"I do mind, yet you do matter"

[clarsct]

Ok..I was slow on the uptake, so we're taking this in pieces..

Do we have the obligation to treat others with the utmost respect, despite their differing values, mistakes, poor judgement and (dare I say) ill-considered ideologies?
Well, this has been well answered, already, but I will throw my 'NO' into the ring, as well. Respect is commanded, not demanded. I think it is a good idea to treat others as you would be treated, at least initially, but I don't think we must respect everyone's ideas as equal. That would be the same type of logic used by ID folks.

When is it right to interfere in the affairs of others?
Hmmmmm.
I would agree with both Darat and Mercutio. To some degree, we cannot escape our enviroment, and those people whom help comprise it. On the other hand, can't we? We DO choose who we associate with, and, by that way, choose our enviroment, to a degree. I am always amazed when people who associate with negative individuals wonder why bad things always happen to them. And you can always quit a job, although I recognize that this isn't a valid option all the time. Sometimes we just can't avoid someone, and in some cases, we shouldn't have to. So what do you do? The trick is to be aware of the effects we are having on those around us. Myself, I tend to do and say things in such a way as to make people think. I'm not necessarily going for critical thinking, although sometimes I do. A while ago, I figured out the answer to the question: 'What is he THINKING?' And the answer is: He isn't. It occured to me that the world would be a better place if people thought more often...or if some people...thought...at...all! So it's been my little crusade..just to get people to think. I also try to surround myself, when possible, with people who DO think. Thus, my participation here.

Should we educate others to a level commensurate to our own line of reasoning about acceptable standards of behaviour?

I percieve a compound question, here. 'Should we educate others to a level commensurate to our own line of reasoning?' and 'Should we educate people about acceptable standards of behavior?'
For the first:
Hmmmm. 'Educate'? Someone here, I can't remember who, has a quote in their sig that something to the effect of 'You can't use logic to get someone out of a place they didn't use logic to get themselves into.' But you CAN use doubt. You can make them wonder, at times. Phrase your words to create ambiguity, just to give them something to mull over. Doesn't work all the time, but I'm going for volume, here.
As for the second:
As for acceptable standards of behavior, I would say YES! We do teach people how to treat us. I have no trouble letting people know where I stand and that they've stepped on my toes.

 

[clarsct]

OK..this is abiggie, but we'll slog on...

People responded! I am so happy! I thought this would float off into the ether. Maybe there's something to this interdependent thing....
No problem...


See, that's what I thought - how about the example that was raised in a Paltalk discussion that essentially boiled down to 'people who gain emotional gratification (or more accurately, owned pets, took care of their pets well and gained emotional support from owning pets) from pets are not emotionally mature / are not really behaving in the manner that defines them as being truly human'?
What an odd idea. Having pets, and caring about them, makes you LESS human? Seems just the opposite to me..

My view was that if you were an owner of a pet and took care of them then you were not only a 'humane' person but that the idea that you could exist with no human interaction at all (autonomous) wasn't really possible in this day and age. That everyone has residual.... impact?... upon themselves from other people and that this is somehow 'carried' with them. But this is starting to go into semantics and I'm digressing...

Hmmm..maybe not. You've just come full circle to what Merc was saying. We do affect those around us. If we didn't the JREF would have no reason to exist.



Yes, but what actually defines the 'health' and what is defined by as 'lives'? Argh, bloody language... As sceptics / skeptics (ah, language, language...) where do you draw the line? Is it all just personal bugbears that you seize upon and say 'right, homeopathy, it's the last straw, I shall devote my efforts to this' or 'I have had x experiences with hauntings, it shall be my main focus', etc. etc.?
I would hope not. The problem DOES seem enormous, at times, and I think some people focus as a way to make it 'solvable'. But I also think some folks 'tunnel vision' at times and focus a little too narrowly. Just because you have specific knowledge about chemistry is no reason to just go after homeopaths. Specialization is for insects. Of course, if you do have specific knowledge, it would be a shame not to share it....

