same way, people who say they’re really angry about racism are the kind of people who hold idiotic beliefs like “let’s ban all science that has anything to do with race and gender!” and therefore it was reasonable of them to assume, when I stated that I was opposed to racism, that I was the latter kind of idiot.
To which my response is that many people are idiots, both people who are angry about terrorism and people who aren’t, people who are angry about racism and people who aren’t. There are high levels of idiocy in both groups. Being angry about terrorism and racism still seems perfectly appropriate and fine as an emotional arational response, since terrorism and racism are both really bad things. I think the proper response to someone saying “I hate terrorism” is “I agree, terrorism is a really bad thing”, not “But drone strikes against 18 year olds in the middle east kill grandmothers!” (even if that is a true thing) and similarly, the proper response to someone saying “I hate racism” is “I agree, genocide and lynchings are really bad”, not “But studies about race and gender are perfectly valid Bayesian inference!” (even if that is a true thing).