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sc94597 said:
Fortunately gay people are not some collective group-mind and we are all distinct individuals who are not defined by our gayness. While I am sure there are tons of gay people seeking anti-discrimination status, there are plenty like myself who like freedom of association, as it makes things quite clear. I don't think they have a right to force employers to hire them. Freedom of association trumps anybody's "right" to a job. If subtle racism, homophobia, sexism, are really true problems then is it not because the racists, homophobes, and sexists aren't showing their true colors? Sunlight is the best disinfectent, afterall. I never said anything about gay people being a collective. Again, it seems like you have something that you want to say, whether or not it relates to what I've said. If you honestly think that sexuality should be a factor in hiring or not hiring someone then all I can say is that I vehemently disagree. I personally don't care if homophobes are outed or not. I don't have any real problem with a person being as homophobic, racist, sexist, or whatever as they please. I disagree, and I'd much rather they weren't, but that's their right, and noone can control that. There are no thought crimes. We can only address their actions. Freedom of association does not include freedom of discrimination as per the 14th ammendment. Freedom of association does not, as a matter of law, supercede someone's right to a job. As a matter of morality, I can't see the argument that someone's right to not be around a certain group of people should be viewed as more important to a person's right to enjoy the fruit of their hard work. If someone can deny you a job for any arbitrary reason, doesn't that take away the incentive to work hard? Where did I say anthing about the capabilities of women? I didn't say women aren't capable of working 80 hours a week, or pursuing money, or being motivated to do these things. I said they choose not to and are less motivated to do so (they have different interests and motivations on average.) I also said nothing about why they choose these paths. One only has to look at the gender ratios of STEM majors, the ratio of men/women who are breadwinners, and the average number of hours men and women work respectively. Also, while I don't think men and women are unequal, I do think they are different. We all know that there is a male and female brain
I would consider motivation part of capabilities. I was thinking of intrinsic motivation. Maybe you meant extrinsic. When you lay the statement across the whole group, you are making assumptions about the whole group that will likely influence your view on individuals. I'm using you in a generic sense here, so don't feel as though I'm attacking you. Women are less prevalent in STEM but is that because they are less interested, or less encouraged? I'm a teacher, so I've looked into this quite a bit. But, without getting into the research, in your gut do you think a bright young girl is more likely to be pushed into dance or science? The assumption that a girl will be better at dancing or poetry than she will be at math or science is in most cases made when she is born and gets a pink onesie instead of a blue one. If we placed no judgment on girls, would they still lean towards those fields? Maybe, maybe not. But we can't really know. So when you say things like they're not motivated to be breadwinners, you have a chicken and an egg situation. Don't you think it's possible that women being barred from public life for centuries may have something to do with whether or not they'd perceive themselves as breadwinners? And that's to say nothing of the attitudes of those who are doing the hiring who also may be influenced by these ideas, whether it applies to the individual candidate or not. I realized that, and edited my post. Respond to my editted response: "Is this true? I haven't experienced people with a lower BMI being considered healthier than people in the normal range. In fact for men this is certainly not true, being underweight is viewed down upon. Maybe compared to overweight people underweight people are viewed ideally, but there is good reason for that. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. " Being underweight actually puts you more at risk than being overweight. https://consumer.healthday.com/senior-citizen-information-31/misc-death-and-dying-news-172/underweight-even-deadlier-than-overweight-study-says-686240.html There is not really a good reason for viewing underweight people more positively. And the negativity is often directed at people within the normal range. I'd normally try to find something, but the fact that we view underweight people are healthier than normal weight people is so prevalent it should be easy to verifty. But health is kind of besides the point. The point is that weighing less is preferred (for women at least), so mocking someone for being underweight generally isn't very offensive. When the overwhelmingly prevalent message in society is towards lower weight, one comment against skinny people probably won't do much harm. When did I say "power doesn't matter at all?" I was arguing against the assertion that racist, sexist, deplorable things are viewed as not a big deal or not even racist, sexist or deplorable because the people saying them aren't powerful. That is the ridiculous sentiment. That power exists in group (as well as individual) form was never in contest. "The "power" sociological position is ridiculous and holds very little force behind it for everyday people." I'm not going to get into a whole thing about wording, but you were definitely and severely downlplaying the importance of power structures in that entire paragraph. It's not a matter of morality and one being more "right" than the other. It's a matter of us recognizing as a society, that when a group that holds actual power is making a negative statement against a group that they have power over, that's something that we should take much more seriously than the reverse. By definition we treat statements made by those with power more seriously. Because those statements actually have the potential to do harm. To generalize whether or not human beings view things based on a group by looking at group sports like "football" can't be a serious argument can it? How we treat individuals in daily interactions is not the same thing as a football game or the rivalry it creates. Nor does it refute the much greater role of individuality in our interactions with others. It's not a generalization, it's an example. And dude, why did you put football in quotes? The Milgram experiments and the Stanford prison experiments are experiments asking questions about the relationship between authority and obedience. If you had a mixed group of diverse individuals and you labeled one authority and the other obedient, the same situation would occur. I really don't see how this connects with the hypothesis that it is (more) alright to negatively target and generalize people whom belong to a class that is overepresented among the powerful (also note powerful =/= authoritarian.) Sure groups exist with characteristics, who was disputing that? You failed to address my point that more people (I'd argue a majority) today look at individual merits rather than group traits. In fact we consciously push against these natural sub-conscious impulses. The Stanford Prison experiment is not really about authority and obedience, it's about how we act to the expectations placed upon us. Neither is the bystander effect experiment. These are examples of how often our behavior is altered in group settings. As for your point about more people looking at individual merits, I didn't address it because it's not worth addressing. You see the world that way. I don't. Where exactly do we go from there? Saying a majority of people view the world that way seems to be an arbitrary assertion. Unless you have some kind of backing to that, I don't see what conversation there is to be had. But the reason that the Milgram experiment in general is relevant to this is because there is already a group that has authority. If the "victim" in the experiment were real and was yelling "shock that prick scientist" then nothing bad really happens. What he says, mean as it may be, is inconsequential and not worth getting upset about. If the person with the authority says "shock that prick" then the victim is likely going to get hurt. |
The bottom line is this. We need to help defend the weak. Not the strong.
If the popular blonde skinny girl with DD breasts and her friends are making oinking noises at an overweight girl, we might want to defend her. If the overweight girl goes to the blonde and says "ha! Look at you with your disgusting flat stomach! " we may not feel that the blonde needs our help.
If you overhear a bunch of jacked guys saying "I fucking hate all those fags in our school. We should send them a message." You might want to notify someone for some help. If you overhear a bunch of gay guys saying "I fucking hate all of those heteros in our school. We should send them a message" you might not care as much.
If you overhear a girl at a bar saying "I'm going to fuck that guy whether he wants it or not". I don't think you'd be that concerned. If you heard a guy saying "I'm going to fuck that girl whether she wants it or not." I hope you'd feel compelled to act.
If you saw a five year old tell his mom "I'm going to beat the shit out of you when we get home" you might be offended or you might giggle, but you probably wouldn't care so much. If you heard a mom tell her five year old "I'm going to beat the shit out of you when we get home" that's a whole different story.
Who is making a statement, and how much power they have, absolutely changes how we view it and how we should react. We condemn statements made by those in power more strongly than those made by the weak not because they are morally worse, but because they carry an actual threat.
