You can play this game all day though. What about people who are intolerant of intolerant people? Ugly, and so -

But wait: what about people who are intolerant of people who are intolerant of intolerant people? Isn’t this ugly too and —-

the quasi-phil argument falls flat as it collapses back into infinity.

Analogy: there’s a dude at work who follows you around, fucks with you, gets everyone at work in on it, makes your life a living hell. You talk to HR “yes but we don’t want to demonize him, he has a family, aren’t you kind of doing what you’re accusing him of doing? He’s a person too! Monstrous behavior but if you knew him well, you’d understand where he’s coming from.”

I feel like maybe there’s a kernel of something in your post, but I don’t think your argument works.

I think you’d fare better with an argument along these lines: people need stability. They need something they rely on. When stuff changes, and leaves them impotent, they resort to scapegoating.

However, stuff is always changing, forever, world without end. You hear a lot about traditions, awesome ones, that have been lost. People cite Dante a lot for this, which is insane. He was excommunicated and thoroughly lost. That’s what the damn book’s about. What about Ulysses? What did Michelangelo think of the pope?

The great works and traditions built on them begin in disruption.

So empathy and support for the dislocated, of course, but also an awareness of how contingent tradition is.

My point was that you're missing something if you think a person has to be evil in order to be racist. "He's a good person! He can't be racist!" << yea, that's wrong.

Your strawman is pretty interesting, though.

people need stability. — csalisbury

Intolerance works as a survival tactic on the cultural level, not so much among individuals. It's the way it works out in the individual psyche that sucks: as a lightning rod for whatever frustrations happen to be floating in the mists.

My point was that you're missing something if you think a person has to be evil in order to be racist

Sure, but your post was couched in qualification, and illuminating detail. I responded to the whole of it.

If all you wanted to ask was 'are racist people necessarily evil?' then that's all you would've asked. You're trying to anticipate gut-responses, and frame things a certain way. Rightly so. My post was responding at that level, the one your post was on. I was responding to the way you were framing things. If you don't want people to respond to the framing, don't frame.

Your strawman is pretty interesting, though. — frank

There's another way of doing this: 'You seem to think I'm saying this. What I'm really saying is this. This is the difference between the two." Then I have some place to work from, to respond. "your strawman is pretty interesting' isn't doing any of that work. It's just trying to elicit venom. If you'll meet me, I'll meet you.

Intolerance works as a survival tactic on the cultural level, not so much among individuals. It's the way it works out in the individual psyche that sucks: as a lightning rod for whatever frustrations happen to be floating in the mists. — frank

My gut-take is that they work (or don't work) on both levels, for the same reasons. What's the difference you see?

I actually did think your strawman was interesting.

Peace.

Most of us luxuriate in being part of our own in-group. It feels good. It's comforting, supportive, nourishing. It's probably also in our genes to like being in our own in-group.

Yes, true enough, each in-group results in everybody else being in the out-group. We are all out-group members, even if we are lucky enough to have a comfy in-group.

Class, national origin, race, language group, home-town, olympic league, sexual orientation, and more -- all are fault lines along which we build our in-groups. Being in an in-group doesn't ipso facto mean we hate everybody else. Working class, Turkish speaking, gay guys would have to go out of their way to find reasons to hate middle class, Russian-speaking heterosexuals. They are both out-groups to each other, both in-groups to themselves.

If you wanted to make middle class Russian-speaking heterosexuals and working class turkish gay guys dislike each other, an intensive program of integration, endless sensitivity training, harangues about equal opportunity, and so on directed at each group, would probably be sufficient for each group to finally loathe that out-group that they had never interacted with but were now supposed to be accepting of -- hell, celebrative over.

No one is evil, clearly. To reduce human strife to anything but humanity itself seems superstitious. So I agree.

The question that interests me is What makes you morally culpable? Are certain beliefs morally obligatory? If you fail to understand what actually causes the behavior you attribute to someone’s race, is that a moral or an intellectual failure? By analogy, you wouldn’t fault a deaf guy for ignoring your calls. I’m tempted to suggest goals and desires - hell, maybe just actions. But it’s all wound up with what you believe.

It would help to know what does qualify as evil, if anything.

thanks, but you’re still calling it a strawman —- and adding “peace” while maintaining strawmanhood, is a bit ( is very much) like a passive aggressive smiley. I want to know where I’m misrepresenting you, and what you actually meant.

I’m sincerely willing to engage with you on this topic. I think we’re closer than you think here. But I have no patience for passive “just saying” games. Which is absolutely what you’re doing.

Assert yourself. Say what you mean.