I could mention the practices of a variety of things (and we all know so many.....) and claim that they are challenging several notions of what is 'good health' and what is a 'good life'... but then how does one categorise the severity of these practices.... unless I take Darat's path and say 'does it affect me'? And what if it naturally cannot help influencing me as an interdependent person? Is there ever truly a line? I could look at some of the posts on this board, for example, and say 'they are on the other side of the planet, pah!' and turn off the computer. And yet I choose not to and respond to them in an effort to assuage, even in a small way. And that's only a small example.
Assuage what, if I may ask? Guilt?

Anyway, the line is where people put it. If someone is very uncomfortable talking about something, well, first I would think you wouldn't post it here, and second, they should let you know how they feel. People draw their own lines. If we wish them to respect ours, we MUST respect theirs.
There are many threads I read that I don't respond to. It is simple lack of interest. No guilt for it, just something I'm not interested in at the moment. I may be next time. We are all, alas, human and we do what we can.

Garrette says:
Much as I hate to admit it, he has a point, from the standpoint of the JREF mission. We don't always have to crusade. I generally do, but that's me.


In a more personal example:
I could (and in doing so, break my employment contract according to what the very nice people in HR told me in a rather amusing and enlightening conversation), possibly define what is 'good health' and a 'good life' for my students involves not being taught what I consider to be fanciful and fictional notions of a supreme being. I could easily tally up, after investigating with relative ease, the concepts that are being taught to them and come to a decision that I could justify as being perfectly rational. Does this make it right? Certainly I have dealt with more challenging employment situations of a similar sort before with inaction and by not taking action, implied consent that this happens. Why change now (and I think I could answer that with my next case example, anyway)?
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" -Emerson
"I hate quotation."-Emerson
So take it for what it's worth. Do what you can live with. If you can't live with it and maintain your dignity, then it's probably wrong.

This then goes back to the statements that Garrette made and I may then conclude that what I am doing is possibly more emotive, self satisfying and eventually more destructive than effective.... and do I have the right to do this when I am not the parents of the children who let them go to this institution with the full knowledge of what is being taught there?
Can you, with full knowledge of what is being taught there, continue to teach there? On a 'job' level, you have an obligation to teach the materials given, but on a personal level, you have no obligation to be loyal to those tenets. You can present material skeptically. You have no control over the parents or their beliefs, but you CAN control what you do. If you allow yourself to teach what you know is not true, then what does that say about you? Can you live a lie? I'm not saying you are, but these are the questions one must ask oneself.

I could just leave. But then what of those students who said that I was one of the few they felt they didn't feel uncomfortable with, when they did raise questions about their different beliefs in opposition to the mainstream Christianity being espoused (or even burgeoning realisation that perhaps they didn't have to have a belief in any religion)? Am I then helping what I deride by what could be defined as a different form of 'inaction' - by not being there as a sympathetic ear?
Or could you have done more by moving on to more fertile ground? These are unanswerable questions.

With the case of an individual that has raised my concerns in a similar way - where a child has been told by parents that they are cursed with a demon and that they are to refuse any medical attention as it may interfere with their defeat of said demon... again, I have Garrette's overview come to mind, where I cannot move on the issue as I am up against some rather odd cultural beliefs... that I don't respect and that the school also does not accept (and they're not mainstream cultural or religious beliefs, I assure you). We have eventually come to the conclusion that we cannot implicitly support by standing back and doing nothing but 'let' this happen. It's going to result in this student being told to leave our institution as we cannot deal with it the way the parents want to and I'd imagine that it will not be long now before that student is gone.
Very sad.

Darat says 'adults no, children yes' - so do / should I interfere in that case? This student is still classed as a minor in our state. And again, I ponder Garrette's summation and wonder about the benefit / negative ratio. And in that case, I took action. So why in one case and not the other - is the individual somehow more important than the many?
We tend to correct what we notice. The real challenge is to notice the important details amogst the chaff. I have no easy way to do so, I just do the best I can.

