Were any of you

[Shri]

I wonder if I get so riled up by racist **** because it's a form of me self hating my past self out of regret sometimes.

 

[honestbharani]

It's certainly helped. But it's also helped to polarise. Once you're inclined towards a certain belief these days, it's incredibly easy to dive into a never ending spiral of content that reinforces your beliefs.

If I even had a fleeting thought that maybe perhaps the BLM protests were bullshit and black people are exaggerating their mistreatment, I could do a quick google or watch a video 'confirming' my beliefs and then spend ages devouring content down that rabbit hole.

To me the simplest means helped me learn that we need to treat all people equally, that we should be able to accept different religions and beliefs and that everyone had the freedom to choose the lifestyle of their choice as long as it did not intrude on another's freedom. Honestly, I am talking 2nd and 3rd standard moral science lessons here which mostly helped me form my views at a foundational level. It helps that I went to a pretty middle class school where we had an absolute cross section of students from almost every religion and strata of the society. I lived in a compound house (think apartment style living without the uniformity of the buildings etc) where we had 2 chrisitan families, 3 families of various caste, 2 brahmin families and 1 veera shaiva family who do not eat non-veg. Only two of these houses had a VCP/VCR and every sunday kids from their house will come and inform each of the other houses of the movie they are going to play that week, 1 week each. Mostly all the kids went and many of the parents did too and we would all watch movies together then when the power went out, we will all sit in the terrace or outside the bank steps next door and chat and share stories.

I guess I have been lucky to have grown up in that environment and with fairly liberal minded parents. I do believe in God but I don't follow many of the customs that I feel do not make sense or forge any kind of inequality. It is one of the benefits of growing up in Chepauk I feel. Proper middle class area but with groups of both the richer and poorer classes around. It made for pretty good friendships. It was amazing that 5 of us (including son of a businessman who had houses in Dubai, Delhi, and Singapore apart from Chennai, and son of a cycle rickshaw driver and his brother who failed two standards and ended up with us) could all hang out in any of our houses, from the big duplex apartment to the single room and kitchen house, watching WWE, cricket and tennis either in the big 25 inch TV or the small 14 inch black and white one and then go out and play in our street team.

I understand though mine is but one life out of a billion and I should say the internet has opened my eyes to the sort of stuff that are actually racist but you do not even realize. But I think whie the internet has been mostly helpful to understand and realize how much casual discrimination exists across all countries and societies, social media has definitely been the bane, coz now there is literally no nuance to anyone looking to learn about this stuff. So much of the discussion, including many in this forum, comes down to "you are good if you agree with my views, you are bad if you do not"...

Its amazing how the simple things that we learned like "do not speak bad of another religion/country/state" is so severely lacking these days and what a cesspool the society has turned out to be because of that.

 

[harsh.ag]

There is a difference between tolerance of people of different religions and tolerance of the ideas of different religions.

Because religions are about ideas and some ideas are bad (in different contexts, in high and low degrees).

Many people seem to be unable to make the distinction between someone criticizing the ideas of their religion (if they identify as followers of that religion) and criticism of them as people.

 

[honestbharani]

There is a difference between tolerance of people of different religions and tolerance of the ideas of different religions.

Because religions are about ideas and some ideas are bad (in different contexts, in high and low degrees).

Many people seem to be unable to make the distinction between someone criticizing the ideas of their religion (if they identify as followers of that religion) and criticism of them as people.

No, my point is simpler and more universal. Its easy for me to criticize the religion and practices in my house than in another. Sometimes those boundaries save a lot of conflict. And the worst thing social media (and internet) have ever done to society is the bloody fact that every person out there thinks they are an expert on every topic. Its easier to limit your so called "expertise" to areas where you have actual first hand experience instead of theorzing BS.

