Debate a "leftist"

submitted by DoubleReverse from self.debatealtright

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[–]AFutureConcern 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

big•ot•ry (ˈbɪg ə tri)

n.

  1. extreme intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.

  2. the actions, prejudices, etc., of a bigot.

Bigotry as typically defined can clearly be seen to apply to the modern left far more than the alt-right. I think that censorship went way too far long ago, and it's the extreme intolerance of differing opinions from leftists that caused this censorship. So if using this definition, I actually agree! Censorship has an overall negative impact on society.

But I suspect that's not what you mean. The definition colloquially used by leftists is something like:

big•ot•ry (ˈbɪg ə tri)

n.

  1. Anti-egalitarian beliefs; the belief that some groups are better than others according to some metric, especially if those groups are white - racism, sexism, other -isms

  2. Anti-degeneracy moral beliefs; the belief that traditional morality should be upheld over "anything goes" sexual liberalism - homophopia, transphobia, other -phobias

If this is what you mean, then I don't much care whether or not bigotry has an overall negative impact on society. Anti-egalitarianism is true - people are not the same. Some groups really can run faster, do math easier, and build civilization stronger, than other groups. If knowledge of this has a negative impact on society, it's still better than to simply suppress knowledge. I don't think it is, though - thinking men can synthesize knowledge to make society stronger, but I haven't heard of anyone doing this through ignorance. Ignorance merely leads society to ruin through pathological behaviors that come about through refusing to acknowledge the truth; like a doctor treating a limb with referred pain, ignorance about the source of the problem could prove fatal.

As for anti-degeneracy, we're talking about the very moral foundations that make a society. These have already been totally transformed over the past century. The current social order is not stable and is disintegrating - the number of married men and women is significantly lower than it once was. How is the legalization of gay marriage a positive when the total number of married couples has gone down? How is the "liberation" of sexuality a positive when young people are having less sex and young men are not even allowed to defend themselves properly against sexual assault allegations?

[–]DoubleReverse[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Bigotry as I mean it is treating people differently based on their identity rather than their actions.

As for your correlations, there's at least 2 reasons why they are not an excuse to persecute gay people.

First, two things happening at the same time does not mean one thing is causing the other. How do you know less monogamy isn't causing higher rates of homosexuality, or that they aren't both a result of global warming or something?

Second, you don't need to approve of other people's life choices. If you think that monogamy is necessary, go ahead and lead a mongamous lifestyle. That doesn't mean you need to force the rest of the world to emulate your specific preferences.

[–]Richard_Parker 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Yeah actually we do need to force these moral assessment son others, because these social experiments with single moms, unbridled free for all libertinism are hurting everyone.

[–]DoubleReverse[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

How does gay equality hurt anybody?

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's not equality, it's equivalence. It confuses what everything's about. Reproductive relationships aren't homosexual relationships except with the opposite sex instead, there they're own very special thing and the most important thing in society because they're how we choose newcomers, the people who will inherit the future.

[–]DoubleReverse[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You're perfectly free to be straight if that's how you feel. That doesn't mean you get to decide everybody else has to be straight too.

[–]AFutureConcern 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that 2% of people get gay married, and, as a result of the desanctification of marriage, 3% of straight people no longer get married. Even if you think both marriages are of equal worth, surely you can agree that the net impact here is negative?

[–]DoubleReverse[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No. They chose not to get married on their own. Gay marriage isn't actually preventing them from getting married, they still could if they wanted to.

[–]AFutureConcern 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Bigotry as I mean it is treating people differently based on their identity rather than their actions.

We all have preconceptions about people and groups of people, some of these based on stereotypes, some on data, and they tend to be largely accurate. I'm not about to treat somebody horribly based on his visible characteristics, but I'm absolutely going to use them to form my initial impression of him. You probably do this all the time when it comes to e.g. age - you treat kids differently than adults, sex - you treat men and women differently when it comes to choosing a partner, and so on. These would be bigotry according to your definition, but I don't think you'd say these things are wrong.

First, two things happening at the same time does not mean one thing is causing the other. How do you know less monogamy isn't causing higher rates of homosexuality, or that they aren't both a result of global warming or something?

The slippery slope of degeneracy is what was predicted at the time that sexual liberation came to the forefront in society. That's why a causal link is far more likely; there are reasons why it was predicted, and then it came to pass, so we have to give some credit to the hypotheses of those old conservatives and reactionaries that opposed it. There's nobody who predicted that global warming would cause less monogamy, so that hypothesis is far less credible.

Second, you don't need to approve of other people's life choices. If you think that monogamy is necessary, go ahead and lead a monogamous lifestyle. That doesn't mean you need to force the rest of the world to emulate your specific preferences.

This is liberalism writ large - a focus on the individual and his choices but without concern for the effects on wider society. I'm not talking about my preferences; I'm talking about the effect the sexual revolution had on the whole of society. Even granting liberal premises, it can still be true that sexual liberation was bad for society even if we have a liberal moral obligation not to oppose gay marriage or extramarital sex.