8 ms·

Insulting millions of people serves no other purpose than to point out your own superiority in some way. I can't fathom how much hubris is necessary to do that

Insulting millions of people serves no other purpose than to point out your own superiority in some way. I can't fathom how much hubris is necessary to do that without feeling ashamed of yourself. How can it be so hard to be nice to others? Everybody disagrees with everybody else on something. Everybody has false ideas about the truth. Do we toss a kid in a meatgrinder when it has a weird idea about society? No, we include it in our discussions because opinions change when they are challenged. But when they cross the age of 16, or is it 18?, then they suddenly become demons that we need to get rid of. The cancer of our society. Where do you draw the line? If you honestly think that you have a moral superiority that gives you the right to tell people what to do just because they are stupid (or pick any other negative attribute), then know that there are a lot of people to whom you are literally stupid (they are more intelligent and know more than you). Would it be okay if they told you what to do? If they tried to silence you? Ignored your desperate calls for help, which they think are stupid and wrong?

c0nfused 10y ago
I suggest you read the vox piece from april about this phenomenon in american liberalism. They go in to exhaustive detail. http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali... I think that it is far to easy in the modern world to only see, meet and talk to people who think and act like you. It certainly seems that many of my friends think that America looks and acts like their friends from coast to coast. That everyone is the same, and thus that their views are universal. The press really ought to be a place where one can get information from outside the bubble not an extesnion of it. "The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood." Thomas Jefferson
- matwood 10y ago
  I read that last week, and it's great. I love the part about GWB. I still know people today who call him an idiot, but it is that attitude, and underestimation that helped him win the Presidency twice. The liberal has become synonymous with elite. If you disagree with a liberal you're uneducated, angry, racist, or pick any other disparaging word. It has caused a divide that crosses right/left, and is instead top/bottom. According to a poll NPR quoted, ~40% of registered democrats voted for Trump. That is why Hilary lost. The Republicans AND Democrats have become parties of the elite. The rise of Trump and Bernie came from those people who are rejecting elite regardless of party.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    40% of democrats didn't vote at all, that is why Hilary lost. Each candidate getting <25% of the vote coupled with 50% not voting, does not mean people voted for Trump so much as most just stayed home (apathy was the biggest winner in the election). The democrats don't have to win over Trump voters, they just have to convince people to vote at all.
    - emp_zealoth 10y ago
      Where does your certainty that people who stayed home would vote for Clinton come from?
      - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
        Turn out numbers. The people who stayed home were mostly the same demographic that voted for Obama in the last election: Minorities, millennials. Trump didn't magically win over Obama voters, conversions were rare.
        emp_zealoth 10y ago
        Yet apparently the vote ratio was not that great for Clinton in those demographics either - apparently even 30% of non-white voters went Trump, and what I've seen it was only slightly in favor of Clinton in that demographic too Again, what makes you think that the people didn't stay because they sure didn't want to vote for Clinton? (Disclaimer :I am not an US citizen, I identify with Bernie) I would have never voted for Clinton, even if you paid me.
        matwood 10y ago
        For as vocal as the never Trump people were, there was also a quieter never Clinton feeling across many groups.
    - matwood 10y ago
      Not voting tells you something too though. Here is the link to NPR article: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/10/501613521/an-app-saw-trump-winning-swing-states-when-polls-didnt http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/10/501...
wcummings 10y ago
This post-election narrative that liberals hate Trump out of elitist bigotry is killing me. People hate Donald Trump because they're afraid they'll be deported, or their friends and family will be deported. This is very real and very personal for a lot of people, I think it's lame to tell them "calm down, why can't you be nice?" and other platitudes about uniting the country.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Ya, and let's not forget his "grab them in the kittens" remark. There is no way to explain that away, none! GWB, even though he stole the election, was much easier to accept than this guy. We are merely afraid that Trump is as bad as he sounds, whatever the press said about him is irrelevant to that, and much more concrete than Hilary's abstract emails.
  - slowmotiony 10y ago
    My friends use this kind of language between each other all the time, as I imagine other groups of friends as well - and they are all normal people with loving wives. You're trying to be dramatic but you're actually being funny.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      You have strange friends then. I can't imagine any of my friends saying that kind of thing, or quite simply they wouldn't be my friends anymore. I'm not being elitist or dramatic here, I just can't stand and wouldn't stand for that kind of talk. But I guess many voters out there thought like you. I just can't comprehend it personally. I'm sure there are many of us who don't consider such talk moral and acceptable even in casual settings.
      - goostavos 10y ago
