Can't We All Just Get Along?
COEXIST (letters made out of religious symbols); hate the sin, love the sinner; everyone's entitled to their own opinion; you're being intolerant by disapproving of intolerance; turn the other cheek; agree to disagree; can't we all just get along?
No.
When expected to cover every single viewpoint & perspective in existence, this is just naive. Now, I'm not talking about being just a little bit country while you're just a little bit rock and roll. There are a ton of opinions that can coexist peacefully among neighbors. The reason is because those sorts of opinions don't have anything to do with the neighbors. You liking sushi doesn't say anything about me and me not liking sushi. So we can just "agree to disagree" on the relative merits of raw fish as dinner vs. bait.
But there are some beliefs, some opinions, some viewpoints that can not be reconciled. If your religion says that I must be killed and you have the authority & right to kill me, that viewpoint simply cannot coexist alongside my own belief that I should live. One of us has to be wrong and one of us must be thwarted in our desired outcome.
And then there are the kinds of beliefs that expose a person's character. If you like the color yellow, that doesn't say very much about who you are, so I can disagree with your admiration for yellow without having any particular opinion on who you are as a person. But if you think all niggers should be hung from the nearest tree, well, that tells me quite a lot about your character and you can bet that I have a pretty damn strong opinion on who you are as a person. And it's not a nice opinion either.
Some people seem to think that two people can have a difference of opinion about something, and it doesn't reflect on who they are as people, what their character is like. We can just disagree about something, but basically, we're all still "good people". Bullshit. It completely depends on what that something we disagree about is. And, depending on what that something we disagree about is, I think it is entirely appropriate for someone to come away from a disagreement actually not liking the other person as a direct result of the opinion the other person holds.
I think that women are human and should be treated as such. If John thinks that women are clearly inferior to men and should be treated as broodmares and sex toys, we have a disagreement. But if you think that someone like me, who holds equality as one of her top most fundamental human values, can have a "disagreement" with someone like John and still walk away thinking he's a pretty OK guy except for that thing we disagree on, you're out of your tiny mind.
My belief in equality is a fundamental part of my character, and John's belief that he is superior to me because he has some extra tissue dangling between his legs says something about the fundamentals of his character. It is entirely appropriate to dislike each other when we have revealed fundamental parts of our characters through a disagreement on a "difference of opinion" when those opinions are mutually exclusive.
If you want to talk about being ethical and compassionate, and in the same discussion dismiss any responsibility you have for actually being compassionate to someone or considering how your actions are harming that person, that tells me something very unflattering about your character and I'm not going to like you. And I don't think I should be required to like you when I think your character is awful.
We can disagree on a lot of things that don't say very much about our characters, and we can like people who disagree with us on certain things. And those "certain things" are not going to be the same thing for everyone. I know people who have married people of different religious faiths, which always baffles me considering what their faiths say about so many important elements about themselves and how they see the world around them. And I've seen people hate each other over a disagreement over ice cream.
And, of course, there are gradations - it's not an either-we-disagree-on-something-trivial-and-I-still-like-you OR we-disagree-on-something-fundamental-and-extreme-therefore-it's-Thunderdome! I have plenty of coworkers who I think are pretty awful people and yet, because they haven't tried to kill me, or impregnate me, or get me fired, I can work on the same gig with them (some of them, I do have to work out of earshot, though). I have several friends who I think are decent enough friends, but I'd never date them because of some value or opinion they hold that makes me not respect them just enough to be incompatible as dating partners, but not so much that I can't be friends. It's not a black and white issue.
But to think that revealing a difference of opinion doesn't reflect the character of the people doing the revealing, and that revelation doesn't, or shouldn't, affect how we feel towards each other as people, is naive. If you reveal to me something about your character that goes against anything I've worked to change in society, or against my values for how people should treat each other, I'm not going to like you, or I'm not going to respect you (which usually leads to not liking you, but sometimes it just drops down how much I like you). And I shouldn't have to like you if I think you hold a belief or perform actions that I think are dangerous, harmful, or evil.
No, if your religious belief says that I must be killed, that is fundamentally incompatible with my own beliefs and we cannot coexist peacefully. If your opinions are that it's OK to treat a certain class of person as a second class citizen, that is fundamentally incompatible with my own beliefs that we are all equal and I can dislike you over it. If you defend selfish, harmful behaviour, I feel perfectly justified in disliking you. If you just like impressionist art and I like photorealism, we can agree to disagree and still get along just fine.
There's this weird stigma against being "judgmental", as if simply having a judgment makes you a bad person. Everyone makes judgments all the time, it's how we navigate the world. We judge this car to be safe to ride in, that person to be safe to walk next to down the street, this person to be a good friend, and that person to be a friend as long as you don't tell him anything too private. When people say they don't want to be "judgmental", therefore they are going to accept someone even after learning something negative about that person, they ARE being judgmental - they have judged that this person is acceptable and they have also judged everyone else who doesn't agree to be a "bad person" under the label "judgmental".
People make judgments. It's how we make decisions. This is worthy, that is not worthy. And, frankly, some people are not worthy. It doesn't make you a bad person to have decided that someone is not worthy, not all by itself. The details of the case are important. And deciding that a person is worthy when they shouldn't be not only doesn't make you a good person automatically, it could make you a bad person by association, depending on that other person. Lots of people hate the Pope who supported Hitler, for example. The Pope didn't want any trouble, so he kissed Hitler's ass and excused Hitler's actions. It's fairly a universal opinion that this Pope was just as evil Hitler himself to have excused him. Much like the priests hiding rapists among the priesthood examples that came up in my last LJ post. To quote Tim Minchin: "if you cover for another motherfucking kiddie fucker, fuck you, you're no better than the motherfucking rapist."
Making judgments, by itself, does not, inherently, make you a bad person. It makes you a person. What kinds of judgments you make are what determine if others see you as bad or not, and refusing to "be judgmental" can actually make you seem like a bad guy depending on what you are excusing. And some people deserve to be judged, and found unworthy.