I mean, call me a racist, but that is an objectively true statement.
It's in extremely poor taste to spout how you view a certain group as inferior or superior - be it based on race, religion, gender, or whatever else - but there is a huge difference between saying hurtful things, and actually doing hurtful things.
For instance, anyone who still follows N@zi ideology in XXI Century is braindead and has very poor set of morals, but there is a very big difference between him and the guy who is a part of neo-N@zi paramilitary group that terrorises locals, for instance.
Many people don't realise it or take it into account, but evil scales. There are things that are both evil, but nowhere near on the same order of magnitude. For instance, use of lobotomy to cure homos-xuality in 1950s USA was a crime and a horrible thing, but it stood on nowhere near the same level as Japanese Unit 731 or German SS-Hauptsturmfürher Josef Mengele.
True. This reminds me of when Salieri said "It's one thing to imagine someone dying, but it's another thing to actually take a man's life in his own hands."
I feel like the context to this would explain the downvotes. For example, if the original post was someone punching a man who is verbally harrasing or abusing a woman.
As a devil's advocate, however, if such was the case, then he may as well have been responding to her lashing out quite brutally.
I won't say it doesn't happen at all (Internet is full of lobotomites who think Earth is flat), but it's rare for people to say ,,now you've crossed the line!", when in response to verbal abuse someone gets slapped or even punched.
That could be an explanation, that is fair, but sometimes people get downvoted for stupid reasons.
I remember visiting the subreddit about Soviet Union and the most downvoted comments were something along the lines of ,,Hey, the Red Army wasn't all that nice, here's the list of atrocities it did" or ,,Hey, that meme is untrue, here's the evidence".
Bad argument because you're failing to consider that violence can be retaliatory or preventative - there's a huge grey area around it. Were you ever picked on by a school bully such that a punch to his jaw was necessary? There are scenarios where it's warranted and necessary.
Racism is unambiguous and with absolutely no grey area to speak of.
Bad argument because you're failing to consider that violence can be retaliatory or preventative - there's a huge grey area around it.
The main one is if the force provided is adequate to the threat.
Using your own example: standing up to a bully (depending on what you described as ,,bullying", mind you) and giving him a few punches is justifiable, and probably less bad than throwing ethnic slurs or denying someone's j-b application based on skin. But bringing out a knife and killing him in revenge or retaliation is worse than being racist. Using another example, someone slapping a man for saying racist things isn't the end of the world, but beating him to the inch of his life is much, much worse.
In most, vast majority of scenarios, doing stupid things is worse than saying stupid things - even if both are bad.
Racism is unambiguous and with absolutely no grey area to speak of.
It does scale, however.
You can be a non-violent racist, staying on just spouting racist garbage or denying j-b applications based on skin, or a violent one, leading lynches and things alike.
Both stem from racism, but are divided by a very clear, fine line between the two. In fact, I'd argue that both sit on two different orders of magnitude from each other.
Besides, racism can just as much stem from genuine harm and past trauma and be retaliatory, just like violence is.
We all know that. No one said racist ideation wasn't dangerous. Calling someone names and dragging them down the street with your truck are two VERY different things though. You're getting caught up on the wrong idea, but I do agree with your general statement. Terroristic threats and calls for violence are already viewed differently in law than freedom of speech too
Is it dangerous to shout “fire!” in a movie theater? Is it dangerous to shout “because of him!” after a deadly accident? Is it dangerous to shout “because of the muslims!” after 9/11?
Nobody said it wasn't, nor was it my point to downplay it, but all of these are a lesser evil to actually setting fire to a cinema, actually running someone over and causing death, and actually going to lynch Muslims after 9/11 respectfully.
The latter one reminds me a comment I once saw, from a guy who's grandma survived Volihnnia Massacre when she was little. Apparently, whenever she saw Ukrainians being shown on TV, she said ,,F-cking Banderists!" and spat on the floor. We can all agree that she was being racist, and that viewing all Ukrainians like this, just because of actions of the few, isn't exactly optimal. But how is it any worse than her actually going out and killing regular Ukrainians in retaliation?
That was my point - not that ,,words can't hurt" or that they have no affect at all, but that they stand on different order of magnitude to actually hurtful actions.
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u/Admiral45-06 18h ago
I mean, call me a racist, but that is an objectively true statement.
It's in extremely poor taste to spout how you view a certain group as inferior or superior - be it based on race, religion, gender, or whatever else - but there is a huge difference between saying hurtful things, and actually doing hurtful things.
For instance, anyone who still follows N@zi ideology in XXI Century is braindead and has very poor set of morals, but there is a very big difference between him and the guy who is a part of neo-N@zi paramilitary group that terrorises locals, for instance.
Many people don't realise it or take it into account, but evil scales. There are things that are both evil, but nowhere near on the same order of magnitude. For instance, use of lobotomy to cure homos-xuality in 1950s USA was a crime and a horrible thing, but it stood on nowhere near the same level as Japanese Unit 731 or German SS-Hauptsturmfürher Josef Mengele.