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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0
WE progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table — er, so long as they aren't conservatives. Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We're fine with people who don't look like us, as long as they think like us.
O.K., that's a little harsh. But consider George Yancey, a sociologist who is black and evangelical. "Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black," he told me. "But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close."
I've been thinking about this because on Facebook recently I wondered aloud whether universities stigmatize conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity. The scornful reaction from my fellow liberals proved the point.
"Much of the 'conservative' worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false," said Carmi. "The truth has a liberal slant," wrote Michelle. "Why stop there?" asked Steven. "How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?"
To me, the conversation illuminated primarily liberal arrogance — the implication that conservatives don't have anything significant to add to the discussion. My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.
The stakes involve not just fairness to conservatives or evangelical Christians, not just whether progressives will be true to their own values, not just the benefits that come from diversity (and diversity of thought is arguably among the most important kinds), but also the quality of education itself. When perspectives are unrepresented in discussions, when some kinds of thinkers aren't at the table, classrooms become echo chambers rather than sounding boards — and we all lose.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @07:36AM
We try, anyway. Despite knowing that you worship a genocidal, narcissistic devil who runs an eternal concentration camp full of fire and fear and pain and misery and torture for people who don't kiss his ass (read; most of the human race). I like to think this is because I have actual morals, with an objective basis in reality, rather than marching orders handed down from the Big Angry Jew In The Sky :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:33AM
The Bible has a lot of contradictory shit in it.
Why do you favor the worst of it instead of the best of it?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @10:41AM
Because she's a nasty cunt. Check her past posts if you care to see the pattern of behavior.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:40PM
> Because she's a nasty cunt. Check her past posts if you care to see the pattern of behavior.
That's rich coming from you, someone who fetishizes being an asshole.
BTW, I'm the AC who asked that question of her.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:11PM
You can't see the difference between my not caring if I hurt someone's fee-fees and her intentionally seeking such? Interesting.
Posting from another location then? My sooper adminy powahs tell me the hashes of the IP address don't match. (The first five characters of the hash are printed in the gray bar on every comment for adminy types, no actual work was required to check.)
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:52AM
See, Uzzard, this is another prime example of what I mean by "you make my point for me with your own hand" :) This may surprise you, but I'm only nasty to the people who deserve it.
P.S.: guys who use "cunt" as an insult probably don't like ladybits very much. Probably they like huge throbbing dicks. Given how you talk, I can only assume you swallow more sausage than the clientele of a bratwurst restaurant. You sure do seem to love your long, hard, stiff point-and-shooty things...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:47AM
And you have a problem if I do prefer the cock? There went your virtue signaling participation trophy...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 31 2016, @04:48AM
Oh no, not at all. I'd be incredibly hypocritical to have a problem with gay men, as a gay woman, simply for BEING gay. Suck all the wang you want, so long as you're honest with all your partners and, if married or otherwise in a committed relationship, have permission from your SO. Just use protection and don't do anything stupid. I've seen some frightening statistics about men who have sex with men...
No, it's all the *other* bullshit that goes along with your slow-motion 50-car-pileup of a worldview that I've got an issue with. Specifically, your constant macho attitude and your right-wing politics are rather anti-gay in the collective even if you yourself aren't, and by contributing to that you're being very hypocritical if you're actually anywhere in the LGBTQ bowl of alphabet soup.
Oh, and anyone who uses the term "virtue signalling" or "cuck" automatically loses; it's Godwin's Law for the mid-to-late 2010s.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:35PM
*cough*
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:51PM
*siiiigh*
Look, dipshit, "virtue signalling" is a snarl word. It's what jackasses like you use when you have no argument. My pointing this out, and then turning it back on you and showing you how you're doing an even worse version of the same thing, is not only not losing, it's a coup de grace. Not only was your complete lack of argument exposed, it was shown to you that you're attempting to do the same thing you accuse others of, *and failing miserably at even that.*
Am I just expecting too much from the average poster here? Have I been ruined by all that study in logic and argumentation I did?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 30 2016, @01:33AM
One plausible reason would be because, on a per incident basis, the Bible is more given to promoting atrocities than to promoting compassion. It also has a lot about self-defense being good, of course, but almost nobody disagrees with that. An occasional Christian will, and there are places that back their stance, also.
There's also the translation problem, and that has lead to many persecutions of this group or that. What, e.g., was the sin of Jezebel? The Bible would lead you to believe that it was that she wore cosmetics, but actually it was that she represented a foreign political power. (And let's not get into Lot.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:27PM
What are your morals (perhaps a single example for sake of debate) and how do they have a basis in objective reality, a reality that is unaffected by culture, human fiat, etc.?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:49AM
I am SO glad you asked! Far too few people ever take any interest in examining themselves or their supposed morals. Basically it goes like this: morality itself, moral machinery you might say, is older than humanity. Much older. I suspect that not only do most or all of the great apes have it, but so do most cetaceans and probably elephants too.
Now, the output of that machinery is going to differ somewhat with environmental factors--take, for example, ideas about hospitality in the scorching desert compared to, say, a tropical island--but because of our evolutionary heritage and the sort of animals we are, you're going to see some universals. You'll see, for instance, near-universal prohibitions on murder of members of the in-group (however that's defined). In a thinking species like us, with our freakish memories and ability to think and plan ahead, it's also going to involve more abstract things like "the good of the human race" or "the seventh generation of us."
The take-home point here is that morals are neither arbitrary constructions nor Platonic ideal forms floating in the mind of some God somewhere; rather they emerge from who and what we are as a species. The ultimate judge of these seems to be the environment itself and our interactions with the same; we find, for example, that murderous pedophiles don't get very far, while cooperation is generally a better strategy than deciding to take on the world alone.
And yes, ALL of this is suspectible to a million and one different twists and perversions. Convince someone that "the good of the human race" depends on eliminating a certain group of it, for example, and you have not only genocide but a group of people happy to commit it. Convince enough people that it's for "the good of society" for a few to be very rich and most to be poor, and you'll end up with today's crony capitalism. And of course there are some people who become aware of all this and decide to piss into the abyss on purpose.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:26PM
Apologies for my delayed response.
Since I'm not happy with the fundamentals of moral relativism, I'm most interested in morals of the objective sort. These morals would by necessity exist without support from humans' existence, as you've already noted.
However, you went on to define objective morals as things that "emerge from who and what we are as a species". If human morality is based on who and what we are as a species, then I don't see how such morals can simultaneously be objective (i.e. uninfluenced by personal/cultural prejudice; existing outside of the human mind; empircally observable). My simplistic comparison for an objective law is the law of gravity: it existed before humans, it functions regardless of history's humans' opinion of it, and will likely continue to exist after humans, remaining consistent throughout all that time.
I assume I may have overlooked some implication in objecting to your description of your moral examples as "objective"; if you would, please cover the basics of that for me with, say, an example of morality based on something that exists outside of humanity.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:58PM
You mostly got it actually :) By "objective" this means "we don't sit around like a constipated-looking Greek statue trying to invent our moral machinery; it's built-in."
Now, yes, the output of that machinery is going to be somewhat subjective, but even there, you can see universals that go all the way back to the great apes. A sentient being's shape and physical makeup are going to have a lot of input into the results of running its morality machine.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...