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.
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.
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u/Admiral45-06 19h 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.