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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   35560 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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I'm married to someone who is pretty progressive. It's very hard, but you can make it work, if both people are committed. We can each talk with each other and understand where the other person is coming from, even if we don't agree. Some progressives would simply write off anyone who thinks differently, and if you were with someone like that, it may never be able to work.

While the ability to talk is important, probably the most important thing is to understand that people are compartmentalized, and to learn to compartmentalized politics. Sure, it'll come up every now and again, and it should, but for years the wife and I just argued at each other over and over until we were both sick of it and miserable. We've been much happier since we both agreed to just not talk about politics as much anymore.

I really really hate the progressive messaging over the past half decade trying to imply that anyone who thinks differently is evil, and you can't get along with them. I think it's so illiberal and probably doing lots of damage to society. But these memes, like the "human rights are not politics, so therefore if you disagree on what I think are human rights than you're human garbage," are pervasive. There are others like this, too, trying to, if you ask me, unfairly change the rules of politics in society. If the person you're seeing cannot understand that these memes are probably not accurate, and that you can be a good person despite holding different viewpoints, then no matter how much effort you put in, it sadly would be unlikely to work out.

But these memes, like the "human rights are not politics, so therefore if you disagree on what I think are human rights than you're human garbage," are pervasive

It's annoying, but I have yet to encounter any good counter-argument to this.

You can check out Scott's argument against deontology: http://web.archive.org/web/20170315153732/http://squid314.livejournal.com/323694.html

The very concept of human rights is a not-so-old, totally-political invention (which is not a judgment on their usefulness/validity). It's just that saying "X rights are human rights" as an assertion is supposed to corner the other side into admitting to reject some human rights which makes one a monster.

I wouldn't say it's perfect, but "thinking people are human garbage is itself a human rights violation" is usually the train of thought I go with.

It's a secular declaration of sacred values. Attempting to formulate a counterargument is about as effective as trying to formulate a counterargument to an evangelical's religious beliefs.

Human rights are a political football, that's how. 'Should we respect human rights or not' is a political question.

The counter argument I like:

Politics is the coordinated use of power to overcome human opposition.

With an explanation:

Building a dam is not politics, because it is collective power against natural forces. Deciding to build the dam is politics, because no dam is in everyone’s interest—implying some human opposition that the pro-dam collective must overcome.

So, applying that idea, my private support for (as an example) animal rights isn't political. Private support is just a feeling.

Donating to a cat shelter isn’t politics because there's no human opposition.

Joining an argument in hopes that other people will be shamed into supporting animal rights is a political act because I'm hoping to overcome the apathy or antipathy of the opposition.

I wouldn’t link an progressive to the original source for that idea, but I'll include it for completeness.

https://graymirror.substack.com/p/rise-of-the-neutral-company-1ba

You make up a bunch of rights too. Right to immigrate wherever you want? Right to not compete for your job with the whole globe.

I just want to know how it makes any sense for me to get rebuffed when complain about progressive writers putting their politics in my nerdy hobbies, with "everything is political", but somehow human rights is supposed to be "not politics".

Or forget about the argument from hypocrisy, since they don't work these days anyway. How in Jesus' name, of all the things one could pick, is the concept of "human rights" not political?

It's not supposed to make sense. When does any ideology care about making sense? They aren't optimized for truth-seeking.

Do you have kids? I think that's the thing that can cause more friction. For example, what do you do if your ten year old girl comes home from school and says she's a boy now? Not talking about politics isn't really an option anymore.

Yes, but they're not old enough yet. We know we may encounter some issues like this someday. I generally don't want to ever tell my kids what to think in the first place, and I don't think my wife does either. I plan to do a lot of Socratic questioning, and explaining how I think while also not pressuring them to think that way. My wife and I believe in the tactics of not arguing about this stuff in front of the kids, not ridiculing each other's viewpoints, and not undermining each other.

That said, if trans issues come up, that in particular will probably be a very difficult thing to deal with, though I do believe that my wife is sane enough to not believe in puberty blockers and actually hormonal transition for children. I know she does understand that there are some decisions that children are not old enough to make.

I really want to move to a more purple area, so my kids are exposed equally to diverse messaging which is exposed to scrutiny, not just drinking progressive Kool aid. My wife understands this desire of mine and is also up for moving. But picking a location that I believe is diverse enough, while also finding jobs that fit certain criteria for each of us is a challenging enough prospect that we have not made significant headway in this regard yet.

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