Our Culture of Contempt • Hacker News Board

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#131

Post by _bxg1 » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

justin66 wrote: post #66

_bxg1 wrote: post #33

Hillary's "deplorables" comment was the embodiment of this problem. And I wouldn't be surprised if it was what tipped the election for Trump in the end.

> Hillary's "deplorables" comment was the embodiment of this problem. I'm always fascinated by the fact that some people believe this. I remember a decade ago, in a heated time during an actual war, Sarah Palin would go on and on about "real Americans," a group which she made clear does not include me. Just one memorable example of the rhetoric she used toward those outside her tribe. She was a huge hit and hugely in…

I would say "deplorable" is far more contemptuous than "not a 'real' 'American'". It suggests that one isn't even a valid person, just something to be hated. And even if it were the same, the entire point is that saying "but look what they did" is a race to the bottom.

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#132

Post by rlt » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

rlt wrote: post #61

tailrecursion wrote: post #23

Ben Shapiro acts respectfully when answering students and debating BLM or other persons. I've seen so many instances of bad behavior on the part of his conversation partner, yet Ben remains cool and professional. The worst I remember is that instance where he refused to use a pronoun on Television. If I recall the trans person in that situation behaved very badly. Jordan Peterson remains cool, even with interviewers…

Sam Harris is a good one on the left. Joe Rogan is fairly neutral but has a lot of interesting guests from both sides on.

Can someone explain the downvotes?

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#133

Post by repolfx » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

moh_maya wrote: post #112

FakeComments wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It became more important to hate white people and what they stood for than participate in Enlightenment culture, so they happily regressed to the cultural norms of, say, the Middle East or South America. Multiculturalism and post-truth thinking was always insane nonsense, and the leftists have been drinking that koolaid for two decades, at least. To hold up cultures that cut off clitorises in the bush and burn witche…

The argument you appear to be making (as I interpret it) is equivalent to saying some members of the Freedom caucus support neo-Nazis / "alt-right", therefore all conservatives are now proponents of eugenics & "white nationalism" or some equivalently loaded term. I mean, democrats are still white, by large majorities..so they "hate themselves"? Such simplistic analysis of something so complicated seems.. trivializati…

I mean, democrats are still white, by large majorities..so they "hate themselves"?

Well, it seems weird, but yeah - haven't you yet encountered the spectacle of a white man who seems to be apologising for being male and white? Or at least suffering from some sort of vague, formless guilt from which he can never atone about his 'privilege'?

Seeing people who have been convinced to hate themselves because of how they were born, is a distressing and puzzling experience. I hope it doesn't become something I see too frequently.

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#134

Post by repolfx » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #108

elefanten wrote: post #13

All political mud-slinging aside, all weighing and apportioning of blame withheld, the main suggestions of the article are worthwhile. 1. Don't allow yourself to slide easily or prematurely into contempt. We do it too often these days. 2. Disagree better. You can disagree, but make your case and engage in the responses. Rhetoric has a place but it's being overused.

There's a real prisoner's dilemma phenomenon going on here. If the two options are "respect" and "contempt", and one side has ramped the contempt up to 11 and won the elections, what should the other side do? I'm all for a winding-down of this process, because eventually it could escalate all the way up to violence, but like nuclear disarmament, you first . Or at least some plausible commitment to de-escalation that…

That's not a prisoner's dilemma. That's exactly what the article is talking about: saying there doesn't need to be a "you first" because both sides are equally guilty, so someone has to put down their contempt and it may as well be you (where "you" here means anyone at all). The act of one side being less contemptuous is not useless in isolation, as would be required for a prisoner's dilemma.

I would also caution against concluding that one side "ramped contempt up to 11". As a foreigner observing the US elections from afar, I saw a lot of contempt in both directions, but especially towards conservatives in the USA who were being routinely described as if they were mindless cattle, good for nothing at all beyond slowly dwindling industrial production. Compared coldly to the rest of the world, Trump's policies (some trade protectionism and enforcement of immigration laws) are nothing special or unusual, not in contemporary times nor historically. But somehow this position became held with utmost contempt and was routinely described as the most hateful forms of racism. You can see that as well with Brexit in which the majority of the voting population has been routinely described as racist.