Are there cases where you have found that you stand for one thing but let slide the other because the challenge seems too much? Or does the notion of 'there is no autonomy' somehow help?

To the first question, yes. Sometimes, even if you win, you lose. A Pyrrhic victory is sometimes a victory that we, as humans and skeptics, can't afford. To some degree, we must focus our efforts to where they do the most good. That said, 'good' is a very subjective and slippery term. Sometimes just being there for that one student is enough. Sometimes, we must write off someone so that we may do more elsewhere. Garrette DID have a point. Those lines aren't arbitrarily for everyone. We each have our point of no return. Me, I'm just assanine enough to point out that the emperor is naked. Audacity is one of my stronger points, but I'm not advocating such an approach for everyone. It sounds as though you're having a crisis of conscience. Are you?

 

[clarsct]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "I do mind, yet you do matter"

Ah ha! Last year for my advanced year 10 class, I thought I found the solution to the *^(&^%^@%#^@% 'book report' assignment that everyone had to do.

I brought in pretty much my entire bookcase of fiction book classics. And then threw them into a pile one by one, giving similar summations to this:

" 'Lolita' - banned in 1959. You can't even see the film, guys, it's R-rated. Sorry"
"Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebecca' - mad people in attic, really politically incorrect."
"Mansfield Park. She ends up marrying her cousin."
"Ulysses by James Joyce. Also banned. Back in the 1920s."
"Huckleberry Finn. Banned. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Banned. This novel, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, has been banned back in 1939 and is still being challenged today.
"Pride and Prejudice. The mission of a young woman is apparently to find a rich husband. Very politically incorrect."
"The Complete Robot. Short stories. The only strong willed female character is pretty much an emotionless robot herself and many people think that women have no business reading science fiction anyway. Add these HG Wells books, this copy of The Hobbit
The Hobbit was banned? I'm having trouble imagining why.

and this copy of Brave New World which also raises questions about sexual morality.
"Oh, and this copy of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, features briefly in an 80s film called 'Footloose' where people in a bible-belt town express the opinion that 'this sort of book should be burned' and such beliefs have been expressed in real life too."
"A high school teacher I knew claimed that The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin was just the rantings of a repressed lesbian lunatic and that dubious characters of no specific sexual orientation incited lewd behaviour."
"Chaim Potok. 'My Name is Asher Lev'. The main character spends most of the book in massive conflict about his Jewish background and his desire to be a modern artist. Creates this huge painting that is totally scandalous. Could be considered rather controversial."
"Oh, this copy of The Handmaid's Tale should not be shown to the Reverend of this school."

I then mentioned that the librarians at my high school removed from me the copy of Muriel Spark's "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" because one of them read the back cover as I was trying to take it out. That was added to the pile, natch.

Guess what happened?

(edited to add - got three reports on 'Prime of Miss Jean' alone! Whohoo!!! )

Well...you gunna keep us in suspense? Did black anvils rain out of the sky?

 

[clarsct]

Back to being serious - what if you are coming across cultural taboos and how much credence do people give to them?
Remember the tools of skepticism. Doubt, Thought, and Laughter.

I think of many examples where people have committed terrible attrocities in the name of 'they are inferior to our culture'. Where does justification lead us? [/B]

Hmmmm.
treble_head has interesting points on this.

Justification leads us into a downward spiral of self righteousness.

Without exception.

When we justify, we are reconciling our actions with our morals. It implies that our actions were normally outside of our morals. I think there is implied hypocrisy in justification. We avoid the trap by acting rightly and thinking about what we're doing while we're doing it. Hopefully with more than just our desires in mind....

 

[clarsct]

Re: Taboos and Traditions

What if we're coming across cultural and religious traditions -- wife and child beating, child marriage, honor killings, slavery, male and female genital surgery on infants and children, racial and ethnic segregation, banishment, torture, racism, gay bashing, voting rights, housing, property rights, rights to education?
Then we make our stands where we can. What else is there?

I think of many examples where people have committed terrible atrocities in the name of "this is our way and we must protect it."

