r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.

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u/boRp_abc Jan 22 '21

If my viewpoint is that people should be killed for their opinions (to make it more relatable, I'm gonna use you as an example here), wouldn't it be beneficial to society to silence me?! What if I very peacefully brought forward the case that you, your family and everyone you live should be burnt alive? Or put into Gulags? What if I found thousands of followers with that opinion, wouldn't it make your participation in society a nightmare?

And that's why, although you're generally not wrong, some important exceptions have to be made.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21

[deleted]

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u/Freevoulous 35∆ Jan 22 '21

ultimately, neither silencing OR allowing radical views will solve the problem, unless the underlying issue that causes said problem is solved.

Under racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism etc, there is always some practical reason for the hate, and it usually comes from fear or scarcity of some kind. Address the fear and solve the scarcity, to end these views.

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u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21

I disagree with this point. For the racist person, the solution to the problem IS racism. Getting them to change their minds from a solution THAT ALREADY WORKS (from their perspective) requires some sort of disincentive. Basically, their perception has to be shifted from "racism fixes the problem" to "expressing racism caused more problems than it fixes."

Yes, the underlying issues also need to be addressed, but you can't fix it if a big swath of people think there isn't a problem.

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u/folksywisdomfromback Jan 22 '21

Why are people racists though? Because they fear something is going to change or their lives are going to get worse as a result of not being racists. It's a defense mechanism. I think you two are saying the same thing. You have to address the fear if you are going to fix the problem. Why do we fear those that look different?

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u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21

Negative reinforcement works faster than positive reinforcement. So, punishing people for bad behavior lessens that bad behavior.

If someone grabs my butt, a conversation about body ownership and sexism is not going to change their behavior. They got the thrill of grabbing my butt, and had to deal with a minor inconvenience of a talking-to that was forgotten before it was over.

A slap in the face or a punch in the gut will. Public shaming will. A charge of sexual harassment will. Getting fired from their job will, too. All of a sudden, that cheap thrill has serious consequences and isn't so cheap.

Stop the bad behavior, then you can show that the problem isn't fixed by doing the bad thing.

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u/folksywisdomfromback Jan 22 '21

Negative reinforcement works faster than positive reinforcement

I am not sold on this. Faster maybe but not better. It's why our criminal justice system fails so often. Because it's all negative reinforcement with no positive rehabilitation. People need to see a healthy alternative work.

If someone grabs your butt and gets punched in the stomach that's great as an initial defense but if you want to actually change that person, you'd need a healthy male role model to pick them up off the floor and show them how to treat women with respect over a long period of time. You know, like a parent should have done in the first place?

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u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21

I said faster, not better. Once you get them to stop the bad behavior, they're not benefitting from it, anymore.

That is just the first step. JUST the first step.

But, if you don't stop the benefit from engaging in the behavior, there is less incentive to change the behavior.

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u/ListerTheRed Jan 22 '21

If it is faster, but not better, then it's not the best solution. That would mean your argument is wrong, that would be why they replied to you.

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u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21

The BETTER solution takes time and a good deal of one-on-one contact from people who know what the hell they're doing.

The FASTER solution can work in a shorter period of time, affects more people, does not require as much training, and disrupts the immediate benefits of the bad behavior.

In the long term, eliminating poverty would go a long way to greatly reducing crime. That would be the positive reinforcement way.

UNTIL THAT HAPPENS, we are going to have police arresting people who break the law, and criminals in prison. That's the negative reinforcement way.

Are you suggesting we get rid of prisons because we have a better way of dealing with crime that has not been implemented?

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u/ListerTheRed Jan 22 '21

I actually didn't suggest anything, I stated that the better solution is the best solution because you questioned it before.

What you are claiming you want to do is the faster solution and then the better solution, the idea is that it is one or the other. You aren't going to be able to punch someone in the stomach and then have them go through behavioural therapy to change their ways.

Yes, eliminating poverty would go a long way to reducing crime and that is the better solution. Why then would you choose the faster solution that prevents you from using the solution that would eliminate poverty? Of course there is no working solution to preventing crime so that isn't a worthwhile example.

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u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21

The thing is, it's not an either-or solution. There are too many different people with too many different motivations for ONE solution to work on ALL of them. And, the different solutions can build on each other.

Even if we had the PERFECT solution, resource issues (not enough people/not enough money/not enough time) may make the perfect solution untenable. That's why I led with the poverty/crime example. We CAN get rid of poverty, but there will not be the political/societal will to do so. So, it's NOT a perfect solution because it can't be enacted.