        >I can't imagine any of my friends saying that kind of thing These comments always make me chuckle. You live in a squeaky clean world that I've personally never experienced and I'm not really sure where you go do find it. I mean, hell, browse around on any popular image sharing site for 5 minutes and you'll see worse comments in any thread with a vaguely attractive female. If you've ever been in a men's bathroom, you've overheard these types of obnoxious conversations. But collectively, America loves to gasp and shout about how utterly shocking it is that people would talk in such a manner! Outrageous! "Well, I never!"
id 10y ago
Do you think Trump and his supporters were at any point nice and respectful? How was Obama treated by the right wing after his election and during his presidency? If something is racist, it's racist. That doesn't change when it's coming from a president-elect. Pointing it out is and should be okay for the media and anyone else to do.
base698 10y ago
I've now seen it justified amount my Facebook peers as, "I can't accept a Trump supporter or their views because people are going to die! Don't you realize you are supporting the collapse of civilization?!"
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  And they (your Facebook peers) don't seem to understand that they are helping to cause the collapse of civilization, by exactly their refusal to listen to or engage with the other side.
chongli 10y ago
How can it be so hard to be nice to others? As a Canadian, I can say this: I have no idea. It's really hard to develop a culture of niceness and it can be so very fleeting. Just as the US has a huge cultural divide between the coastal big cities and the great middle of the country, so too does Canada between east and west as well as between Anglophone and Francophone. Yet somehow this divide in Canada is not quite as acute, not quite as mean. Perhaps the biggest issue is that the moral fault lines constructively interfere with the cultural ones. I think of big-city vegans vs those who love BBQ and it becomes a microcosm for the rejection of all the respective cultural elements: yoga and country music, environmentalism and hunting/fishing, political correctness and religion.
- investinwaffles 10y ago
  In defense of hunting and fishing, sportsmen and their outfitters tend to be the strongest proponents of environmental protection. This distinction does somewhat favor fishing over hunting, but hunting does serve as an important backstop against explosive population growth in the absence of apex predators. - http://fishpondusa.com/about/corporate-responsibility http://fishpondusa.com/about/corporate-responsibility - http://wamu.org/news/11/05/23/deer_overpopulation_yields_disastrous_results_for_forests.php http://wamu.org/news/11/05/23/deer_overpopulation_yields_dis...
  - chongli 10y ago
    Oh yeah, I'm not saying that sportsmen are against the environment. I'm referring to the cultural divide between city-dwelling vegans who rarely, if ever, venture into the wilderness and sportsmen who eat meat and fight tirelessly to preserve nature. It's a matter of people talking past eachother.
karmacoda 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance
maroonblazer 10y ago
The amnesia in this article and many of the comments here is stupefying. Have we all forgotten the things DJT said and did throughout his campaign: - Called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers; - Mocked the physically disabled; - Used his ownership of a beauty pageant to look at naked women dressing; - Made threats of political violence; - Demonstrated a contempt for science; - Put forth conspiracy theories regarding the President, HRC and climate change; - The racist (yes, racist) comments he made regarding Judge Curiel; And this isn't even the half of it. Let's also not forget the behavior of those who showed up at his rallies spewing hatred, racism and xenophobia. That actually happened. Does the press have issues? Undoubtedly. But to write off the last 18 months and Tuesday's election as "smugness" is to have lost the plot.
- madengr 10y ago
  Funny how the anti-trump people are now resulting to physical violence and rioting.
- icu 10y ago
  Might I humbly recommend going to www.untruthaboutdonaldtrump.com put together by philosopher Stefan Molyneux? Just please keep an open mind and do fact check as all sources are listed in an intellectually honest and transparent way.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  It's not either/or. It's both/and. Yes, Trump has done a lot that should disqualify him. (You didn't even mention what to me is about the biggest ones: Threatened revenge on those who spoke against him.) And yes, the article has a very valid point about the media - it really does live in its own bubble, not understanding most of the country.
karmacondon 10y ago
Right is right and wrong is wrong. You have to stand up for the right thing even if that means telling other people that they are wrong, or even stupid. You don't have to be smug about it, but that can be a tricky line to walk. Personally, I think it's better to advocate for certain values as respectfully as you know how and not worry about offending people who disagree. Placing too much emphasis on phrasing and tone is what people refer to derisively as "political correctness". It's best to focus more on saying the right thing, and less on how you say it
- icu 10y ago
  I would humbly challenge your opening sentences. Right and wrong are constructs of judgement created in the human mind. So while I agree that people should stand for their beliefs I completely disagree that you have any moral authority to tell people they are wrong or stupid. I believe in a free market of ideas protected by the freedom of speech and mutual respect. I also believe that if you want to change someone's point of view you should do so with facts and reason. If your goal is to change someone's thinking outright rejection of their beliefs on the basis of biased judgement and name calling will not achieve your goal and will most likely close that person's mind.

