Comment by cobertos
8 days ago
How do you avoid the pain of someone expressing a particularly hurtful political opinion (i.e. entire class of ppl should die) if you don't filter relationships by political beliefs?
I generally keep people's political opinions at arms length, as some relationships are worth the pain or lack of depth. But it has caused unforseen pain at times, and hurts when relations from different spheres interact negatively.
By interacting with the positive aspects of the person and ignoring or disengaging from the political opinions I don't like. If they want to kill jews or whatever, they have the right to that opinion, doesn't bother me so long as I'm not obliged to partake. I might engage the view but if neither of us are benefitting from the conversation there is no point in continuing down that particular path.
There are opinions which should cause one to seriously consider ending their friendship. I would hope “wanting to kill Jews” is on pretty much everyone’s list.
It undoubtedly is. I have to assume the GP slipped up with a really badly chosen example, since their point is otherwise pretty middle of the road.
It seems to me that the bad qualities of a person that would cause them to embrace genocide should be evident long before you get into a friendship that you would need to end.
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Hmm, sounds about right. I still feel like being around people when they express such radical beliefs reflects poorly on me and hurts me in some unexplainable way.
When challenging such beliefs I find some are hyperbole or a side effect of group-think. Rarely are they genuine, but when they are it's the most worrying. And that's usually when I stop engaging that line of thought.
That sounds so bleak.
What’s the endgame to this approach? Seems to me, folks with genocidal thoughts and feelings would find more positive reinforcement amongst themselves and less negative reinforcement everywhere else. Not great for the “genocide is bad” theory.
The negative reinforcement is supposed to be when they actually attempt to unlawfully kill others, a 9mm bullet goes through their head. Until then, they have the right to their opinion.
It's hard to imagine isolating them from counter points is going to mitigate their position.
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