Does bigotry make you stupid, or vice-versa?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Agreed, on your last paragraph Nigel.  I like to refer to it as a complex situation.  Some bigots are stupid.  But what do we make of men of science and philosophy, who nevertheless being certifiable geniuses, are otherwise bigoted in some quite nasty ways (anti-Semitic philosophers, the crude assertions of superiority by Enlightenment thinkers, scientists who support the worst sort of eugenics, etc)

You mean like Richard Nixon?

[Cain]

Agreed, on your last paragraph Nigel.  I like to refer to it as a complex situation.  Some bigots are stupid.  But what do we make of men of science and philosophy, who nevertheless being certifiable geniuses, are otherwise bigoted in some quite nasty ways (anti-Semitic philosophers, the crude assertions of superiority by Enlightenment thinkers, scientists who support the worst sort of eugenics, etc)

You mean like Richard Nixon?

He could be an example.  Though to be honest, his example reminds me more of H L Mencken, who had some very nasty things to say about Jews in private, yet was among the first to demand that the USA take in all Jewish refugees fleeing Europe.  Nixon was also horribly antisemitic in private, yet his closest advisor on foreign policy was Henry Kissinger, an American-German Jew.  I have no idea as to how intellectual Nixon was, though clearly he was clearly not stupid man.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Agreed, on your last paragraph Nigel.  I like to refer to it as a complex situation.  Some bigots are stupid.  But what do we make of men of science and philosophy, who nevertheless being certifiable geniuses, are otherwise bigoted in some quite nasty ways (anti-Semitic philosophers, the crude assertions of superiority by Enlightenment thinkers, scientists who support the worst sort of eugenics, etc)

You mean like Richard Nixon?

He could be an example.  Though to be honest, his example reminds me more of H L Mencken, who had some very nasty things to say about Jews in private, yet was among the first to demand that the USA take in all Jewish refugees fleeing Europe.  Nixon was also horribly antisemitic in private, yet his closest advisor on foreign policy was Henry Kissinger, an American-German Jew.  I have no idea as to how intellectual Nixon was, though clearly he was clearly not stupid man.

All right, likening him to a "certifiable genius" was a bit of hyperbole. But yes, although he privately expressed anti-semitic views, he was careful not to let them affect his public policy. He had a good number of Jews on staff, including his chief economical advisor, Herb Stein, was Jewish, as was his campaign manager, Murray Chotiner. I can't deny the anti-semitism, but one thing that is also definitely true is that he was an intelligent enough man to know that it would be wrong to let it affect his leadership.

And then he went batshit insane.

[Jenne]

Woops--I meant the opposite of penultimate, obviously. 

Though, Nigel, remind me to go around to every one of your goddammed posts and make fun of you when I'm feeling bitchy.  Gotta feel comfortable around here again, and YOUR recent posts are making my ass twitch.

I say this with all the love in my heart, of course.

Now, now, I only made fun of ONE of your posts! And you have to admit, your unintentional miswording WAS funny.

The rest of the stuff, the political stuff, hopefully you don't take personally. I do have very strong opinions on both political and religious proselytizing, and I've butted heads with people over it here before. I am not going to sit quietly while idealists insist they have the One True and Only Right Way.

Also, I was in a particularly good mood yesterday.

Also, if you can't go back four generations and find an ugly bigoted incident in your family somewhere, you're doin' it wrong. People are terrible creatures, and they do terrible things to each other. Everyone thinks their history is unique and special, but the horrible thing is, it isn't. Speaking as a minority woman most of whose immigrant ancestors (which was a little over half of them) arrived in this country several centuries ago, I am not particularly impressed by your personal family connection to a lynching a century ago.

I think I'll just ignore you for a while.

Kthx.

[shadowfurry23]

 Ignorance != Stupidity

Bigotry is based primarily on ignorance, and an unfamiliarity with other cultures.  An insulated culture can maintain that ignorance to the point that it becomes institutional. 

Some people can be educated and will no longer be bigots.  Some people will refuse to be educated and cling to their own beliefs out of habit and comfort - hate can become very comfortable - even in the face of blatant evidence to the contrary.  Some people just want to blame someone else for their ills.  So, I'd say bigotry can make you stupid.

A friend of mine recently suggested to me that anyone who spends their life in just one culture is basically crippled - this would be one of the ways in which that is so.  It will be interesting to see if the effects of the internet on global youth culture minimize this effect - probably not by much though, as much as I'd like to think otherwise.

