Smoking ban

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Yorick: Then why argue with me on a forum? What do you expect? You're in control of the situation. You talk, I analyse. If that analysis comes out in conversation, that's a natural result of who I am, and the nature of written discussion.

So you can make petty accusations about me (rather than my opinions) and you think that is just fine and dandy?

Are you being intolerant of me Chewbacca?

No. I am doing what is called setting limits. You want to discuss my opinions that is fine. You want to espouse your opinion of me in a personal and provocative way. That is not okay. If you have any respect for your fellow forum members, you would respect such limits, not to mention they are already clarified in the rules:

Memnoch's sticky post in this forum: (emphasis added) We don't want spitefulness, we don't want pettiness. We don't want people starting fights, trying to get other people banned by flamebaiting, and getting personal with each other, or carrying on little petty niggling fights with each other, or getting offended at every little thing to try and get people they don't like banned. We're smarter than that, fellas.

I'm sure a moderator will come along and give us both recommendations for personal growth. It's the way it is.

Hopefully they reccomend sticking to discussing the opinions and not the posters making them. Thats what I have tried to keep my behavior in line with, give or take a few slip ups. I'll let the moderators themselves be the judge if my behavior is worthy of thier attention in an official capacity.

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by The Hierophant: quote: Originally posted by Yorick: I'm sure a moderator will come along and give us both recommendations for personal growth. It's the way it is.

I hope not. The blood is only just starting to fly! This is great! Keep going [/QUOTE]Hey, that will $1.50 entertainemnt fee. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Chewbacca]

I do wonder if anyone (besides Yorick, he has had his say) understands the perspective I am putting forth with this whole tolerance bit. Not hafta agree, but simply understand.

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Yorick: quote: Originally posted by Chewbacca: tolerance challenging intolerance is not intolerance.

Well I'm out of here. If you want to pursue this self defeating logic and continue to warp the english language do so. I've had my vent about western society. If you want to remain speaking your own language that's no skin off my nose.

Bye [/QUOTE]But it is not self-defeating logic. Great strides in civic equality have been made by people challenging the notions of social intolerance. Just because I consider using the word 'intolerant' as incorrect to describe these people (and myself) doesn't equate to warping the english language. English is quite flexible. I am fairly certain the perspective I have offered is quite understandable ( and seeking feedback from the wider populous on this point) and that I am not speaking my own language at all.

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by Chewbacca: I do wonder if anyone (besides Yorick, he has had his say) understands the perspective I am putting forth with this whole tolerance bit. Not hafta agree, but simply understand.

No, I don't. If you could explain it in clear, point by point form for me, that'd be great.

My position, where I'm comin' atcha from:
If you oppose/restrict/attempt to eradicate someone else's point of view, no matter how destructive or repugnant you may think it to be, you are not being tolerant of it. In fact, boy howdy I'd say you're being intolerant of it. And that's great. Intolerance makes things interesting. Intolerance makes life fun. Fight fight fight!

So yeah, in openly opposing the entrenched ideology of segregation and discrimination in American politics/society Dr King was a champion of intolerance. A champion also of equality and fairness before American law, but a champion of intolerance nonetheless. And I can dig it... fine by me.

Well, that's my understanding of the issue. Maybe you can be intolerant of my opinion and try to convince me of viewing things a different way Chewie.

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by The Hierophant: quote: Originally posted by Chewbacca: I do wonder if anyone (besides Yorick, he has had his say) understands the perspective I am putting forth with this whole tolerance bit. Not hafta agree, but simply understand.

No, I don't. If you could explain it in clear, point by point form for me, that'd be great.

My position, where I'm comin' atcha from:
If you oppose/restrict/attempt to eradicate someone else's point of view, no matter how destructive or repugnant you may think it to be, you are not being tolerant of it. In fact, boy howdy I'd say you're being intolerant of it. And that's great. Intolerance makes things interesting. Intolerance makes life fun. Fight fight fight!

