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[Truean]

.

[Shinotsa]

I'm not sure misanthropic is exactly the word to use. I think she put it beautifully. A vast majority of people are morons. On top of that, people suck. Thus it's useless trying to teach them ideals that, while they may be adopted by a small number of intellectuals, have a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting through to the uneducated masses. The best thing you can hope for is that people will eventually be morons to all other people equally, and even that is pretty unattainable.

Ninja: She didn't seem to contradict herself to me. Multiculturalism isn't only about allowing cultures together, but having a knowing acceptance that that is going on. People accepting differences, from what I have seen in my short life, is a pipe dream.

Doesn't stop me from being an idealist when it comes down to it. Though I'm fairly sure that'll wear off in a few years.

[kaijyuu]

Are you being hyperbolic or did you just call every single human being a misanthropic?

I'm a misanthrope, notoriously so.

I know you saw where I suggested humanity sucked and the only solution was nuking everyone. You replied to it.

Yeah, I remember.

*points to first line of signature*

/shrug

[Truean]

Are you being hyperbolic or did you just call every single human being a misanthropic?

I'm a misanthrope, notoriously so.

I know you saw where I suggested humanity sucked and the only solution was nuking everyone. You replied to it.

Yeah, I remember.

*points to first line of signature*

/shrug

"Fighting monsters does not excuse you from becoming one."
Whole thing is sad. hyperbole

[Darvi]

I think Truean stared at the abyss for so long that the thing just got bored and stared away.

[EveryZig]

Monsters don't seek excuses, least of all from species they hate.

Plenty of monsters love having excuses. Providing them in bulk is one of the primary functions of religion.

[kaijyuu]

Yeah, one of the defining traits of "monstrosity" as I define it is rationalization. Solving cognitive dissonance by violently beating down one side with weak excuses.


People who don't care are just jerks. People who think they're awesome when they're really not (oft by their own definitions!) are monsters.

[Leafsnail]

My rant is basically that humanity sucks. My definition of Multiculturalism is a philosophy that teaches tolerance, understanding and education of other cultures. It's a decent philosophy, and thus incompatible with an indecent human race. Cynical as hell, but consistent. The argument is that it's impractical.

This isn't a coherent argument.  It's just straight-up defeatism based on a premise that I find arrogant ("we might be clever enough to understand multiculturalism, but normal people are just too stupid!").  But the premise that people are too stupid to get it even though multiculturalism tends to work in places that aren't overly segregated isn't the main problem.  The main problem is that you aren't explaining what alternative would work better in this world of stupid people - ok, let's say people are too stupid to get multiculturalism.  What do you think we should feed their stupid minds instead?

[Shinotsa]

Yeah, one of the defining traits of "monstrosity" as I define it is rationalization. Solving cognitive dissonance by violently beating down one side with weak excuses.


People who don't care are just jerks. People who think they're awesome when they're really not (oft by their own definitions!) are monsters.

I have to disagree on that. I feel that the mere fact that you have to rationalize means you're human. Once you stop caring you get into the territory of anti-social personality disorder... and that's a neighborhood you drive around in with your doors locked. Those are the true monsters, and there are many more of them than we realize.

Speaking of psychopathology I seem to recall an article a few months back comparing the personality traits of CEOs of large businesses with those of people with Axis II disorders. There were remarkable similarities in just about everything excluding family affluence.

[Truean]

"The best you can hope for is colorblindness and the idea that people just treat everyone the same." I've said it several times.

This isn't a coherent argument.  It's just straight-up defeatism

Furthest thing from.... A.) I already gave an alternate option: colorblindness. B.) if something really is impractical, then advocating it as a practical solution doesn't make sense.

Multiculturalism doesn't exist for any other reason than to accomplish a purpose. I'm saying it can't accomplish that purpose because the thing it would need to do so doesn't exist: decent people. Or if you prefer a sliver of hope which I don't, the number of decent people is so vastly dwarfed by the sheer massive number of indecent people as to be negligible.

Colorblindness, on the other hand, can work with the worst of humanity. A judge isn't going to shout at the criminal the various lovely nuances of different cultures and how they're all special and respectable and whatever. You know what a judge can shout at a criminal, "Mr. [Name]! I KNOW I'm not going to see you in my courtroom for beating somebody up again just cause they're darker skinned. I'm right aren't I? AREN'T I?" <---- This might actually stand a chance of working.

Summation:
Multiculturalism needs decent people to function. People aren't decent; multiculturalism won't function.
Colorblindness doesn't need decent people to function. Thus lack of them won't deter its function.

Work through the logic of my statements; its there. It's horrid and cynical and you can disagree with me very reasonably and I wouldn't think less of you for it. It just means you still have some hope for humankind, which I most certainly do not.

