Oct 22, 2015 12:00
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video,
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visualisation,
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One thing that stands out is the distinction between learning something, and learning about something. For instance, in America, schools are not supposed to teach religion: that means students should still be able do read about religion themselves, and the school should still be allowed to teach "this is what these people believe and this is what those people believe, and this is what happened in history between one group and another group", but the school should not be allowed to say "these people are right".
Like, if Mein Kampf showed up in a history class, I'd think that was perfectly reasonable. But I don't think students should set up a "Woo, Mein Kampf" club.
Triggering vs bigotry
Another is to break up the "what you disagree with" into "things that are harmful for you to see" and "things that are harmful to let pass unchallenged".
A video of people being beheaded, or undergoing an operation, is likely to be something most people will be upset to see (with the difficulty that some people will be MORE upset, and other people will be equally upset by something else that's not as obviously disturbing to a third party). This is where trigger warnings debate is: not that those things should NEVER happen, but that you should know up front if they're necessary, and they should exist where they're reasonably necessary and not just all over the place gratuitously. But if OTHER people want to watch them, that's A-OK!
Whereas a film about lots of racial hatred... it may or may not be distressing to watch (it PROBABLY is for the people being targeted, but not necessarily for everyone), but people have a legitimate objection to it being shown uncritically, because people watching it, will harm the people they're being trained to be bigoted against. (Obviously people disagree whether American Sniper is full of racial hatred -- I don't know, I haven't seen it.) I don't quite know where the line is on things that should be banned, but there's definitely things you should generally not indulge in
Moral relitavism
But what the article seemed to want to work its way round to talking about was moral relativism, and I have lots of thoughts about this and they're partially unfinished.
I think partly, to me, it's clear that racism hurts other people and hence should be prevented, but that being gay doesn't hurt anyone at all and hence is great. But I think people who actually do think there's something wrong with being gay, typically think it's wrong in some way, not just "because" -- that it's self-indulgent, or correlated with other things that actually are harmful, etc, etc. And although I think they're wrong, we can maybe agree that "you can do whatever you like, if it doesn't impact other people"[1] as a basis for what to allow, even if we don't always agree what that is.
[1] Although I have also heard it suggested that one political split is emphasising responsibilities vs emphasising rights (or maybe, responsibilities to different things), that we have to accept "allow people to choose for themselves" to get any ordered society at all, but one half of the split actively embraces that, and the other much more often thinks people should shape up and live responsibly even if the only person they're immediately harming is themself.
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For instance, they might think that if you're gay, then the giant star goat will chew you up, and also your family and neighbours.
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