Friday, March 06, 2009
A Peeve
One of the few political arguments I've had in my guild-- because I try to avoid them, nobody will change their mind anyways-- was about Zimbabwe.
A guildie was trying to hold it up as a good example of equalizing race relations, because "they use to be an apartheid, and they're fair, now."
I kind of off-handedly mentioned that I'm against torture and murder of folks for their property because of their skin color, no matter who is doing it.
Boiled down, he said they deserved it for being white in a country that use to have apartheid.....
After half an hour trying to explain "racism" does not mean "bias against darker people" I finally gave it up as a lost cause; he would not even concede that systematic government programs, as a theoretical, would be wrong if they were conducted against someone he viewed as a historical aggressor.
The kicker? I'm pretty sure his grandparents were post-WWII from Poland.....
This all came to mind from reading this Nordlinger article that mentions Mugabe.
Just goes to re, re, re-enforce the notion that it just does no good to argue with folks 90% of the time....
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6 comments:
Next time try contrasting Zimbabwe, which Mugabe turned into a hellhole with his oppressive policies, with South Africa. While South Africa is far from paradise (no place in this world is paradise), it is a much more stable place.
I've actually been told only white people can be racists because white people have all the power. That's a gorge that cannot be bridged.
There is a real feeling, very common among leftists whites as well as blacks, that the white race is inherently evil. Yes, this is a racist attitude, but you have to understand that these people aren't really against racists; they are against "racists", meaning white people who don't realize that they are inherently evil due to their race and don't spend their lives trying to atone for the crime of being born white. These people are just as racist as the KKK or the Nazis; they've just chosen a more fashionable form of the disease. And like any other racists, you are not ever going to convince then that they are wrong, or that the people they are racist against deserve to be treated fairly. It's just not in their mindset.
It just makes no sense to me-- like the very nice guy I knew when I was in the Navy who was utterly and completely sure that a Jewish conspiracy ran all the news stations of the world, or like listening to podcasts like PID; in 90% of things, folks are fine, reasonable, logical, understandable... then all of a sudden their views jet off to left field.
Even framing things in strictly logic-based areas, defining terms clearly, everything I can think of to eliminate a flaw in my reasoning or the "what they're saying isn't what I'm hearing" problem...just doesn't work.
I just flat out don't understand it.
Two quick points:
First, arguing is not useless, even when you don't change someone's mind right away. Sometimes the ideas you put in someone else's mind need a few years to grow in the subconscious before they really bloom and start influencing their conscious thoughts. Truth can be quite insidious.
Second, when you see someone rejecting logic out of hand on certain issues, it makes you wonder what sorts of tricks your own brain is playing on you...
Second, when you see someone rejecting logic out of hand on certain issues, it makes you wonder what sorts of tricks your own brain is playing on you...
Yep.
Which is why I try to use mechanical forms like logic, and defined terms-- it makes personal blindness less likely, I think.
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