Does skepticism apply to broad cultural traditions based on religion or scientifically unsupported beliefs about the superiority or inferiority or place in society of certain classes of people?
Skepticism tends to deny all sacred cows. Labelling something 'cultural' or 'traditional' does not make it right. Culture, Tradition, and Religion are the tools used to keep those in power, in power. They are the tools used to create a continuity where one doesn't exist. They create a conformist culture that denies the identity of the individual. They are ways to make people feel superior, to make people feel they are part of something far greater and worthier than they, themselves. It is propaganda and manipulation, although I may be kicking Tradition around more than it deserves. Of the three, it has the most potential to be positive, and yet can be so negative. Millions of young women have been mutilated in the name of tradition. To be skeptical is to stand out on that lonely, lonely limb and say 'I am a skeptic, and I deny that which isn't founded in common sense and logic. I am responsible for the quality of my thoughts I am responsible for my actions, not because everyone else will assign these responsibilities to me, but as an unavoidable consequence for being alive.' It's a lonely place, but a rewarding one. It's the only way to see the sun, and the only real way to make a difference. It takes courage to be a skeptic.

Where does justification for or against deeply entrenched cultural tradition lead skeptics?

Once again, down that spiraling path towards stagnation. There is a difference between having an argument for something and having a justification for something. Live free and stand for your ideals. It is all we CAN do.


ETA: Erm...I hope this doesn't get me a warning for spamming..I just had so much to respond to, coming into the thread late. Sorry, Darat!

 

[treble_head]

clarsct had an amazing (if long winded) post. Though, I would look to ways of showing those who can or might already be... skeptics, to see what might be. I don't feel that changing your job is the answer, neccessarily. Definately let your own personality and morality (heart, soul, whatever) guide you.

Do you enjoy your job? Does your job afford you stability? (Seriously, if you get paid well, you may need to give up some moral things). The best question is... Does your job help people more than it hurts, and if so, do you know of anything that could help them more? If not, wait your turn. If so, go to!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. If your situation is not desperate, don't take them.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Kiless' OP question is the bottom line for "proactive" scepticism.

But also for proselytizers of any stamp.

If I truly am convinced that your immortal soul is in danger if I fail to speak out, then how can I morally stand idle?

I don't know the answer to questions like this. I try to stick to simple rules for behaviour, eg-

1. Facts are chiels that winna ding.
2. Treat others as you would like to be treated
3. Clear up your mess.

And Kiless- To call Calvin an emotionless robot is to miss the point. The woman seethed with suppressed emotion.
She just had no way to express it. Compare with Dua in "The Gods Themselves". I think Asimov knew more about women by then.

 

[clarsct]

Bump for Kiless

 

[Kiless]

Bump for Kiless

Oh, I'm here, I just don't have the time for a lengthy response! Sorry!

 

[Kiless]

And Kiless- To call Calvin an emotionless robot is to miss the point. The woman seethed with suppressed emotion.
She just had no way to express it. Compare with Dua in "The Gods Themselves". I think Asimov knew more about women by then.

I like your 1-3.

And are you refering to the short story 'Robbie' in your statement too? I wouldn't say she was seething, exactly... The two times she expressed love were to Robbie, and (in another story, 'Liar') to a co-worker that she was led to think fancied her. And then we see the furious turn when she discovered she was lied to about that supposed paramour.... hmm.

Maybe you do have something there. I guess I mimic the attitudes of others in the story towards her, none of which were particularly complimentary. And the eventual expression of her passion was in her work. So I'd say that it is false to say she had NO way to express it.... just a different way. I do rethink my notion of her as an emotionless robot... but I do believe that she would have prefered being an emotionless robot..... I'll have to come up with justification for that in another thread, perhaps in the book review section at MuNu.

Derided as she was for her obsession and as exasperating as others found her, she was damn well respected. I didn't like Dua at all, but then I was introduced to The Gods Themselves later in life, when I was no longer a teenager... I think that had an influence.

