At What Point Does Activism Become Assholism?

[Brian37]

As driver in Chicago, I find myself incapable of road rage. Sometimes the lane marking are ambigious, intersections confusing, and some areas to congested for polite merging. One road crew can turn a 15 min trip into an hour long delay. I cannot complain when sometimes people cut me off or make some bone-headed U-turn, because sometimes I'm that guy. The car driving on the the shoulder to jump to the front of the line? He left home to be an hour early, but one road crew and an accident on the expressway turned his fifteen minute trip into an hour and a half. In five minutes his $150 Civic Opera tickets will be worthless. While there may be some genuine jerks the fact of the matter, I live in an area where navigating the roads puts everyone in compromising situations with no good solutions. My point is that we live in an imperfect world and even our best efforts warp and twist us in morally suspect way.

I think people become unreasonable when they mistakenly believe Utopia is possible - the world would be so much better is everyone just (fill in the blank). The problem is that many morally laudable goals are mutually exclusive. Open borders are incompatible with a national social safety net. Eliminating environmentally damaging pesticides like DDT allows wide-spread malaria epidemics. Reducing animal fibers and pelts increases the need for petroleum-based non-biodegradable synthetics. Most recycling programs are energy and labor intensive. Land that produces locally grown organic produce reduces the overall food supply.

The pretense of Western society is that we have largely eliminated or are working to eliminate the violence, brutality, inequalities, and ethnic divisions that plagued prior eras. But we haven't. We've just pushed them out of sight both -  actually, by exporting it to the third-world, or intellectually by not recognizing the underlying concepts that seem morally obvious but actually move their implicit violence out of our consciousness. A person may feel good about themselves knowing that the cotton shirt he bought at TJ Maxx did not kill a cage-raised mink or traumatize any sheep but only so long as he doesn't think about the Sri Lankin wage-slaves who pieced it together in sweat-shops or the pesticides and ammonia fertilizers needed to grow the cotton at the scale necessary to make producing it economically viable.

So while conservatives may want to go back to the "good'ole days" that never existed or stick with the "devil-you-know" so-called progressives push for a utopia that cannot exist fraught with unknown perils. This is not to say people should give up and not try to improve the human condition. We should. It's just that the TrueBelievers tend to blind themselves of the relationship between intentions and actual outcomes. In the words of the OP, people become "dicks" when they lack the humility to consider how carefully and incrementally changes need to be made so as not to create a worse situation than before or when they do not realize that their moral luxuries are often paid for by far-away and out-of-sight strangers.

So really, can anyone shake their fist in outrage at "that guy" cutting him off when further down the road he'll be blocking an intersection.

Every nation friend and foe alike have prisons and hospitals. Our species full range of behaviors both good and bad will always exist. Now having said that, the west still does a far better job, all be it still imperfect at valuing more inclusion. If anything makes it worse nationally and globally is the stupid idea that only 1 class, the uber rich should have all the say. If you really want more individual and family stability what will do that are livable wages and universal health care. Racism does exist, and violence will always exist to some degree unfortunately, but stupidly thinking pulpit politics will solve it is bullshit. If one wants to see where more religion in government leads try Saudi Arabia or Iran.

The rich love the religious conservative right, and through 36 years of GOP gerrymandering and bullshit cold war commie crap have gotten half the nation to vote against their own wallet issues by convincing them whom somebody fucks is important.

[Shell B]

Vorlon, I've never doubted I'm an asshole. It's my best quality . . . and my best feature.

This was basically inspired by me on the trans people in sport thread wasn't it. Yes I was deliberately being an arsehole to you but that was because I was perceiving you to be one.

It occurs to me that's we're all arseholes to the theists on this forum who almost invatiably are also arseholes.

No, Mathilda. It wasn't inspired by you. You're not the only asshole I've encountered on the Internet.

I'm not an asshole to the theists on the forum. I dislike as many atheists here as I do theists. One of my favorite members on this forum was a theist. I haven't seen him around lately. Come to think of it, there are a few that I've met since I came back that I like too.

---

As driver in Chicago, I find myself incapable of road rage. Sometimes the lane marking are ambigious, intersections confusing, and some areas to congested for polite merging. One road crew can turn a 15 min trip into an hour long delay. I cannot complain when sometimes people cut me off or make some bone-headed U-turn, because sometimes I'm that guy. The car driving on the the shoulder to jump to the front of the line? He left home to be an hour early, but one road crew and an accident on the expressway turned his fifteen minute trip into an hour and a half. In five minutes his $150 Civic Opera tickets will be worthless. While there may be some genuine jerks the fact of the matter, I live in an area where navigating the roads puts everyone in compromising situations with no good solutions. My point is that we live in an imperfect world and even our best efforts warp and twist us in morally suspect way.