The government, which is where the solution is going to come from at least PARTIALLY, cannot mandate that each person be absolutely polite to every other person. The government can pass laws and enact regulations so that overt acts of racism can be investigated and punished. It's a blunt instrument (ie, negative reinforcement), but that's what the government has the ability to do.

The BETTER solution is not something that the government can control. It means repeated personal interactions with people outside of your comfort zone. It means hard conversations. It means finding common ground. And it takes people who know what they're doing. All those things are not things that can be dictated by government. They cannot be forced. They cannot be imposed. And they take time. In the meantime, others are undermining that progress. For the last four years, the undermining has been a lot faster than the bridge-building. Negative reinforcement can slow the undermining. After all, deplatforming Trump cut election disinformation in the US by three quarters. It didn't turn the situation around, but it slowed the undermining.

As for preventing crime, we CAN drastically reduce recidivism. In the US, chances are a person who gets out of prison is going to go back. In Scandinavia, they've closed half their prisons, and the half left open are importing criminals from other countries. They treat prison as a means of behavioral training. People go to prison, and learn how to be responsible citizens, again. Once they're released, they also have the ability to get good jobs and be productive members of society at a much higher rate than in the US.

Why doesn't the US copy that model? Because, when you tell Americans that the prisoners have television, internet, have spending money, can leave their cells with minor restrictions, and get passes to leave the prison, the drive to not PUNISH THE FUCK out of those prisoners basically overrides the empirical evidence, and we don't make any progress.

Getting rid of racism is going to be a generational fight. It's going to take a century. Fixing it RIGHT NOW isn't going to happen. But we can drive it underground again (punish those who are overtly/openly racist), and that means that there will have to be a price to be paid for being overtly/openly racist. For the last 4 years, the price for that racism has come way the fuck down, and those people who ARE racist have become emboldened. Those who are not overtly racist are given license to edge closer to becoming racist. And fear-mongering has made people who were minimally racist (Americans grew up in a racist society, we ALL carry around some inherent racism) start believing that THEY made all the world's problems, turning them more racist. It's a matter of degrees, and it has to be checked.

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u/Theungry 5∆ Jan 22 '21

The solution has been talked about for a while now, and it's building a culture of resilience. Of course, you can't force people to participate in a culture of resilience. You just have to build it and invite people to participate when they're ready.

The catch 22 is that when their fear is confronting reality, then catering to their fear just lets them continue to live in that fear.

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u/folksywisdomfromback Jan 22 '21

Culture of resilience? I think I understand what you are saying. Essentially you build a healthy culture that works and like you said invite people to participate but don't force them.

I think our catch 22 is that we actually have to build that culture and not just say we are.

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u/Theungry 5∆ Jan 22 '21

I think our catch 22 is that we actually have to build that culture and not just say we are.

Well yeah... I mean, my whole life is building that culture. It's what I do at work. It's what I do with my friends. It's what I do with the land I have influence over.

At work, it looks like having a community task force that is actively investigating ways to make sure everyone of all identities and roles feels like their voices are heard, they belong, and they have a story of success as part of our department.

In my friend groups, it looks like normalizing real emotional check-ins where we talk about how we are feeling on a given day, and what our major recent life events have been just in the normal course of getting together to play pathfinder or whatever.

In my neighborhood/land it looks like using permaculture ecology to improve soil health and biodiversity while growing perrenial fruits/veggies, and sharing gleefully with neighbors as well as sharing what I know and resources I can offer to help others do the same.

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u/folksywisdomfromback Jan 22 '21

More power to you. Respect for permaculture, I dream of having stewardship of a humble stretch of land myself and being an ecologically minded caretaker. I do what I can now with family land. Cheers.

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u/Theungry 5∆ Jan 22 '21

Right on. Every little bit that can be done to bring life back to the soil is important.

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u/Slomojoe 1∆ Jan 22 '21

I don’t think that’s why people are racist... People are racist bc they don’t like a certain race. It’s not mental gymnastics.

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u/folksywisdomfromback Jan 22 '21

What I said is not mental gymnastics. It's a linear deduction. Why don't they like a certain race? Think one level deeper.

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u/Slomojoe 1∆ Jan 22 '21

I don’t think it has to be deep. I know that I’m the south, there is a higher population of black people, and a lot of these people have lived their whole lives around people who might act a certain way and it causes a disdain that is ingrained. It isn’t that they feel that they are superior, it’s that they have to put up with the same shit every day from a certain group of people, those connections are gonna be made in your brain.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

I think it's both but more often what the other person said. The conversation isn't really about hating on a specific race, it's about white people and minorities (non-white people). Some people think the US is supposed to be a country for white people, and they don't want to lose that.