Racism arises from a misunderstanding, not evil intent. Perhaps the most abysmal aspect of racism is that it's nothing personal. The target race is just "vermin" or what have you. It's no more evil than identifying rats as pests. — frank

Do you hear yourself? "Nothing personal blacky, I just believe you're a pest because of your skin color". Who cares if it's personal, people can be maniacally bad to people they don't know, of course it doesn't have to be personal, but that doesn't mean it has no bearing on character. I personally think believing someone is vermin because of their race or ethnicity is evil, it is a sign of poor character. It shows your willing to make blanket assumptions about a group with no reason as to why (other than the one's you make up so you don't eel bad about it) and go on to use these to justify whatever you want done to them. That's a sign of poor character.

Pretending that these will simply exist in a vacuum and not have an affect on one's behavior is ridiculous. Most people want to get rid of vermin. Pair that with a belief that "race/ethnicity X is vermin" and you get "We should get rid of X".

thanks, but you’re still calling it a strawman, and adding “peace” while maintaining strawmanhood, is a bit ( is very much) like a passive aggressive smiley. — csalisbury

The idea of being intolerant of people who are intolerant of people who are intolerant of.... is interesting to me. There's a story in there (or a painting).

My point in the OP is that malignant intolerance is a result of a misunderstanding. A side ramble was about this:

X-race fails to see the humanity of Y-race.
Y, with a psyche full of angst from having to deal with X, begins to fail to see the humanity of X

Y has fallen into the same misunderstanding as X. I would not suggest that anyone should be intolerant of Y because of that. That intolerance formed naturally. No regress. I'm not trying to congratulate myself here. There just isn't a regress.

As for the bully at work: I personally have to deal with assholes in a way that allows me to put it to rest. I just don't have the constitution to carry a broiler around with me all the time. Understanding the asshole helps some. But there's an irrational aspect to it. If I've taken a hit, sometimes I just have to hit back. There won't be any closure around it until I do. I don't know of any fine principles to apply to it, really. I just feel my way.

I want to know where I’m misrepresenting you, and what you actually meant. — csalisbury

That's a possibility I hadn't considered. I picked up a talking-to-the-wall kind of vibe from your post.

It shows your willing to make blanket assumptions about a group with no reason as to why — MindForged

The world is full of people who have every reason to understand why prejudice is folly, yet they still fail to get it. Why do you think that is?

Because people don't always behave rationally even if on other things they are reasonable. Racism doesn't just drop out of moral character or beneficial evolutionary strategies. That sounds like the unprovable just-so stories that get tossed around evo-psych from time to time.

One of the most important reasons for seeing this is that counter intolerance is just as ugly as the primary type. — frank

Utter and total horseshit.

That was a little intolerant. :lol:

I'm sorry, but this is like saying it's bad to call murderers evil because you're being intolerant of them. Like, really?

Good.

Ugh.

A term often used to describe racists is "ignorant," which describes a lack of knowledge or understanding, implying education is the cure. There are those and there are those who do know better, and while they are of different sorts perhaps spiritually, and they might be deserving of different levels of hell, they unfortunately can exact the same suffering on their victims, so I am reluctant to give those who simply know no better a full pass.

So I do think we ought not treat the curable fully as monsters, but we ought not fool ourselves into thinking that none are monsters.

Well said, you articulated it better than me.

My point in the OP is that malignant intolerance is a result of a misunderstanding. A side ramble was about this:

X-race fails to see the humanity of Y-race.
Y, with a psyche full of angst from having to deal with X, begins to fail to see the humanity of X

Y has fallen into the same misunderstanding as X. I would not suggest that anyone should be intolerant of Y because of that. That intolerance formed naturally. No regress. I'm not trying to congratulate myself here. There just isn't a regress. — frank

Why isn't there a regress for you though? What's arresting the regress?

Another way to ask this same question. You describe two groups mutually not-recognizing each other. Which group are you in? And to whom is your op addressed?

I don't condemn Yrace for its intolerance. I'm not intolerant of it. Y is suffering. Suffering generates violence. That violence is evil, but its source is not.

I'm multi-racial. I'm also off to reddit. Had enough of this forum for a while.

Racism is an ugly fruit of a natural plant. That's what I'm saying. The people who embrace it are not necessarily ugly at heart. One of the most important reasons for seeing this is that counter intolerance is just as ugly as the primary type. If we label racist people as vermin, we have dehumanized them and shut the door on them. We have failed to realize that people can change. — frank

Great, another topic started about a subject without a definition of the subject. How do you define racism?
I define racism as the misconception that the differences between races are greater than the differences between the individuals within a race. The fact that it's a misconception has been prooved by numerous research, wich clearly demonstrates that the differences within a group (in this case specific race) are greater than the differences between groups (in this case different races).
(as in that the differences between the averages of two groups is less than the standard deviations of the groups measured)
So we can get rid of this kind of racism by educating people to get to know and understand the research done, and to apply its conclusions consistently.