I think people become unreasonable when they mistakenly believe Utopia is possible - the world would be so much better is everyone just (fill in the blank). The problem is that many morally laudable goals are mutually exclusive. Open borders are incompatible with a national social safety net. Eliminating environmentally damaging pesticides like DDT allows wide-spread malaria epidemics. Reducing animal fibers and pelts increases the need for petroleum-based non-biodegradable synthetics. Most recycling programs are energy and labor intensive. Land that produces locally grown organic produce reduces the overall food supply.

The pretense of Western society is that we have largely eliminated or are working to eliminate the violence, brutality, inequalities, and ethnic divisions that plagued prior eras. But we haven't. We've just pushed them out of sight both -  actually, by exporting it to the third-world, or intellectually by not recognizing the underlying concepts that seem morally obvious but actually move their implicit violence out of our consciousness. A person may feel good about themselves knowing that the cotton shirt he bought at TJ Maxx did not kill a cage-raised mink or traumatize any sheep but only so long as he doesn't think about the Sri Lankin wage-slaves who pieced it together in sweat-shops or the pesticides and ammonia fertilizers needed to grow the cotton at the scale necessary to make producing it economically viable.

So while conservatives may want to go back to the "good'ole days" that never existed or stick with the "devil-you-know" so-called progressives push for a utopia that cannot exist fraught with unknown perils. This is not to say people should give up and not try to improve the human condition. We should. It's just that the TrueBelievers tend to blind themselves of the relationship between intentions and actual outcomes. In the words of the OP, people become "dicks" when they lack the humility to consider how carefully and incrementally changes need to be made so as not to create a worse situation than before or when they do not realize that their moral luxuries are often paid for by far-away and out-of-sight strangers.

So really, can anyone shake their fist in outrage at "that guy" cutting him off when further down the road he'll be blocking an intersection.

Well, that was a really good post. Bravo.

[CapnAwesome]

I think the moment someone thinks people who hold opinions other then their own are stupid or evil or bad in someway for holding those opinions, they are an asshole. It isn't necessarily an extremist thing either. There are plenty of people who aren't extreme who think all Republicans are stupid (sure, lets see you perform the Neuro-surgery that Ben Carson does.) and there are people with extreme political views who are perfectly nice and can engage with people in a fine rational manner, Noam Chomsky comes to mind. He's probably never raised his voice in his life.

I think the assholery really comes into play when it involves how you view the other side rather then what positions you yourself holds.

[Shell B]

I think the moment someone thinks people who hold opinions other then their own are stupid or evil or bad in someway for holding those opinions, they are an asshole. It isn't necessarily an extremist thing either. There are plenty of people who aren't extreme who think all Republicans are stupid (sure, lets see you perform the Neuro-surgery that Ben Carson does.) and there are people with extreme political views who are perfectly nice and can engage with people in a fine rational manner, Noam Chomsky comes to mind. He's probably never raised his voice in his life.

I think the assholery really comes into play when it involves how you view the other side rather then what positions you yourself holds.

Yeah. I can see thinking an individual of a group is evil or stupid from experience with that person, but any blanket feeling/statement about an entire group is inherently ignorant, with obvious exceptions.

The other day, I read a facebook thread my uncle was involved in. A right-wing fella called a friend of my uncle "high," "stupid," and a "Liberal," but in that "I'm not sure if you're actually a liberal, but this is my favorite insult" way. Someone came back and called him a brain fart after several paragraphs of this man's ranting. He replied with "Typical liberal argument. You have nothing to say, so you start with personal attacks." He absolutely could not have a reasoned, considered discussion with these people, and he could not see that he was guilty of the very thing he complained of. He was completely blinded by which "team" he perceived them to be on. They were the enemy and that was the end of it. That man is a moron.

[CapnAwesome]

I think the moment someone thinks people who hold opinions other then their own are stupid or evil or bad in someway for holding those opinions, they are an asshole. It isn't necessarily an extremist thing either. There are plenty of people who aren't extreme who think all Republicans are stupid (sure, lets see you perform the Neuro-surgery that Ben Carson does.) and there are people with extreme political views who are perfectly nice and can engage with people in a fine rational manner, Noam Chomsky comes to mind. He's probably never raised his voice in his life.

I think the assholery really comes into play when it involves how you view the other side rather then what positions you yourself holds.

Yeah. I can see thinking an individual of a group is evil or stupid from experience with that person, but any blanket feeling/statement about an entire group is inherently ignorant, with obvious exceptions.

