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Comment by simpaticoder

15 days ago

"Live and let live" is in fundamental tension with "protect the weak." ALL aggressive ideologies act as heroes protecting others from oppression. There is a barely expressible thing that allows people to live in peace with those they disagree with. It is a personality trait, an aesthetic, a mood associated with the best of the Enlightenment but never described by it. Perhaps people need relative silence, a few good books, physical labor, hand-made goods, and slow travel to attain it. I often wonder at how boldly people think they can reduce the enormous, holistic experience of being of a particular time and place and call the effect simply "reason".

i agree with your sentiment, but what you disagree in is crucial here.

there's a class of topics where disagreement means the death and dispair of one side.

hoping to live and let live, with a disagreeing party that doesn't "let live", is a fool's errand.