Comment by NoraCodes
3 years ago
> the only reason you pay attention to sides is identify with and wanting to defend a side in the first place
True! For example, I inherently have a bias towards wanting LGBTQ people to have the right to participate in society through marriage, anti-discrimination laws, etc because I'm LGBTQ. I suspect a lot of black people have a bias towards wanting anti-discrimination legislation so they don't get discriminated against, too.
Does that strike you as unreasonable?
In a way, yes, that's problematic, because what you're saying is that those people are still not arguing for equal rights for all based on principle: their sole objective is arguing for more rights for themselves, which is still an adversarial position to take and in the long run will do nothing to prevent the tribalistic nature of public discourse.
Aren’t the people arguing against their rights the ones causing a problem? Everyone looking out for themselves is supposed to lead to at least a half-decent outcome - kind of the idea behind the “free market.”
no, why should it? i want those things for disadvantaged groups as well. that doesn't mean that i've chosen a side and will defend it to the death against the bad ol' "others". everyone can be part of the same tribe. no other tribe needed. and it's ok if we don't all agree on the same things at the same time.
(i'm not going to pretend that i'm always cool, calm and collected in real life. far from it, i'm as flawed as the next person. but when it comes to thinking about this stuff, and striving to be more consistent with my own principles, this is the way i think myself out of all the partisanship i see around me.)