andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2006-02-11 12:53 pm
andrewducker) wrote2006-02-11 12:53 pm
Offensive Opinions
You don't get to choose what other people get offended by. You can't claim that X is offensive to you, and that's natural and right, but Y shouldn't offend someone else, because Y is perfectly normal and doesn't offend you at all.
Everyone is brought up slightly differently, with their own social background, their own experiences and their own interpretations of the world. We get upset by some things, we're fine with others and we all feel that the things we are offended by are offensive, while the thing's we're not offended by are fine.
I'm scared of spiders (although I'm getting better), and I know its irrational - but it's part of me, along with my liking of Sandman, my dislike of bigotry, my fondness for bratkartoffeln, and my inability to watch more than 3 minutes of The Office without hiding behind the sofa.
None of these things are 'right' or 'natural' - they're emotions, and they're not based on any purely logical underpinnings - you can't prove that bigotry is wrong per se, any more than you can prove that Apocalypse Now is a great movie - you either feel that way or you don't - you can persuade people, but you're doing so for emotional reasons, not logical ones.
Which means that if you want people to respect your right to have opinions then you have to respect their right to have them as well. You may disagree wildly with the actual opinions, you may do everything in your power to make sure they can't act on their belief that female circumcision is a good thing, but if you don't understand that their belief seems as right and as natural to them as yours does to you then you're never going to be able to engage with them about it, which means that you aren't going to be able to change their minds.
Everyone is brought up slightly differently, with their own social background, their own experiences and their own interpretations of the world. We get upset by some things, we're fine with others and we all feel that the things we are offended by are offensive, while the thing's we're not offended by are fine.
I'm scared of spiders (although I'm getting better), and I know its irrational - but it's part of me, along with my liking of Sandman, my dislike of bigotry, my fondness for bratkartoffeln, and my inability to watch more than 3 minutes of The Office without hiding behind the sofa.
None of these things are 'right' or 'natural' - they're emotions, and they're not based on any purely logical underpinnings - you can't prove that bigotry is wrong per se, any more than you can prove that Apocalypse Now is a great movie - you either feel that way or you don't - you can persuade people, but you're doing so for emotional reasons, not logical ones.
Which means that if you want people to respect your right to have opinions then you have to respect their right to have them as well. You may disagree wildly with the actual opinions, you may do everything in your power to make sure they can't act on their belief that female circumcision is a good thing, but if you don't understand that their belief seems as right and as natural to them as yours does to you then you're never going to be able to engage with them about it, which means that you aren't going to be able to change their minds.
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However, there's nothing wrong with challenging someone's opinion if they believe it is an opinion, when it is a statement of fact. The clearest example I can think of are people that express racist opinions that are actually incorrect facts. Suggesting that it is merely your opinion (and thus you have every right to express it and subsequently inflict it on others) that black people are not of the same species homo sapiens that the rest of us are, is the sort of argument I'm getting at.
Namely, I think that opinion is a powerful tool. We believe in opinions, we use opinion to express belief, and we can gather together in groups because of opinions. My statement is about keeping a clear mind of what is opinion and what isn't, in order to better fight those propagandists that would influence us to err.
no subject