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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28318 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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People marking their bodies in a way that they know leads people to make assessments about their personal characteristics and then complaining that people make those assessments tells me something about their character. Personally, I like quite a few tattoos, have had great friends and serious romantic relationships with tattooed people, but yeah, there are assessments that you can make based on tattoos that are reasonable.

People marking their bodies in a way that they know leads people to make assessments about their personal characteristics and then complaining that people make those assessments tells me something about their character.

Being visibly Jewish in a place whose inhabitants hate Jews by your reasoning also says something about one's character. Or kissing one's gay partner in front of a homophobe. Or having a bumper sticker proclaiming your political party in a place where people oppose that political party.

If doing X leads to bad reactions, those bad reactions can't be justified with an appeal to "they know it'll have bad reactions".

Doing X knowing full well that it will inspire a negative reaction doesn't necessarily tell you anything about a person's moral character, but it absolutely does suggest that they are reckless, foolish, prone to taking unnecessary risks, lack forethought etc.

Supposing a broker was telling me that I should invest in company X because it was an absolute sure thing. I notice that he has a tattoo on his bicep reading "MAN U PREMIER LEAGUE CHAMPIONS 20XX" when in fact Arsenal won that year, and he explains that he got the tattoo when Man U won the semi-final. I'm sure he's still a nice guy, but it's only reasonable for me to heavily discount his claim that such-and-such is a "sure thing".

Those things all do say something about one’s character. Some degree of rebelliousness, courageous, or social obliviousness is required to do things in public you know will garner negative reactions. The fact the reactions are negative do not make the actions negative per se, but they do change what information you can gather from the action.

In your example: there are presumably other gay couples that don’t kiss in front of homophobes, and that allows you to judge them in other ways. Maybe they’re cowardly, or just very polite.

Being visibly Jewish in a place whose inhabitants hate Jews by your reasoning also says something about one's character. Or kissing one's gay partner in front of a homophobe. Or having a bumper sticker proclaiming your political party in a place where people oppose that political party.

It certainly does in all such instances. Absolutely.

justified

You are the one turning a purely analytic argument into a moral one here. Figuring out one's moral character doesn't directly have much to do with what sort of moral character is appropriate or just or what have you.

It can be good or it can be bad that you're the sort of person who is covered in tats or engages in risky ostentatious displays.

But it is something.

The objection in these cases isn't that someone wearing a Star of David is identified as a Jew, it's to the antisemitism downstream of it. Likewise, if someone kisses their gay partner, it's reasonable to infer that they're not straight and that someone with a bumper sticker is a supporter of that candidate. All of these things are examples of appearances that lead to correct identifications of people.

I didn't write anything about bad reactions specifically. I wrote that people will make assessments based on tattoos and that this is a fine and reasonable to thing to do. Of course, I do think some bad reactions are legitimate - treating people with gang tattoos (or apparent gang tattoos) as threats is a good decision. But really, even the most mild, inoffensive tattoos imaginable still provide information about the individual with them.

But really, even the most mild, inoffensive tattoos imaginable still provide information about the individual with them.

Yes, but isn’t it reasonable to complain when someone reads way too much into a mild and inoffensive tattoo?

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