Next to rasism, there also is the human tendency to dislike/fear the unknown, wich is a completely different motivater, but wich could result in the same human behaviour. Hence it's not always that easy to distinguis actual racism from just the dislike/fear of that what's different/unknown.

A term often used to describe racists is "ignorant," which describes a lack of knowledge or understanding, implying education is the cure. — Hanover

Wich would be correct, since racists assume that the differences between racial groups are greater than the differences within a racial group, wich is demonstrably incorrect. The scientific data on this overwhelming. Though it's not uncommon that the people saying this fall into the same trap, and are just as ignorant about the underlying facts.

What is the character of a racist.

This is an odd question. I would have assumed by definition that a racist is someone who is devoid of character? Outside of that we are all racist to a greater or lesser degree and not all racism is bad racism.

Perhaps one needs to define ones use of the term a little better?

Also what is "multi-racial"?

M

One can only imagine telling someone who hates racists - because he or she has had to put up with racial vilification all their life - that their hate is 'just as ugly' as that of the racist themselves. The only possible rational response to this kind of liberal kum-ba-yah bullshit is: go fuck yourself you ivory tower con-artist.

One of the main reasons for racism is connected to the ego. If one lacks individual self esteem, they will often use a group identity to compensate. They will use the group, as though it is an extension of themselves, as a way to enhance their self esteem.This may work, but it makes them vulnerable to anyone who discredits the group, since the insecure person will take it personally instead of as a groupie abstraction.

This affect may have had roots in the needs of survival. As one person in ancients times, you were vulnerable to raiders, marauders and predators. If you we're part of a larger defense group, you are more secure. It is very important to maintain the group, for your own survival. If the group is attacked or defeated you are made vulnerable. This survival foundation has been extrapolated, to ego-centric needs.

For example, the White Supremacist may build their self esteem defenses, by relating to being white. This team affect works in their minds, because they may say that most of the innovation and shakers and movers of modern western history were white. By relating to this group, they can sort of accept credit for all the accomplishments of anyone in the group. As an individual, there is no such connection for self esteem. But as the group, one can become buddies with Albert Einstein and George Washington all wrapped into one; my race.

With the blacks the opposite dynamics is often in affect. This group has a lot of dark times. Relating to the group gives one the power of the group, in terms of the fortitude needed for suffering and the power to fight the man. If you attack the group, to release the individual from the spell, they will take it personally, since they need to wear the group like armor. They want to keep the armor shiny and colors pure for self defense.

The antidote is to help children learn individual self esteem. The hurt that people feel about racism is connected to an internal fear of someone taking off their group armor. Individual self esteem, apart from the herd affect, is not vulnerable the same way.

No one is evil, clearly. To reduce human strife to anything but humanity itself seems superstitious. So I agree. — Fool

Yes.

The question that interests me is What makes you morally culpable? Are certain beliefs morally obligatory? If you fail to understand what actually causes the behavior you attribute to someone’s race, is that a moral or an intellectual failure? By analogy, you wouldn’t fault a deaf guy for ignoring your calls. I’m tempted to suggest goals and desires - hell, maybe just actions. But it’s all wound up with what you believe. — Fool

Ignorance is just the darkness prior to living through an experience that sheds light. People who diligently behave tolerantly because that's what they think they're supposed to be doing are just as ignorant as racists. They're also the ones most likely to become monstrous if society turns in that direction, because they think they're virtuous when they're really just untried.

A racist person who experiences a transformation because of going through the whole ethical cycle of guilt and redemption is a stronger, more graceful person than the untried poster carrier.

Where is culpability? It's there in that sense of guilt the transforming person feels, but otherwise, I think it's just a social fixture. What do you think?

It would help to know what does qualify as evil, if anything. — Fool

"Evil" is an honorific for spectacular failures. :D

I think I just didn't understand what you were saying. Sorry.

This is an odd question. I would have assumed by definition that a racist is someone who is devoid of character? Outside of that we are all racist to a greater or lesser degree and not all racism is bad racism.

Perhaps one needs to define ones use of the term a little better?

Also what is "multi-racial"? — Marcus de Brun

Devoid of character? Why do you say that?

Multi-racial in this case means more than bi-racial.