c0nfused 10y ago

I suggest you read the vox piece from april about this phenomenon in american liberalism. They go in to exhaustive detail. http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberali... I think that it is far to easy in the modern world to only see, meet and talk to people who think and act like you. It certainly seems that many of my friends think that America looks and acts like their friends from coast to coast. That everyone is the same, and thus that their views are universal. The press really ought to be a place where one can get information from outside the bubble not an extesnion of it. "The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood." Thomas Jefferson

matwood 10y ago
I read that last week, and it's great. I love the part about GWB. I still know people today who call him an idiot, but it is that attitude, and underestimation that helped him win the Presidency twice. The liberal has become synonymous with elite. If you disagree with a liberal you're uneducated, angry, racist, or pick any other disparaging word. It has caused a divide that crosses right/left, and is instead top/bottom. According to a poll NPR quoted, ~40% of registered democrats voted for Trump. That is why Hilary lost. The Republicans AND Democrats have become parties of the elite. The rise of Trump and Bernie came from those people who are rejecting elite regardless of party.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  40% of democrats didn't vote at all, that is why Hilary lost. Each candidate getting <25% of the vote coupled with 50% not voting, does not mean people voted for Trump so much as most just stayed home (apathy was the biggest winner in the election). The democrats don't have to win over Trump voters, they just have to convince people to vote at all.
  - emp_zealoth 10y ago
    Where does your certainty that people who stayed home would vote for Clinton come from?
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      Turn out numbers. The people who stayed home were mostly the same demographic that voted for Obama in the last election: Minorities, millennials. Trump didn't magically win over Obama voters, conversions were rare.
      - emp_zealoth 10y ago
        Yet apparently the vote ratio was not that great for Clinton in those demographics either - apparently even 30% of non-white voters went Trump, and what I've seen it was only slightly in favor of Clinton in that demographic too Again, what makes you think that the people didn't stay because they sure didn't want to vote for Clinton? (Disclaimer :I am not an US citizen, I identify with Bernie) I would have never voted for Clinton, even if you paid me.
        matwood 10y ago
        For as vocal as the never Trump people were, there was also a quieter never Clinton feeling across many groups.
  - matwood 10y ago
    Not voting tells you something too though. Here is the link to NPR article: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/10/501613521/an-app-saw-trump-winning-swing-states-when-polls-didnt http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/10/501...

wcummings 10y ago

This post-election narrative that liberals hate Trump out of elitist bigotry is killing me. People hate Donald Trump because they're afraid they'll be deported, or their friends and family will be deported. This is very real and very personal for a lot of people, I think it's lame to tell them "calm down, why can't you be nice?" and other platitudes about uniting the country.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago
Ya, and let's not forget his "grab them in the kittens" remark. There is no way to explain that away, none! GWB, even though he stole the election, was much easier to accept than this guy. We are merely afraid that Trump is as bad as he sounds, whatever the press said about him is irrelevant to that, and much more concrete than Hilary's abstract emails.
- slowmotiony 10y ago
  My friends use this kind of language between each other all the time, as I imagine other groups of friends as well - and they are all normal people with loving wives. You're trying to be dramatic but you're actually being funny.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    You have strange friends then. I can't imagine any of my friends saying that kind of thing, or quite simply they wouldn't be my friends anymore. I'm not being elitist or dramatic here, I just can't stand and wouldn't stand for that kind of talk. But I guess many voters out there thought like you. I just can't comprehend it personally. I'm sure there are many of us who don't consider such talk moral and acceptable even in casual settings.
    - goostavos 10y ago
      >I can't imagine any of my friends saying that kind of thing These comments always make me chuckle. You live in a squeaky clean world that I've personally never experienced and I'm not really sure where you go do find it. I mean, hell, browse around on any popular image sharing site for 5 minutes and you'll see worse comments in any thread with a vaguely attractive female. If you've ever been in a men's bathroom, you've overheard these types of obnoxious conversations. But collectively, America loves to gasp and shout about how utterly shocking it is that people would talk in such a manner! Outrageous! "Well, I never!"

id 10y ago

Do you think Trump and his supporters were at any point nice and respectful? How was Obama treated by the right wing after his election and during his presidency? If something is racist, it's racist. That doesn't change when it's coming from a president-elect. Pointing it out is and should be okay for the media and anyone else to do.

base698 10y ago

I've now seen it justified amount my Facebook peers as, "I can't accept a Trump supporter or their views because people are going to die! Don't you realize you are supporting the collapse of civilization?!"