 

[Shady Slim]

reposted from my interview; tl;dr if i didn't discover being a jock i could've been one of those racist gamer guys thank **** that didn't happen

in to that 13-14 age bracket where every teenage white boy's dream is to say the n-word, even though I still was a labor man economically I went through a real edgy phase in terms of social politics - to make this worse, being 14, I didn't have much of a bullshit detector, and so I was much more likely to always buy any vapid, disgusting take that was parroted by the media or by a family member - soon after I had joined here, I would have either been 15 or 16, I repeated a very ill informed take I had heard from a family member or maybe Mark Latham about Indigenous Australians and entitlements, and copped a right dressing down from Top_Cat as I deserved for it. I'd say that a lot of this way of thinking came from the fact that until about 2014-15ish, I wasn't much of a sportsman, and hung around video game discussion boards, quagmires of the worst political opinions there are. Thank **** that I got in to fitness and being cool, otherwise there's a nonzero chance I'd be one of those edgy economically left sexist-racists who thinks it's funny to make fun of minorities still.

I've digressed a bit, but something else that contributed to me nearly going down that road was disillusionment with mainstream politics - Labor here didn't have much in the way of charismatic leadership, and I just did not feel like there was anything in politics that spoke to me - being young I didn't realise that saying certain words was bad and had impacts, that jokes aren't jokes to some people because they're reflective of institutional oppression they've faced all their lives, and so on; but then come 2016, Shorten's campaign was a damn good one, and despite what Alan Jones says, he came in with more charisma and more clarity than he ever had before in that campaign. I followed along the 2016 US elections from the primaries as well, first as a "lol look at trump lol", but I was just so struck by Bernie, his message and what he fought for - and that's what saved me from the path of "economic lefty who complains the LGBTQIA+ acronym is getting to long" and set me on the path of "guy who has excellent progressive social and economic politics"

 

[harsh.ag]

No, my point is simpler and more universal. Its easy for me to criticize the religion and practices in my house than in another. Sometimes those boundaries save a lot of conflict. And the worst thing social media (and internet) have ever done to society is the bloody fact that every person out there thinks they are an expert on every topic. Its easier to limit your so called "expertise" to areas where you have actual first hand experience instead of theorzing BS.

True, but one doesn't have to be an expert to read the holy book of a religion and point out which ideas seem bad to them and which sound good.

 

[honestbharani]

True, but one doesn't have to be an expert to read the holy book of a religion and point out which ideas seem bad to them and which sound good.

The difference between experiencing and theorizing. I agree you can suggest something does not sound like a good idea but the least you need to be able to do is to have the humility to listen to the other side and engage in a healthy debate, and that does not happen. Coz of the www and social media, no one can actually even accept that they do not know something that they only read about or heard or saw.

Its one of the reasons I have become a big of fan of Spark's posting here. He seems open to debate and willing to acknowledge another PoV more than most people here. He must be a very patient man in real life.

 

[harsh.ag]

The difference between experiencing and theorizing. I agree you can suggest something does not sound like a good idea but the least you need to be able to do is to have the humility to listen to the other side and engage in a healthy debate, and that does not happen. Coz of the www and social media, no one can actually even accept that they do not know something that they only read about or heard or saw.

Agreed.

 

[harsh.ag]

But how many people do you hear say "My religion has many bad ideas". Honestly, very few in my experience who aren't irreligious (but I may be wrong there).

 

[honestbharani]

Many, from my experience. See, as a kid growing up, in that neighborhood, Christmas meant cakes, Ramzan meant biriyani and Diwali/Pongal meant very tasty sweets, all the next day of the festival in school. By establishing that kind of opprobrium about criticizing another religion/caste/city/state/country, what ended up happening was the kids listening to maybe only good things of the other cultures. I know it is an idealistic scenario but societal scorn is a big factor in these things, or at least, used to be. I just think it requires immense levels of hypocrisy and hubris to indulge in saying bad things about stuff you have not really experienced, no matter how much you have studied up on it.

Two sayings that kinda sum up my views:

"History is but a fabled agreed upon" and "History is written by victors"

 

[harsh.ag]

Many, from my experience. See, as a kid growing up, in that neighborhood, Christmas meant cakes, Ramzan meant biriyani and Diwali/Pongal meant very tasty sweets, all the next day of the festival in school. By establishing that kind of opprobrium about criticizing another religion/caste/city/state/country, what ended up happening was the kids listening to maybe only good things of the other cultures. I know it is an idealistic scenario but societal scorn is a big factor in these things, or at least, used to be. I just think it requires immense levels of hypocrisy and hubris to indulge in saying bad things about stuff you have not really experienced, no matter how much you have studied up on it.