So yeah, in openly opposing the entrenched ideology of segregation and discrimination in American politics/society Dr King was a champion of intolerance. A champion also of equality and fairness before American law, but a champion of intolerance nonetheless. And I can dig it... fine by me.

Well, that's my understanding of the issue. Maybe you can be intolerant of my opinion and try to convince me of viewing things a different way Chewie. [/QUOTE]I really dont want to convince you to veiw things differently. Thats not my game. Either you keep the veiwpoint you have offered here or you don't.

I do question, that since segregation and discrimination are by-products of racial intolerance, how someone can defeat intolerance by being intolerant? Fire typically doesn't put out fire.

Perhaps Dr. Kings underlying ideaology and practice differed so greatly from the underlying ideaology and practice of racial intolerance that using the same word to describe his vewipoint would not be exactly fitting or fair, no matter how technically accurate it is?

[Night Stalker]

I understand exactly where you are coming from Chewie. As I said before, it is one thing to accept and tolerate intolerant ideas, and quite another to fight against intolerance once that intolerance manifests into actions or laws that inhibit another's Liberties.

I can tolerate the KKK for example, but they need a smack down once the burning crosses start appearing on people's lawns.

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by Chewbacca: Perhaps Dr. Kings underlying ideaology and practice differed so greatly from the underlying ideaology and practice of racial intolerance that using the same word to describe his vewipoint would not be exactly fitting or fair, no matter how technically accurate it is?

Boo yah! I think you nailed it Chewie! Don't stretch the meaning of the word 'intolerance' to encompass actions that it does not entail. I think Dr King was a pretty decent guy, had some great ideas and enough charisma and willpower to convince people to do (not necessarily think) as he said. But he wasn't about tolerance, no way. He was about equality, which is very different.

To be honest, universal tolerance isnt possible anyway. You can be tolerant of individual people's actions (which can link us back to the smoking ban issue). But you can't be (in)tolerant of abstract concepts such as 'hate' or 'prejudice', because 'tolerance' itself is essentially an abstract concept, and when you go abstract, you go subjective. Everyone has their own ideas as to what abstract concepts are, whether or not you can effectively communicate your ideas through language is another thing entirely. Hence all the hissing and scratching between Yorick and yourself [img]smile.gif[/img]

My stance is that it is folly to apply tolerance to abstract social ideas. Because I don't think that 'tolerance' is necessarily a 'good' (oooooh, another abstract concept) thing. Conflict is necessary in order to create your reality. To preach the benefits of tolerance, it is necessary to create sweeping, dogmatic principles of social order, conduct, and physical law. Yet, dogma is subjective. And this subjective knowledge must be justified by personal conviction, otherwise it is merely a collection of words, sounds and visual symbols. And this personal conviction creates individual verifiability (ie: it is right/true because I personally believe it to be so')which in turn conflicts with the concept of detatched, unpersonalised universal knowledge. So tolerance ultimately, is intolerable... in a universal framework ('universal' again being a subjective abstract term).

Bad logic, yes, but I don't care, I'm tolerance-intolerant.

[Oblivion437]

Originally posted by Yorick: [b]Er... no. I did no such thing. Read again. I said a person hating hatred is hypocritical. A person criticising criticism is a hypocrite. A person being intolerant of intolerance is a hypocrite. How is this calling a Jewish holocaust survivor a hypocrite? What piece of reality did you stretch to put those words in my mouth?????

Right there.

Who cares if it has anything to do with the smoking ban. It's called conversation flow. Conversations move in and out of subjects, and cover more than one aspect. Sometimes you have to break something down to understand the rest of the argument.

Yes you do, but this isn't doing that. It's an irrelevant nitpick by you and someone else that needs to stop before it gets out of hand. What's more, the thread was only 4 pages long and you managed to kill it. It's practically unsalvagable.

As to Nazism, it was used as an example because it's extreme. No one was called a Nazi. Everyone understands what it was/is It's a clear example. Try and understand it and comment on it, instead of misrepresenting it's context and attacking it's existence as an argument at all.

It still applies, as you HAD to use that example to argue your point. Far more realistic and modern examples could have been used, but you chose one that will likely draw emotions out, rather than one with more applied value.