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
And they (your Facebook peers) don't seem to understand that they are helping to cause the collapse of civilization, by exactly their refusal to listen to or engage with the other side.

chongli 10y ago

How can it be so hard to be nice to others? As a Canadian, I can say this: I have no idea. It's really hard to develop a culture of niceness and it can be so very fleeting. Just as the US has a huge cultural divide between the coastal big cities and the great middle of the country, so too does Canada between east and west as well as between Anglophone and Francophone. Yet somehow this divide in Canada is not quite as acute, not quite as mean. Perhaps the biggest issue is that the moral fault lines constructively interfere with the cultural ones. I think of big-city vegans vs those who love BBQ and it becomes a microcosm for the rejection of all the respective cultural elements: yoga and country music, environmentalism and hunting/fishing, political correctness and religion.

investinwaffles 10y ago
In defense of hunting and fishing, sportsmen and their outfitters tend to be the strongest proponents of environmental protection. This distinction does somewhat favor fishing over hunting, but hunting does serve as an important backstop against explosive population growth in the absence of apex predators. - http://fishpondusa.com/about/corporate-responsibility http://fishpondusa.com/about/corporate-responsibility - http://wamu.org/news/11/05/23/deer_overpopulation_yields_disastrous_results_for_forests.php http://wamu.org/news/11/05/23/deer_overpopulation_yields_dis...
- chongli 10y ago
  Oh yeah, I'm not saying that sportsmen are against the environment. I'm referring to the cultural divide between city-dwelling vegans who rarely, if ever, venture into the wilderness and sportsmen who eat meat and fight tirelessly to preserve nature. It's a matter of people talking past eachother.

karmacoda 10y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance

maroonblazer 10y ago

The amnesia in this article and many of the comments here is stupefying. Have we all forgotten the things DJT said and did throughout his campaign: - Called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers; - Mocked the physically disabled; - Used his ownership of a beauty pageant to look at naked women dressing; - Made threats of political violence; - Demonstrated a contempt for science; - Put forth conspiracy theories regarding the President, HRC and climate change; - The racist (yes, racist) comments he made regarding Judge Curiel; And this isn't even the half of it. Let's also not forget the behavior of those who showed up at his rallies spewing hatred, racism and xenophobia. That actually happened. Does the press have issues? Undoubtedly. But to write off the last 18 months and Tuesday's election as "smugness" is to have lost the plot.

madengr 10y ago
Funny how the anti-trump people are now resulting to physical violence and rioting.
icu 10y ago
Might I humbly recommend going to www.untruthaboutdonaldtrump.com put together by philosopher Stefan Molyneux? Just please keep an open mind and do fact check as all sources are listed in an intellectually honest and transparent way.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
It's not either/or. It's both/and. Yes, Trump has done a lot that should disqualify him. (You didn't even mention what to me is about the biggest ones: Threatened revenge on those who spoke against him.) And yes, the article has a very valid point about the media - it really does live in its own bubble, not understanding most of the country.

karmacondon 10y ago

Right is right and wrong is wrong. You have to stand up for the right thing even if that means telling other people that they are wrong, or even stupid. You don't have to be smug about it, but that can be a tricky line to walk. Personally, I think it's better to advocate for certain values as respectfully as you know how and not worry about offending people who disagree. Placing too much emphasis on phrasing and tone is what people refer to derisively as "political correctness". It's best to focus more on saying the right thing, and less on how you say it

icu 10y ago
I would humbly challenge your opening sentences. Right and wrong are constructs of judgement created in the human mind. So while I agree that people should stand for their beliefs I completely disagree that you have any moral authority to tell people they are wrong or stupid. I believe in a free market of ideas protected by the freedom of speech and mutual respect. I also believe that if you want to change someone's point of view you should do so with facts and reason. If your goal is to change someone's thinking outright rejection of their beliefs on the basis of biased judgement and name calling will not achieve your goal and will most likely close that person's mind.