[EveryZig]

I have to disagree on that. I feel that the mere fact that you have to rationalize means you're human. Once you stop caring you get into the territory of anti-social personality disorder... and that's a neighborhood you drive around in with your doors locked. Those are the true monsters, and there are many more of them than we realize.

Rationalization is how many people stop caring. Yes, everyone has to rationalize some amount, but that doesn't mean that too much of it won't make you go nuts.

[palsch]

Work through the logic of my statements; its there. It's horrid and cynical and you can disagree with me very reasonably and I wouldn't think less of you for it. It just means you still have some hope for humankind, which I most certainly do not. Those statements of mine, also perfectly logical.

I think that article provides the strongest case against 'colourblindness' as a solution. Treating everyone the same doesn't really work without an understanding of the cultural and racial differences that exist. Even if you don't discriminate by race, society does and ignoring that fact tends to only feed into that discrimination.

I'm also cynical enough to think that people claiming to be colourblind are probably liars more often than not. It's like people who describe themselves as 'allies' when it comes to race or feminism or gay rights. Most of the time they are saying that they are not racist by definition, so any discrimination they do do is obviously not racist, it's entirely justified based on other factors like how they dress or speak, or what neighbourhood they live in, etc. And so they act just as racist as everyone else while satisfied that they aren't one of those horrid racist rednecks.

[Truean]

Moving towards colorblindness isn't bad. Brown v. Board of Education wasn't founded on multiculturalism. It was founded on giving people the same stuff and saying that separate wasn't equal and that differences shouldn't matter or be considered at all.... One standard, one rule, one application for all. That'd be fair. Too bad we don't have it.

Person number 4332, should be treated the exact same as person number 301 regardless of anything including race, sex, national origin, or anything. Differences shouldn't be known, cared about, or mentioned.

Here's the problem with the second part of your argument: about people only pretending.

You basically made the point that people can pretend to be colorblind. True. People can also pretend to be "multicultural," and I've seen shitloads of them. It's just a different BS Public Relations message to them. You CAN fake it. Hell, I've known too many people who found out I wasn't exactly straight and SAID they were OK with it; many of them will then have nothing to do with me after that. I get it. The implication that you can't fake being multicultural or that you can more easily fake being colorblind, doesn't make sense to me.

[kaijyuu]

Yeah, one of the defining traits of "monstrosity" as I define it is rationalization. Solving cognitive dissonance by violently beating down one side with weak excuses.


People who don't care are just jerks. People who think they're awesome when they're really not (oft by their own definitions!) are monsters.

I have to disagree on that. I feel that the mere fact that you have to rationalize means you're human.

I'm not rallying against every sort of "end justifies the means" thinking, just the irrational ones. This includes:
- The ones that justify with irrelevant excuses, ie: "I had a bad day so I was a jerk to the waiter."
- The ones that abandon their ideals due to zealous indignation, ie: "pedophiles are evil and don't deserve a fair trial."

Both of those I've actually heard. People who use such lines of thinking are the true monsters, imo.

Once you stop caring you get into the territory of anti-social personality disorder... and that's a neighborhood you drive around in with your doors locked. Those are the true monsters, and there are many more of them than we realize.

Eh, I already ranted quite a bit about socipaths/psychopaths/people who plain lack empathy in another recent thread. These people are harmless unless you get in their way. It's the ones who DO care that you want to avoid, such as the morally indignant, sadists, etc. Those will seek you out and beat you up.

[Reelya]

One could make the argument that multiculturalism is in the First amendment of the constitution, the separation of church and state falls under the umbrella term multiculturalism.

Promoting tolerance amongst the populace for your neighbors is only the tip of the iceberg as far as "multiculturalism" goes, and that's hardly a goal limited to multicultural policy goals.

Multicultural philosophy is more about how the government itself interacts with those populations. Forced Assimilation to a single "way of life" is the other end of the spectrum. Tolerance of diverse political opinion, as well being able to dress how you like, sexual identity, are also part of a multicultural nation's identity. There's no more reason to force immigrants to dress and act like "proper Americans" than there is to force young Americans to all dress and act the same. Who is this proper American that the immigrant must

And it wasn't really that long ago that everyone had to conform to a christian, church-going, straight, conservatively-dressed "normality", otherwise bad, bad things would happen to you (probably locked up in an asylum or beaten to death in the street).

This is where the meat multiculturalism really is. We take for granted being able to pretty much act as we please without the government crushing us for not conforming to a monoculture. I read once about an Alabama man put in a mental institution in the 1943 because he told a colleague he had sex with his wife 4-5 times a week. He was diagnosed as a dangerous sex-addict. 2 times a week was the max. "normal" times.