The other day, I read a facebook thread my uncle was involved in. A right-wing fella called a friend of my uncle "high," "stupid," and a "Liberal," but in that "I'm not sure if you're actually a liberal, but this is my favorite insult" way. Someone came back and called him a brain fart after several paragraphs of this man's ranting. He replied with "Typical liberal argument. You have nothing to say, so you start with personal attacks." He absolutely could not have a reasoned, considered discussion with these people, and he could not see that he was guilty of the very thing he complained of. He was completely blinded by which "team" he perceived them to be on. They were the enemy and that was the end of it. That man is a moron.

Totally agree.

That same thing happens to me on here from time to time. I got accused of 'being a right wing fanatic' the other day over disagreeing in piddling nuance in a larger discussion. Uhhh, I'm pretty sure I'm left of center nowadays, just not on every single issue. In fact that story reminds me of another thing that I think is part of asshole activism, which is that if you don't agree with someone on every single little detail of their agenda, then you are just as subject to their derision. It's like a Vegan who lumps vegetarians and people who own slaughterhouses into the same category.

[WinterHold]

Whenever the person starts to believe that they own the cause; that the cause is a "personal property", then things fall to the worse,

With religious activists, they begin to see themselves as angels; protectors for the faith, suddenly the sects becomes a personal possession, at worse cases some believe they are Gods, an insult to God angers them as it was an insult to them. They see the devil in any theory or discussion represented in their foe.

Other activists fall into the same trap and same mistake; they take the cause too seriously they forget about themselves and about where they are.

This:

Shell B wrote:
Get to know people. Maybe you'll find they think more like you than you thought or that you're okay with what they think because they have a good reason for being that way. People are made up of countless experiences, memories, feelings, etc. It's never as simple as you think

[Little lunch]

Vorlon, I've never doubted I'm an asshole. It's my best quality . . . and my best feature.

That's what all the assholes say. ;-)

[Brian37]

Whenever the person starts to believe that they own the cause; that the cause is a "personal property", then things fall to the worse,

With religious activists, they begin to see themselves as angels; protectors for the faith, suddenly the sects becomes a personal possession, at worse cases some believe they are Gods, an insult to God angers them as it was an insult to them. They see the devil in any theory or discussion represented in their foe.

Other activists fall into the same trap and same mistake; they take the cause too seriously they forget about themselves and about where they are.

This:

Shell B wrote:
Get to know people. Maybe you'll find they think more like you than you thought or that you're okay with what they think because they have a good reason for being that way. People are made up of countless experiences, memories, feelings, etc. It's never as simple as you think

People can lead an organized movement, but nobody as an individual represents the entire label, not even one single atheist. 

But having a reason still does not make it a credible reason, it means those "countless experiences" as Shell B said. And while life is complicated, and yes, while nobody and no one group can force the rest of the planet to follow, our species should not fear questioning or even blasphemy. It should be far more important to our species to be neutral in collecting data in finding facts. The rest are what we either grow up with, and or have opinions about.

We have far too much division in the world based on mostly global greed which hides behind issues of economics/political views and religion. We have only one home, and the more people who understand that the longer our species can extend our finite ride.

We should fear less on who offends us, and fear more those who would seek to divide humanity and invest in war.

[downbeatplumb]

I think the moment someone thinks people who hold opinions other then their own are stupid or evil or bad in someway for holding those opinions, they are an asshole.

That depends on the opinion they are holding.

People have come here with the opinion that the holocaust never happened or that the "jews deserved it" can I not find those people in contempt?

It isn't necessarily an extremist thing either. There are plenty of people who aren't extreme who think all Republicans are stupid (sure, lets see you perform the Neuro-surgery that Ben Carson does.)

It does seem strange that people who are otherwise smart blind themselves in special ways. it may be that a smart person can believe a stupid thing. In fact sometimes the clever people use their smarts to work out ways to justify their stupid belief.

Many Christians do this.

and there are people with extreme political views who are perfectly nice and can engage with people in a fine rational manner, Noam Chomsky comes to mind. He's probably never raised his voice in his life.

I think the assholery really comes into play when it involves how you view the other side rather then what positions you yourself holds.

People who are unwilling to hold onto to views despite overwhelming reasons to shift.

I have always voted the british labour party, until now, they have managed to have as leader someone who seems to share none of my ideals. So I am shifting allegiance and now consider myself a liberal democrat.

Some people though would vote for their party no matter what.

They follow political parties they way people support a football team

[Brian37]

I am an asshole, by hitting "Post Reply" I bumped the last post which was "666" and why wouldn't we want theists to think we are the mark of the beast? Now this is post 667.