Oh shit Cactus is in the shit.
I think you’re being incredibly charitable to Dawkins that you grant that he buys into the idea that trans people are not just choosing to be how they are and phrases it inartfully. The very fact that he’s pitting Rachel Dolezal against trans people is strong evidence against this.
No, and I’ll reiterate. His principle misdeed here is not wording. It’s not even a genuinely held belief in error that trans people are just men choosing to be women, if that were to be the case. His principle error is using his platform to put the humanity of other people up for debate and thus willfully amplifying the voices of people who would deny marginalized people their humanity. That is far more injurious than one prominent figure being wrong and hurtful.
Look, I’m willing to have a good faith discussion about job protections for people who say things off the clock, but the next time I have that discussion will be the first. Every single damn time this subject comes up, it’s because a rich conservative white guy speaking hatefully about marginalized people faced an incredibly light consequence for being an asshole on a massively oversized public platform. It’s not for the woman who flipped off Trump’s motorcade and got fired. It’s not for BLM protesters who lost their job for protesting police violence nonviolently. It’s not for people trying to organize workers at tech companies. It’s not for women who raise charges of sexual harassment or assault at their workplaces and then get got by HR.
Richard Dawkins made a hurtful tweet, and his only consequences have been online outrage and the loss of a pretty vapid award. That’s it! That’s all he’s faced, and you’re still compelled to bleat about it. He’s faced remarkably less than many people who have been discussed here, and they aren’t what inspired this thread.
Free speech doesn’t mean freedom from all consequences, and it certainly doesn’t mean freedom from speech that speaks out against you. That’s the most that Dawkins has faced. If he doesn’t like people calling him an asshole, he can try not being one?
9 Likes
I’m reading the thread back to front and I already forgot what the tweet said.
Can you accept the possibility that most of those racists are incorrigibly so? They exist, they’ll always exist, and the solution is to make sure everyone else remains hyper-vigilant and actively anti-racist to fight them. A polarized society where everything is political may be the best way to avoid letting the racists win by default.
Yes, I was unaware until he mentioned it. Of course, I’ll take his opinions hold much more weight with me now
Oh snap you know that might be a first, him mentioning it himself? All the other times I’ve seen him in biology discussions he doesn’t play that ace up the sleeve.
You must’ve really got things fired up.
I’m not. And if I knew exactly how I felt about it I wouldn’t have posted. I don’t need to post about things I feel confident about
I’m all for the right to cancel, take back awards, etc. But I question the value it has. GA is a perfect example. Here’s a state where the people (in my mind) were heroes and flipped the senate! And now we’re going to punish them with boycotts because they’re elected officials are racist garbage? I mean, sure. You could say it’s their fault for not taking a keener interest prior and voting. But does MLB really pulling the All Start game do any good or does it hurt the very people who did the right thing in November?
What if he was trying to say that Dolezal didn’t have actually have a choice as it was some form of mental compulsion?
No, I still haven’t read the thread yet.
Maybe someone else mentioned. Idk, but I found out. I could’ve suspected he was well educated at something. He’s one of the few who even when he disagrees I’ve never seen post like a little child
I don’t know that you were necessarily trolling. The guy who liked your post, despite being a self-professed progressive who would, you know, normally be diametrically opposed to your thoughts in this thread though, yeah that guy was definitely trolling lol.
This is not true. There are plenty of laws that restrict smoking and there has also been lots of shaming smokers.
I actually don’t make a meaningful distinction between ‘choosing to be gay/trans/etc’ and ‘being gay/trans/etc’. Like, one wouldn’t choose to be gay/trans/etc, as in, not repress that part of their true self, if it wasn’t already their true self.
Who the hell would choose to be trans as a hobby because they were bored or some shit? That’s not a thing that happens.
1 Like
I’ve been reading Dawkins since I was 16 and had a lot of (misplaced?) respect for the man as a writer, biologist, and an educator. It never occurred to me that he’d put out a tweet that was meant to dehumanize rather than get people thinking about a topic. I stand corrected on that
But I could bring up a lot of other people too. Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Christopher Hitchens (I really wonder how the latter would’ve faired in today’s social media climate). I just believe people have the right to be heard whether it’s on a campus, twitter, or wherever. And then people should be allowed to debate what they think is wrong. I try to start debates here (I’m probably not educated or smart enough to do so), but it’s never a debate. It immediately turns into a circle jerk of people rubbing each other off in a gang fuck fest. Very few want to intellectually engage (I very much appreciate that you and a few others do seem to be willing)
I have developed an ideology that is about rights and I question whether my ideology is correct (it’s the only reason I post here). For example, I’m not even sure I agree with forcing a bakery to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. I think it’s terrible if they don’t and I would hope word got around and they went out of business, but from a “rights” standpoint I’m not sure they should be forced to do so. We’ve already reached the point where major companies wouldn’t dare alienated gays, trans people, or racial minorities. It’s when NO company would dare that I think we’ll actually have made real progress towards equality. Now I know I’ll get flamed to pieces for sharing that. But I just look at rights differently than many other progressives do
They are heard.
Your OP is literally about a post on Twitter. Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson both have blue check mark Twitter accounts.
What the heck are you talking about?
So much this. Jordan Peterson’s half baked pseudo philosophy was barely deserving of a blog post and he got a publication deal.
People have a right to speak. They don’t have a right to be listened to. Freedom of the press doesn’t result in everyone owning government-subsidized printing presses.
You’ve got a lot of cynics around here who have seen right-wingers try to stifle debate by continually bringing it all back to step one and never letting discussion advance to higher stages.
As someone with an interest in political philosophy, I am interested in having this discussion. It starts with asking about your definition of “rights”.
“They wouldn’t have any of those problems with me personally. Yes, we have a unisex restroom (although I’m not sure it’s specifically there for unisex).”
Well sir. If you arent personally making them folks sit at the back of the bus, then there isnt a problem.
These people are hateful charlatans. Sorry you hitched your wagon to them.
2 Likes