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Somehow I Became Respectable

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Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#71

Post by duncan-donuts »

slg wrote: post #51
weberc2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t people recently freak out about the ethnicity of the convenience store owner?

The controversy wasn't the ethnicity of the character, it was that the character was portrayed in a stereotypical manner by a white guy no less. It is basically the audio equivalent of blackface. The Simpsons debuted 30 years ago this year and there are plenty of 30 year old comedies that are extremely objectionable by current standards. It isn't always fair to criticize that comedy since it is important to always ju…

Well said. I watched Blazing Saddles last night and that film flat out couldn’t be made today.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#72

Post by jlawson »

asveikau wrote: post #66
ajxs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supporting sensible controls on immigration hardly constitutes 'intolerance'. The framing of anything short of open-borders as 'intolerance' has perverted the entire modern political discussion.

"Imagine there's no countries." -John Lennon. I heard an interview of him where he explained that statement. He said it referred to before the rise of the modern nation-state, where you could walk somewhere and suddenly it was another country, and it just sort of worked as a continuum of places. The idea of passport control came out of World War I. Your boundary-heavy "sensible" version is a very small part of human…

Bizarre to combine "immigrants are subhuman" with "I prefer my own nation".

The first of these statements is mindless hate supported by a fringe of a voiceless fringe.

The second is a common belief within nearly every human group ever. It is evolutionarily inevitable given how groups outcompete atomized individuals. It is justified within a reciprocal altruism framework. It is evident in everyday behavior where people from San Francisco to Milwaukee form social groups with others like them.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#73

Post by asveikau »

jlawson wrote: post #72
asveikau wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Imagine there's no countries." -John Lennon. I heard an interview of him where he explained that statement. He said it referred to before the rise of the modern nation-state, where you could walk somewhere and suddenly it was another country, and it just sort of worked as a continuum of places. The idea of passport control came out of World War I. Your boundary-heavy "sensible" version is a very small part of human…

Bizarre to combine "immigrants are subhuman" with "I prefer my own nation". The first of these statements is mindless hate supported by a fringe of a voiceless fringe. The second is a common belief within nearly every human group ever. It is evolutionarily inevitable given how groups outcompete atomized individuals. It is justified within a reciprocal altruism framework. It is evident in everyday behavior where peopl…

The issue occurs when you prefer your own nation so much that you spend an inordinate amount of time building cages to store members of other nations, or doubting the birth certificates of people whose names look a bit like they might have come from a different place as yours, or, one that shocks me but is "accepted wisdom": you believe that another nation's citizens should not be entitled to civil rights of your country. These are things that occur in the open, with increasing frequency, and I have problems with.

At that point and many similar ones I would stop calling it "I prefer my own nation to exist and it differentiates itself in ways I appreciate" and more of a "hangup".

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#74

Post by ajxs »

asveikau wrote: post #66
ajxs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supporting sensible controls on immigration hardly constitutes 'intolerance'. The framing of anything short of open-borders as 'intolerance' has perverted the entire modern political discussion.

"Imagine there's no countries." -John Lennon. I heard an interview of him where he explained that statement. He said it referred to before the rise of the modern nation-state, where you could walk somewhere and suddenly it was another country, and it just sort of worked as a continuum of places. The idea of passport control came out of World War I. Your boundary-heavy "sensible" version is a very small part of human…

[flagged]

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#75

Post by username90 »

tombert wrote: post #42
mruts wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Calling someone an idiot because they express an idiotic viewpoint isn't "shock", it's calling a spade a spade. As somewhat of a hyper-lefty progressive (and someone whose wife is an immigrant), I don't actually have any issue with someone merely supporting some level of immigration control, and I don't think I'm particularly weird about that; it's not an inherently unreasonable position to want to keep bad people ou…

Intolerance of dogwhistling is what people refer to when they say that intolerance of intolerance is bad. The problem is that when you start judging people based on what you think are dogwhistling instead of their stated opinions you start getting very close to creating an oppressive regime.