However, Bigotry != Racism

Racism, bigotry and xenophobia are immoral, of course, but they are also, just as fundamentally, untrue. They are unreal. They provide a theory and a framework for living in the world that cannot be reconciled with the reality of this world. The person who chooses to accept that unreal framework is thus constantly forced to choose between unreality and reality, between the theory and the facts. To hold onto the unreal framework, they must continuously reject reality. And every time they do that, they get a little bit dumber.**

Racism may be immoral to you, but it isn't to the racist - they simply value members of their own tribe higher than those of another.  They may or may not support those values for reasons based in ignorance (e.g. racial superiority in general) or they may not, but it isn't accurate to call it "untrue" or "unreal".  Hells, if you're the majority it is even be effective and useful - it made some people rich at the expense of others deemed of lesser value. 

But yeah, building up your own tribe as being better than the other one?  Common as dirt.  And if you only ever exist inside that tribe, it is not only easy, it is hard to escape.

(All in all the OP comes across as a little elitist.  NTTAWWT.)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Woops--I meant the opposite of penultimate, obviously. 

Though, Nigel, remind me to go around to every one of your goddammed posts and make fun of you when I'm feeling bitchy.  Gotta feel comfortable around here again, and YOUR recent posts are making my ass twitch.

I say this with all the love in my heart, of course.

Now, now, I only made fun of ONE of your posts! And you have to admit, your unintentional miswording WAS funny.

The rest of the stuff, the political stuff, hopefully you don't take personally. I do have very strong opinions on both political and religious proselytizing, and I've butted heads with people over it here before. I am not going to sit quietly while idealists insist they have the One True and Only Right Way.

Also, I was in a particularly good mood yesterday.

Also, if you can't go back four generations and find an ugly bigoted incident in your family somewhere, you're doin' it wrong. People are terrible creatures, and they do terrible things to each other. Everyone thinks their history is unique and special, but the horrible thing is, it isn't. Speaking as a minority woman most of whose immigrant ancestors (which was a little over half of them) arrived in this country several centuries ago, I am not particularly impressed by your personal family connection to a lynching a century ago.

I think I'll just ignore you for a while.

Kthx.

Sounds easy.

[wade]

Woops--I meant the opposite of penultimate, obviously. 

Though, Nigel, remind me to go around to every one of your goddammed posts and make fun of you when I'm feeling bitchy.  Gotta feel comfortable around here again, and YOUR recent posts are making my ass twitch.

I say this with all the love in my heart, of course.

Now, now, I only made fun of ONE of your posts! And you have to admit, your unintentional miswording WAS funny.

The rest of the stuff, the political stuff, hopefully you don't take personally. I do have very strong opinions on both political and religious proselytizing, and I've butted heads with people over it here before. I am not going to sit quietly while idealists insist they have the One True and Only Right Way.

Also, I was in a particularly good mood yesterday.

Also, if you can't go back four generations and find an ugly bigoted incident in your family somewhere, you're doin' it wrong. People are terrible creatures, and they do terrible things to each other. Everyone thinks their history is unique and special, but the horrible thing is, it isn't. Speaking as a minority woman most of whose immigrant ancestors (which was a little over half of them) arrived in this country several centuries ago, I am not particularly impressed by your personal family connection to a lynching a century ago.

I think I'll just ignore you for a while.

Kthx.

Sounds easy.

NIGEL ARE YOU MAKING UP FACTS AGAIN?!?!?!

my great grandmother woke up one morning as a child to see her backyard full of dead soldiers.  around the year1915, in the Ukraine somewhere.... is that unique and special?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I apparently make up FACTS all the time!

Wade, do YOU think your grandmother's experience was unique? If so, why?

[shadowfurry23]

my great grandmother woke up one morning as a child to see her backyard full of dead soldiers.  around the year1915, in the Ukraine somewhere.... is that unique and special?

everyone is unique and special.  you are a unique snowflake.

don't go missing the snowflakes for the blizzard, now.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You are a beautiful and unique snowflake, just like everybody else.

[Kai]

You are a beautiful and unique snowflake, just like everybody else.

This is true. You can look at it either in a negative or positive light.

[shadowfurry23]

You are a beautiful and unique snowflake, just like everybody else.

This is true. You can look at it either in a negative or positive light.

Yeah - in the same way you get that "can't see the forest for the trees" thing, many people can't see the snowflakes for the blizzard.  It's easy to forget too.

_{ok, ok.  i just like my damn analogy, i'll quit flogging it now}

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My point was simply that claiming you are unique in order to lend weight to your argument only works if you have a kind of uniqueness that you can logically expect very few other people to have.

[Kai]

My point was simply that claiming you are unique in order to lend weight to your argument only works if you have a kind of uniqueness that you can logically expect very few other people to have.

By the very definition of 'unique', it would have to be something that very few other people have. Otherwise it wouldn't be unique.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My point was simply that claiming you are unique in order to lend weight to your argument only works if you have a kind of uniqueness that you can logically expect very few other people to have.

By the very definition of 'unique', it would have to be something that very few other people have. Otherwise it wouldn't be unique.

Call it "category" of uniqueness, then.