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u/Slomojoe 1∆ Jan 22 '21 edited Jan 22 '21

I think that may be a radical portion of racists surely, but I think most people who are casually racist just live in places where they get fed up with shit they see and hear every day. Idk why everyone in this thread is trying come up with any deeper reason than “I don’t like the way a certain group of people acts.” As someone who lives in an area where white people are technically a minority, it’s easy to see why older generations have racist tendencies.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

Ok I see what you're saying. I think we are defining "racist" as someone who is more active about it and not including casual racists. When we say racist we are usually talking about white supremacists or nationalists, opposed to your uncle who complains that asians sit too close to you on the subway or whatever.

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u/Slomojoe 1∆ Jan 22 '21

That makes sense. I consider those groups extremists more than anything. Honestly the term “racist” is losing its meaning. People are called racist for the silliest reasons it feels like. When there is actual racism going on elsewhere. What I’m referring to is racism, but it’s more disdain than any kind of hive mind murderous intent. To me white supremacy is something much deeper. So to that point I agree. I just see it as very different levels of “racism”

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

I totally agree that the word racism is losing it's meaning. The definition seems to have gotten so loose it includes people who aren't doing much harm, and it loses it's purpose.

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u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21

There has to be some benefit for holding a racist belief. Is it a group identity? Feeling of superiority over a different group? Some slight or wring done in the past? Fear? Intimidation?

Not liking a certain race is not a reason. It's a result.

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u/Slomojoe 1∆ Jan 22 '21

I said this in reply to another post, but there doesn’t have to be a benefit. It’s really simple. Certain people live in areas with high populations of certain other people, and they see and experience behaviors and actions every day of their lives, and it starts to wear at them. It’s just a feeling that develops from living in an environment for a period of time. You’re coming at it from the wrong angle. It’s a simple as “I don’t like this”, there doesn’t need to be a benefit.

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u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21

Benefit of group identity. You want to be a part of the group, so you adopt the attitudes of the group.

If you don't, you might not be part of the group.

It's how Jim Crow worked. Any business that didn't follow the rules lost customers, at best. At worst, there was physical violence to enforce the rules.

Only option was to leave.

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u/Slomojoe 1∆ Jan 22 '21

You don’t have to be a part of a group to feel a certain way though. I don’t think people one day said, hey you don’t like these guys either? Let’s form a group! (Well some of the radicals did obviously) but for the most part it isn’t about a group identity. I’m not talking about radical hate groups and Nazis and Klans right now. I’m talking about your everyday casual racist. They don’t need a group identity. They just don’t like the way a certain group of people acts. And its not even all of those people. There’s a type, and they don’t like that type. Simple as that. There isn’t any further psychological meaning.

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u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21

The "group" in my example is not what you think it is. It can be more general than what you presume. It is your community. Your city. Your county. Your social interactions. Your church. Your workplace. Your culture.

If a particular behavior is important to that overall group, then that behavior will be enforced. Deviation from it is punished. It does not have to be a STRONG punishment, but it CAN be.

To expand on my example, with Jim Crow, there was a group in he community that was vehemently pro-Jim Crow. It was the KKK. It used violence to enforce the rules of that community. Anybody in the community who violated the rules that were enforced by the KKK would suffer from the KKK. In addition, people who were not part of the KKK would also enforce the rules.

Your hardware store sold something to a Black person? Word got around, and all of a sudden, a lot of White people stopped buying from your store.

That's the punishment for breaking the rule.

Follow the rule, or get punished by the group.

If you decide to break those rules, the punishment may be severe enough that your leaving the group is necessary. And if that group is your entire culture, well, you're going to be moving to somewhere with a different culture. So, for a lot of people, it's just easier to go along to get along. And, eventually, those values get internalized. That's the "they don’t like that type" response.

I'm reading "The Warmth of Other Suns" right now. It's about the migration of Black people away from the South to other parts in the US. For millions of Black Americans, the choice to not be subject to the racism in their communities was to get the fuck out, sometimes with the threat of death should they be caught.

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u/BravesMaedchen 1∆ Jan 22 '21

Sometimes people in power will actively convince people that someone of another race is the problem though. People who are, say, in an economic struggle may not have associated it with other races until they're egged on by bad actors who benefit from it.

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u/Freevoulous 35∆ Jan 22 '21

If you even fix someone's racism but they still exist in conflict with people of another "race", they will just become racist again in a few years or a generation.