(July 19, 2019 at 7:18 am)Belaqua Wrote: See, here I think you're arguing against a moral view that is pretty much dominant in the US these days. It's the "I'm a macho man fuck you" moral system.
It says that once you are out of the charmed circle of people we approve of, we have no duty to be empathetic or kind. It's completely obvious among Trump supporters, who think the concentration camps are justified. It's also common among liberals, who think that anybody who voted for Trump must be a racist and lost cause, undeserving of our sympathy. People will even justify it as some kind of tough love, thinking that the person they don't approve of should be beaten until morale improves.
Recently a guy who posted on the old [S]inking Atheist forum died. His friends are eulogizing him as kind and generous. And to them, he was. He also spent a lot of time on that forum bullying people and typing the most hurtful things he could think of. But his friends agreed that the recipients of his cruelty deserved it, so they think it was a good thing to do.
In other words, a person can devote lots and lots of time to cruelty, and still be considered a kind and generous person.
Kindness to the predator is cruelty to the prey. In other words, you can't necessarily judge by appearances because the world is complicated. You have to discuss specifics.
Over-generalizations get people into more trouble. Some people on any side of any issue are cruel. That doesn't mean most people are, except accidentally perhaps.
You have attacked the basis of social groups before. I will admit they have their pluses and minuses, but being an individualist ranter has its problems too.