 

[Kiless]

Do you enjoy your job? Does your job afford you stability? (Seriously, if you get paid well, you may need to give up some moral things). The best question is... Does your job help people more than it hurts, and if so, do you know of anything that could help them more? If not, wait your turn. If so, go to!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. If your situation is not desperate, don't take them.

Pretty much how I justify it at the moment. But I'm mostly interested in others situations in this thread.

 

[Kiless]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "I do mind, yet you do matter"

Well...you gunna keep us in suspense? Did black anvils rain out of the sky?

(The Hobbit wasn't banned - the sentence reads to mean that I have had many experiences where I have been told that women have no understanding of science fiction... one was at a conference for English teachers by a very earnest young man who told me that of _course_ I didn't have a clue about the genre, because of my gender! I was too shocked to respond. Next they'll be claiming that men don't appreciate romance or poetry because it's 'girly'.....)

No, but an intelligent member of the younger generation in Paltalk later that day, kindly gave an honest answer in reponse to Mercutio's 'odd notion' that it would lead youth to 'penthouse letters' with the belief that it is also worthy literature - by saying 'no'.

Now all I have to do is come up with a reasonable sample size....
(No idea what a penthouse letter is - don't wish to know.)

 

[Kiless]

OK..this is abiggie, but we'll slog on...

Gah! Use quote closure!! Cut paste, cut paste....

Assuage what, if I may ask? Guilt?

Language slip, mind the gap! I use the word 'assuage', which is commonly used in the phrase 'to assuage guilt', to mean in the sentence:

"And yet I choose not to and respond to them in an effort to assuage, even in a small way. And that's only a small example."

As:

"And yet, I choose not to [turn off the computer and ignore the plight or diatribe of someone on the internet] and respond to them in an effort to 'soften, in a figurative sense; to allay, mitigate, ease, or lessen, as heat, pain, or grief; to appease or pacify' - source . And that's only a small example."

I've gotta stop using cool words I like where they may be misinterpreted. I have no guilt about the situations others may be in that have no direct relationship to me, if that's what you mean? Or, as you later put it, guilt for not replying to every post that pulls at my heart. It's just not possible. I gotta eat, dude!!

Sorry for the significant snip - I don't have the time right now but there was a direct question that caught me:

Originally posted by clarsct It sounds as though you're having a crisis of conscience. Are you?

Every minute. What else is new?

Back on topic guys - anything else to add?

 

[clarsct]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "I do mind, yet you do matter"

*snip*

No, but an intelligent member of the younger generation in Paltalk later that day, kindly gave an honest answer in reponse to Mercutio's 'odd notion' that it would lead youth to 'penthouse letters' with the belief that it is also worthy literature - by saying 'no'.

Now all I have to do is come up with a reasonable sample size....
(No idea what a penthouse letter is - don't wish to know.)

*chuckle* I would provide a link..but..I am at work and all..

 

[clarsct]

Gah! Use quote closure!! Cut paste, cut paste....

Huh?



Language slip, mind the gap! I use the word 'assuage', which is commonly used in the phrase 'to assuage guilt', to mean in the sentence:

"And yet I choose not to and respond to them in an effort to assuage, even in a small way. And that's only a small example."

As:

"And yet, I choose not to [turn off the computer and ignore the plight or diatribe of someone on the internet] and respond to them in an effort to 'soften, in a figurative sense; to allay, mitigate, ease, or lessen, as heat, pain, or grief; to appease or pacify' - source . And that's only a small example."

I've gotta stop using cool words I like where they may be misinterpreted.

No, no. Use the cool words. Learning is fun!

I have no guilt about the situations others may be in that have no direct relationship to me, if that's what you mean? Or, as you later put it, guilt for not replying to every post that pulls at my heart. It's just not possible. I gotta eat, dude!!

Hmmm. You must have an extra-sized heart, if that many threads can pull at it.


Every minute. What else is new?
*sigh* Just trying to find the root of the problem. It's a male thing.

Back on topic guys - anything else to add?

Hope you find your time back, soon!