Example problems: Many racists use anti-immigrant rhetoric, so an anti-racist might take all anti-immigrant rhetoric to be dogwhistling for racism. Many man haters use feminist rhetoric, so an MRA might take all feminist rhetoric to be dogwhistling for man haters.

Both sides then starts seeing the other side as rabid haters sending subtle signals of hate all over the place. As a result both sides gets attacked for having valid opinions and can thus justly declare the other side irrational. Do you see how that can easily make things escalate out of control?

Do you think such escalations leads to more tolerance? I don't. The only way to get a tolerant society is to accept a bit of intolerance, similar to how we have to accept that there are sometimes insect parts in flour, while those insect parts are bad the measures we would need to implement to get them out would force us to throw away tons of perfectly fine goods.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#76

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

mruts wrote: post #34
Loughla wrote: post #10

Honestly, inside me it makes me wonder if we're seeing the cultural movement toward more progressive ideals, or if we're just seeing the cumulative generational shift away from what their parents stood for. Meaning - WWII's "the greatest generation" was a relatively conservative generation, and it's gone more liberal in terms of social movements ever since. Are we going to keep seeing this movement toward liberalism,…

I dunno, it doesn't seem like we are moving toward liberalism. Everyone wants everyone else kicked off a twitter, everyone wants censorship. Tumblr bans porn, youtube bans anything people complain about, cloudflare doesn't want to do business with 8chan, etc etc. These are all incredibly illiberal and having nothing to do with true liberalism. Liberalism, fundamentally, is about freedom (negative rights), both econom…

Legal death threats? Lol hard pass.

Liberalism does not mean the unrestrained freedom to do as you please.

(I don’t even know where to start responding tbh.)(you’re fundamentally misunderstanding even society as a concept)

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#77

Post by ses1984 »

ajxs wrote: post #74
asveikau wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Imagine there's no countries." -John Lennon. I heard an interview of him where he explained that statement. He said it referred to before the rise of the modern nation-state, where you could walk somewhere and suddenly it was another country, and it just sort of worked as a continuum of places. The idea of passport control came out of World War I. Your boundary-heavy "sensible" version is a very small part of human…

[flagged]

We do pay American tax dollars directly overseas it's called foreign aid.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#78

Post by ajxs »

ses1984 wrote: post #77
ajxs wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We do pay American tax dollars directly overseas it's called foreign aid.

Of course. Individuals on the receiving end do not play a role in deciding when/where that money is spent though. Foreign aid is something entirely different, it is something decided upon by congress. An individual illegally crossing the border with the express purpose of seeking treatment for a pre-existing medical condition is an entirely different thing.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#79

Post by zrobotics »

tombert wrote: post #12
whatshisface wrote: post #3

If you really want to shock everybody, and become a highly respected artist known for redefining the modern gallery in ten to thirty years, you should probably paint some nice landscapes or portraits.

I think you're a bit too late for that; Bob Ross seems to have made a recent resurgence....I don't think you get any more landscape-ey than that.

I think that resurgence is more due to "happy little trees" memes from his show than his actual paintings... I don't see his finished paintings I'm memes, just pictures of Ross whilst painting.

Re: Somehow I Became Respectable

#80

Post by jedberg »

duncan-donuts wrote: post #71
slg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The controversy wasn't the ethnicity of the character, it was that the character was portrayed in a stereotypical manner by a white guy no less. It is basically the audio equivalent of blackface. The Simpsons debuted 30 years ago this year and there are plenty of 30 year old comedies that are extremely objectionable by current standards. It isn't always fair to criticize that comedy since it is important to always ju…

Well said. I watched Blazing Saddles last night and that film flat out couldn’t be made today.

Mel Brooks said as much himself. He said, "I could never get away with the 'N' word or the 'C' word today".
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