• @dax@beehaw.org
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    510 months ago

    I completely agree. Even in arguments online, even though you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person you’re talking to isn’t going to be convinced, I have found it an essential civic responsibility in strongly rebutting the counter party. Rarely are they operating in good faith, rarely are they even honest with themselves - and it’s why so much racism, sexism, and homophobia runs rampant.

    It’s essential we call it out when we see it, and we don’t let the miscreants flee back from the light. Showcase their evil, their obvious right-rhetoric, their obvious duplicity. You won’t convince them; they either already know and are engaging in bad-faith argumentation as a means to an end - so convincing them isn’t even remotely a plausible scenario, or they’re lying to themselves and they won’t ever change their opinion, for fear of what it might say about their own competence in thought. Instead, your job is to cast in stark relief their hypocrisy or underwhelming rhetoric to everyone else reading it. You’re changing the tone of the conversation from quiet but respectful disbelief to strident illumination of their duplicity.

  • Spacebar
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    310 months ago

    The paradox of tolerance: In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance. Essentially, if a so-called tolerant society permits the existence of intolerant philosophies, it is no longer tolerant.

    It’s too easy to just ignore the BS, you need to do the work and rebut it.