There's no word for this kind of rhetoric other than contempt - it's literally what the article describes, in which the complexities and motives of millions of people are considered in trivial moralistic terms of "you hate, i love".

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#135

Post by justin66 » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #131

justin66 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hillary's "deplorables" comment was the embodiment of this problem. I'm always fascinated by the fact that some people believe this. I remember a decade ago, in a heated time during an actual war, Sarah Palin would go on and on about "real Americans," a group which she made clear does not include me. Just one memorable example of the rhetoric she used toward those outside her tribe. She was a huge hit and hugely in…

I would say "deplorable" is far more contemptuous than "not a 'real' 'American'". It suggests that one isn't even a valid person, just something to be hated. And even if it were the same, the entire point is that saying "but look what they did" is a race to the bottom.

But that's not what I said, is it? "They" constantly, intentionally do what Hillary did on her worst day. In light of that, nothing you're saying makes any sense.

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#136

Post by repolfx » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #22

This is a superficial and unhelpful piece from someone who, despite appearances to the contrary, is in fact a US political partisan. That doesn't make his opinion worthless! But it does make his high-horse stance a bit much to take, to say nothing of the ahistoricism of his thesis (ask someone who appeared before HUAC if partisanism is boiling over in 2019). That said, I come not to bury Arthur Cooke but to praise hi…

He starts his article by saying he's a political conservative who works for a think tank in DC. What 'appearances to the contrary' do you mean? I've never heard of him but having read his article knew immediately he was a political partisan, because he told me so!

I'm also unsure why his arguments have not survived. The op-ed appeared cogent and internally consistent to me. If you wish to argue his writing is superficial, unhelpful, ahistoric etc, why not do so directly instead of just asserting that these things are so.

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#137

Post by ip26 » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #64

ip26 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you view Pruitt or Zinke as having been fundamentally well-intentioned, working to build a more just & equitable society?

Them being "fundamentally well-intentioned, working to build a more just & equitable society" is a good explanation for why they wiped out lots of job-killing regulations that infringed on private property rights. This might not be your idea of how best to achieve things, but it is consistent with a well-intentioned view that destroying jobs and infringing on private property rights is unjust and inequitable.

I understand people can earnestly believe all regulations are job-killing etc. However the personal enrichment & extreme secrecy made me question their motives.

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#138

Post by dang » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

FakeComments wrote: post #87

_bxg1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support most of the liberal platform, but in recent years a large portion of the party's base has turned into a cesspool of hatred, cynicism, and thoughtless reactionism. We used to be the party of idealism and belief in people's basic goodness. What the hell happened?

It became more important to hate white people and what they stood for than participate in Enlightenment culture, so they happily regressed to the cultural norms of, say, the Middle East or South America. Multiculturalism and post-truth thinking was always insane nonsense, and the leftists have been drinking that koolaid for two decades, at least. To hold up cultures that cut off clitorises in the bush and burn witche…

Would you please not post ideological battle comments to HN? This is exactly the kind of discourse we're trying to avoid, and that presumably the article is lamenting.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#139

Post by dang » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

FakeComments wrote: post #119

moh_maya wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument you appear to be making (as I interpret it) is equivalent to saying some members of the Freedom caucus support neo-Nazis / "alt-right", therefore all conservatives are now proponents of eugenics & "white nationalism" or some equivalently loaded term. I mean, democrats are still white, by large majorities..so they "hate themselves"? Such simplistic analysis of something so complicated seems.. trivializati…

[flagged]

Please stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19347364

Re: Our Culture of Contempt

#140

Post by _bxg1 » Sat, Mar 09, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

justin66 wrote: post #135

_bxg1 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say "deplorable" is far more contemptuous than "not a 'real' 'American'". It suggests that one isn't even a valid person, just something to be hated. And even if it were the same, the entire point is that saying "but look what they did" is a race to the bottom.

But that's not what I said, is it? "They" constantly, intentionally do what Hillary did on her worst day. In light of that, nothing you're saying makes any sense.

It's my experience that the average person - or an entire 50% of the population, if you prefer - isn't a monster. "They" aren't fundamentally worse people than "us". That's the mistake that underpins this whole problem. Maybe on a given dimension, or in a given span of years, you could construct a score sheet that puts them in the red (so to speak). But those on the other side are not holistically morally inferior. Not in parties as old, far-reaching, and evenly-populated as ours.