Two sayings that kinda sum up my views:

"History is but a fabled agreed upon" and "History is written by victors"

How do you square this with your view that open debate is good?

 

[BoyBrumby]

I think I've probably been more casually homophobic and sexist than racist in the past. The bedrock of much male banter in the UK is that all of one's friends are gay and that their mother/significant other entertains gentleman callers.

Have definitely used "jewish" as a synonym for "miserly" in the past in that awful, unthinking, tossed-off way though.

 

[honestbharani]

How do you square this with your view that open debate is good?

By the simple reasoning that open debate does not mean a free for all. See, as a kid growing up, the only guys who used to talk wtih any certainity on comparisons across religions where professorial types or scholars of theology etc, at least within my experiences. And those debates tend to be a lot more nuanced and analytical and ultimately fruitful. When every person with a handle on twitter wants to partake, it ceases to be a debate and becomes a shitshow.

For instance, my views on reservation went through a drastic change after one of our school events had a professor in societal economics explain what it was attempting to do. Now we can argue till the cows come home on how it is implemented, but the merit of the idea itself was something I saw in a very different way after that speech.

 

[harsh.ag]

But "it requires immense levels of hypocrisy and hubris to indulge in saying bad things about stuff you have not really experienced" also applies to the slight tweak - "it requires immense levels of hypocrisy and hubris to not say bad things about stuff you have experienced".

This non-event happens just as often as the former.

And that requires mass participation, not just of experts.

 

[honestbharani]

But "it requires immense levels of hypocrisy and hubris to indulge in saying bad things about stuff you have not really experienced" also applies to the slight tweak - "it requires immense levels of hypocrisy and hubris to not say bad things about stuff you have experienced".

This non-event happens just as often as the former.

And that requires mass participation, not just of experts.

I don't think it is mutually exclusive at all. What you are talking about is experiencing something bad but not speaking out against it, and I agree that happens too. But I really don't think it is because of whatever I referred to in any form. I am not sure if there is any correlation here between what I said and what you are saying.

I agree with you the latter part of what you wrote is a bad thing but unfortunately it tends to happen, across all countries and societies. One of the more universal things, really.

 

[sledger]

Some ideas are self-evidently bad and worthy of condemnation though, and this is irrespective to the extent one has experienced them personally. I do not need to stab myself in the chest to understand this would be very ill-advised, for instance. The same can be said of certain religious practises.

Edit: ah, I think I have been page-owned. Oh well nm.

 

[grecian]

Almost certainly so I am afraid, took part in racist football chants, probably told and laughed at racist jokes, our part of the World was 99% lily-white, not proud of any of it, but just shows if you are not part of a diverse culture, you have an awful mindset often.

 

[honestbharani]

Some ideas are self-evidently bad and worthy of condemnation though, and this is irrespective to the extent one has experienced them personally. I do not need to stab myself in the chest to understand this would be very ill-advised, for instance. The same can be said of certain religious practises.

Edit: ah, I think I have been page-owned. Oh well nm.

It is not always that simple or clear cut though, and that is the problem. Perhaps in a society where religion usually means only one thing, it maybe a bit easier but in a multi-cultural society, it usually causes more harm than it does good, IMO.

 

[sledger]

It is not always that simple or clear cut though, and that is the problem. Perhaps in a society where religion usually means only one thing, it maybe a bit easier but in a multi-cultural society, it usually causes more harm than it does good, IMO.

Yes, fair enough. It's not always, but it definitely is some of the time.

And yeah, there are likely many nuances and mitigating circumstances that might explain why people adhere to dire ideas, and these will need to be taken into account when trying to explain this direness to said people. But this doesn't take away from the fact that some ideas/views are just objectively dire however you slice them up.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

I think it depends on your age anyway, what was laughed at and around 20/30 years ago is now unacceptable and back then you either joined in and laughed or were singled out yourself. Look how popular the likes of Jim Davidson, Chubby Brown and Bernard Manning used to be and now they are rightfully regarded as dinosaurs.

One thing I have found bizarre in the last day or so is the amount of people on social media saying that if the bloke off Bo Selecta and the Little Britain pair are apologising then those involved with White Chicks should apologise. Hiding their own racism there.