[Yorick]

Oblivion, you're nitpicking and being hypocritical by taking the post offtopic into a discussion about how the post should not have been taken offtopic. The most assured way to steer a conversation back on course is to do it naturally, rather than criticise the very nature of conversation, or someones topical choices. All you've done is taken the post further away. I don't care about that, but you do.

So desist.

Secondly, I never called a Jewish survivor a hypocrite. You have not posted proof, you have made an erroneous interpretation.

Not all survivors hated hatered. Nowhere have I implied that. In fact I never mentioned a Jewish survivor at all. You've drawn that wierd equation. I used an example because it is extreme, simple and too the point.

Nazism was an intolerant ideology. Obviously. However, western society does not tolerate nazism. Just as Nazism repressed Christianity, democracy, Judaism, dissention and public protest, so now in Germany in particular, is Nazism being repressed, restricted and not allowed.

I use the example because other than communism, there aren't many ideaologies not permitted in the west. Can a Nazi party run for office in Germany? No. Just like a democratic party or Jewish party couldn't run for office under Nazism.

The intolerance is the same. Refusal to accept the others existence. The METHOD is the same, the subject matter is different.

Bringing morality back in, I think it's a beautiful thing we are not tolerating Nazism. But then, I'm not under any illusion I am "tolerance" personified. I accept there are things I cannot and will not tolerate. Going personal for a second, there were things in my first marriage that I tolerated for years that were beyond my acceptance. I tolerated them, endured them. However there cam a point, where I could not tolerate them, and left.

Now, I am intolerant of certain issues in a relationship. I will walk away a lot quicker given certain scenarios. The intolerance is stronger. Setting clearer boundaries. As I mentioned I am intolerant of certain character elements of myself, that I change or remove over time.

Intolerance is not evil. Tolerance is not good. They are ammoral.

If you tolerate someone being racist, or violent, biggoted or whatever, you are being "evil".

If you are intolerant of racism, intolerant of violence, you are being "good".

All depending on your subjective morality of course.

If you tolerate cancer running through you, you will die.
If you are intolerant of cancer, and cut it out, or destroy it, you will live.

Intolerance is a necessary part of life, and a necessary part of society. Laws are built around what is tolerated in society, and what is not. Adultery and homosexuality are now tolerated, where once they were not. Murder, paedophilia and rape are not tolerated. Thankfully so.

Smoking has been tolerated in society by nonsmokers. Any time a smoker smokes around a nonsmoker, they are asking, or demanding that the nonsmoker tolerate their decision, for it impacts over the nonsmokers choices.

Now, we have the issue where nonsmokers, are impacting smokers with their choices. We are choosing to have clean air on aeroplanes, in bars, at work. Our choice is impacting on a nonsmoker in the same way a smokers choice impacts on nonsmokers.

The question is, are smokers going to be tolerant or intolerant of this choice? Certainly New York has developped an exciting "street bar" system, where the bar spills out onto the street, where smokers gather to light up, and then head back inside to see the band. That is the compromise Timber is talking about. Previously, nonsmokers would head outside to "get some air". Now it's the other way round.

A huge case in point, for how, regarding tolerance and intolerance, you merely end up swapping what is tolerated and what is not.


Heirophant, you made a great post. Fully agree.


Chewbacca, your anaology was erroneous. Intolerance is not like fire. Intolerance is a wall. A barrrier. It is the setting of limits as to what is accepted, and what is excluded. You move the wall, destroy it (by refusing to accept it) or ignore the wall, or blow a hole through it.

However, all analogies are flawed, because intolerance is internal, as well as social.

And you can fight fire with fire. It's called BACKBURNING. In fact, it's the most sucessful way to fight bushfires. Burn a little bit, so that when a huge fire comes, it's fuel is already taken.

Like immunising against a virus by giving someone a little bit of that virus.

Mind you, huge numbers of bushfires have been started by a lone cigarette tossed out the window.

Should we then ban smoking from cars during fire season?

[ 04-09-2004, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: Yorick ]