Comment by AmericanChopper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AmericanChopper | Hacker News Reader

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AmericanChopper

This line of reasoning falls over with even the slightest level of scrutiny. It's just a way of bullying people into adopting the political views that you want them to, and it shouldn't be tolerated in a society that values democratic freedoms. An uncountable number of injustices take place across the world every day, and any individual person will be playing no part in, and have no influence over a vast majority of them.

This argument can't be taken as honest or sincere, because with absolute surety I can guarantee that horrific injustices took place today that you have absolutely no concern about at all.

When somebody presents this argument, they are not honestly advocating for justice. What they are actually saying is that "by not adopting _my_ political views, you are acting out evil". Part of any person's political world view is how they choose the issues that they consider to be important, knowing that they only have the span of their short life, and the means of their limited resources to address the problems in the world. You have no right to demand that somebody make the same decisions in this respect as you do. It is absurd, it is hostile to the notion of free democracy, and it is a standard that no living person could ever meet.

And all of that is before you account for the fact describing something as an injustice in the first place is quintessentially an opinion. This sort of thing reminds me a lot of the psychology of warfare, where soldiers are systemically taught to view the enemy as animals who lack humanity. It has a terribly toxic influence on society. Your ideas no longer need to compete on their merits, because the people who disagree with them are the enemy, and the enemy is less than human.

> It's just a way of bullying people into adopting the political views that you want them to, and it shouldn't be tolerated in a society that values democratic freedoms.

> You have no right to demand that somebody make the same decisions in this respect as you do. It is absurd, it is hostile to the notion of free democracy, and it is a standard that no living person could ever meet.

Well said. It's sad that activists are anti-liberty in this way. It undermines their campaigns.

I had a professor in college tell an entire class the first day - "nobody really cares about you except your family and maybe some friends". You could see the shock to a lot of the students who had been coddled and told how awesome they were their whole life. Once you accept that concept, you can learn to be more effective in communication and not expect things from others.

Most of these activists have no tact.

Neil deGrasse Tyson says in his MasterClass that his father taught him that it's not enough to be right. You must be effective.

The world would be a much better place if everyone followed that.

> describing something as an injustice in the first place is quintessentially an opinion

Unless you mean a critique of the notion of justice in general, that seems to be a bit reductive. Accusations of "injustice" in most societies typically don't stand on their own; they're accompanied by evidence, which is debated, and an ethical stance, which is also sometimes debated. But injustice isn't some Hitlerian discussion-ender; it's an idea and a value set, always selectively applied, just like "fairness", "equality", "utilitarianism", or whatever. It's not like invoking the devil in church.

I'm not GP. I've no clue whether they were being honest in their statements or not, or how they'd choose to back them up, but: at what point is an accusation of injustice not an "opinion", or a "toxic influence on society"? When one person believes it? Ten? Some percentage of society? Some magistrate? When you agree with it? There's no general answer to that question, so saying "they said it was unjust, that means that they're dehumanizing my position and making me into the enemy!" is somewhat silly.

That’s definitely the most minor detail of my parent comment.

The fact is that every person in the world gets to choose for themselves which issues they consider to be most important to them. They each get to choose which issues they devote their time/attention/money/skills/resources/etc to.

When you account for the total number of all injustices that take place everyday, any person will only ever be able to concern themselves with a minuscule portion of them. By not concerning yourself with a particular injustice, you are in not automatically supporting it. A failure to intervene does not make you responsible for the actions of every other person on the planet.

Somebody who says this is not saying “why are you not concerned about every injustice on the planet”, they’re saying “if your concerns don’t align with mine then you’re a bad person”. Unless they consider themselves a champion of injustice, any person who repeats this is necessarily a hypocrite.

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