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Tolerating intolerance
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this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Where should the line be drawn?
Where between "I wouldn't date a trans person because it is against my ideals" (personal preference in partners) and "I wouldn't socialise with a trans person because it is against my ideals" (personal preference in friends) would we draw our boundary? Would it be between these two forms of discomfort,, or would both these ideals be unacceptable, or would both be acceptable?
The issue isn't that such speech should be removed, there is broad agreement there, but where do we start trimming?
Next comes the question, in policing such discourse, what would the cost to privacy be? "Protect the children from the predators" (something everyone can agree with) is already a rallying cry leafing to the erosion of encryption and privacy, shall "stamp out the TERFs" become the next one? Who here remembers what "stopping terrorists" did to privacy?
Overall, I doubt there are many who don't feel open distaste at certain forms of speech, and would rather it not be tolerated. However, the difficulty in where to draw the line, and the fear of the cost such a line would have, is why there is likely more opposition.
This seems disingenuous. You don't have to date anyone you don't want, and you don't have to be friends with anyone you don't want. Why did you decide that was the place to draw the line? You do not have to date Bob from accounting for any reason. But you also don't deserve a job along side Bob if you go on talking about how he doesn't deserve a place in our society.
Ones rights doesn't supercede anothers. You can be a Nazi in your own home, but once you start sprewing hate publicly you are infrining the freedoms of others. This is already the law. But people want to change this law, and are using transphobia to do so, in much the same way they use fear of pedophiles to errode your rights.(trans people harm kids, we must ban trans people to protect kids, is the essential arguement.)In essence You claim that if we stop trans-hate speech, we are losing our rights, but in reality those who are sprewing trans-hate are actively trying to remove your rights and just using transphobia as a means to an end.
Hate speech is always about removing freedoms and rights. Either through violence or legislation. If you want to talk about lines drawn: should we stop Bob from screaming "gas the Jews" in his own home? What about outside a synagogue? What about on the Senate floor? Which of these seems more of an infringement of a Jewish person's rights?
I know it is some places, but in the US at least spewing hate is specifically allowed.
Your own answer offers a far better example of disingenuity, at least so I feel.
It is socially acceptable not to date someone due to a biological trait (of which being trans is a prime example) you are not attracted to (i.e. personal preference), however (I certainly believe) it isn't really socially acceptable to say "I don't want to spend time with X because of " (your action is motivated by a personal preference). One is a clear matter where personal preference trumps, but the other is one where polite society forms an interesting grey area - where between those two is your line?
I'd disagree with the statement that you can be a nazi in your own home (a good strawman there), since that just means you'll be training a nice younger crop of nazis (which is the real root of the issue), but that isn't the question at stake here. It's "why isn't everyone up in arms against transphobia", and the answer is that no-one can agree on where the line should be drawn, and most people are worries that it'll turn out like every other attempt to stamp out particular ideals. However, in the spirit of charity, my line is drawn well before the person begins to shout "gas the Jews" in their own home, because prior to that the harm was already done.
Hate speech definitely removes freedoms and rights, but it is the ears that listen that determine whose rights and freedoms are removed. Will the crowd turn upon the person spewing hate (giving in to a morally acceptable hatered, thence rises the paradox), or will it follow the voice guiding them towards hatered.
Legislating your hate to force other people to live with your personal evil choices.
Surely it should be drawn well before that - even prior to legislation the simple iniquity that trans folk experience every day merits action.
You're starting out with intolerance as the baseline. It's one thing to not want to date a trans person because you're not sexually ATTRACTED to trans people. That's perfectly fine. To not want to because it's "against your ideals" implies that you disapprove of ANYONE dating a trans person, which can only be a result of bigotry.
Nobody's talking about legislating against TERFS existing or that anyone who has bigoted views on trans people being predatory, so that's not a valid comparison either.
You can ABSOLUTELY be intolerant towards intolerance without trying to legislate it away or otherwise unfairly persecuting the bigots like they persecute others. In fact, that's the default and correct reaction of tolerant people encountering bigotry.
I'm likely starting from a position of not being clear first thing in the morning, though the accusation was not welcome. As a side note, attraction is based on our ideals: I can see the most beautiful person in the world and have no attraction towards them because of the views the hold, or the actions they've undertaken - though here the ideals one holds for one's own partner and the partners of others are different matters entirely (I very much doubt a straight man would approve of his gay friend's choice of lover for his own!).
I am not arguing against such intolerance against intolerance, I am presenting the point that it's a tricky subject. Legislation often follows public outcry, and over in the UK being trans is a protected characteristic (i.e. such legislation already exists). My personal view is that we SHOULD be working against trans-phobic people existing, both via well considered legislation and education. Though, that will involve deciding where a line should be drawn, why it should be drawn there, and won't be accomplished via trying to stamp out the symptom rather than the disease.
No, that's what it implies to you. Not to everyone else. And idk why.
It's simple. "I wouldn't date a trans person because it's against my ideals" implies nothing about the rest of the world. It just exposes that the speaker's ideal sexual preference does not include trans people. Now, if you're choosing to take "ideals" as "ideals about how society should work", that's on you. If you're choosing to take "I wouldn't date" as "nobody should date", that's also on you.
The phrase is simple and already explains sexual preference, not view on society. It's actually really goddamn interesting, because OP was illustrating how hard it is to draw a line in the sand, because someone will cross it and say you're not allowed to draw the line there, and you did that exact fucking thing. You likened drawing that line in the sand with drawing EVERYONE's line for them, and swiftly crossed it, expressing how wrong it is to draw the line there, and where everyone else's line should be, because you know better and are reading into the implications.
You're either wrong about their intention or about their (lack of) clarity.
"Ideals" and "preferences" are NOT synonyms and since I can't read their mind, I'm gonna assume that what they say is what they mean. Silly in these post-truth times, I know, but I'm old-fashioned like that.
You literally misinterpreted what they said to suit your own agenda. Silly in any times, but yes - also old-fashioned.
Nope, I literally took them at their word and then you came riding to the rescue with a hypothetical interpretation.
I feel like we should just eradicate the whole planet and give consciousness a second chance to evolve. We don't deserve the planet we inherit.
Damn my conciousness is overclocked