I get intimidated

When I write something I know some people may take offense to or disagree with, or sometimes if I have no idea how someone will react, I end up afraid to see what the responses will be and try to avoid finding out for as long as I can. I don’t like confrontations, it can take me a long time to come up with the response I want (often so long, I don’t get to bring it up again), and don’t like to tell any specific person I’m talking to I think they’re wrong. So I try to address as many possible concerns as I can think of initially, before I’m talking to a specific person. Logically, this is what you do in philosophy, but of course, that’s not going to work 100%, nor is it usually possible unless I want to write a book, and eventually I do have to talk directly to whoever I may disagree with. And I hate it. Makes me wonder why I do some of the things I do. I guess I think sometimes it will help me get over the fear.

Making this awkward, on top of everything, is that I’m writing as though I’m speaking to a group. But I only know of one person reading this. So it’s weird to write for a broader audience when I keep thinking “what will Mike think or say to this?” I don’t want to fall into worrying about or only focusing on what one person might say; I want to use this to work out my own thoughts. Which of course means I want feedback and conversation, but I can’t keep thinking “what if I offend him or what if he doesn’t like what I have to say?” I won’t get anywhere with my thoughts if I stop myself from thinking about something because I’m afraid someone won’t like what I have to say. It’s hard to do when I actually value the other person (this sentence being an example of the awkwardness coming from the audience difference). And when you apparently have a social phobia. But that’s a different story.

Extreme Representatives

(I'm going to try to update Tuesdays or Wednesdays for the next 3 or 4 weeks.)

People with the most extreme views are usually in the minority, yet we, people in general, seem to like to focus on them as representing a larger group even when they don't, particularly when we don’t like that larger group. Why? (I highly doubt I’m going to say anything groundbreaking, but here it is.)

Well, for one, they’re loud and often good at presenting their ideas, either because they’re eloquent, or because their ideas are much simplified and ignore the complexities of the issues they have opinions on. So they’re easy to understand, even if they’re wrong or we disagree. They get attention because they’re doing something out of the ordinary. Not just out of the ordinary from the perspective of the people on the outside, but likely from the people within that person’s group as well. From the outside, people aren’t likely to hear from or remember the average “group member” because, well, they’re average. They’re not doing anything shocking or noticeable or memorable. (Ex: Years ago I read that pedophilia among priests is no higher than in the general population. I don’t know if that statistic held up as more cases were uncovered, but even at the time, the perception was that all priests are pedophiles, and I doubt repeating that statistic would have changed the perception. The majority weren’t doing anything to bring attention to their normalness. What *could* they do that would compete for attention with tragedy?)

For another thing, demonizing the “other side” makes it easier to disagree with them. If we can portray whoever we disagree with as irrational, extreme, or just plain wrong, we don’t have to listen to them, and it’s a lot easier to that if you don’t really like the other. So we find ways to not like them. It means we don’t have to challenge our own views or think too hard. We all do it. But it’s still wrong. Skewed perspectives are never healthy. Convince yourself that one group is so opposed to your ideas that they’re dangerous to you and your way of life, well, that’s not leading anywhere good. There are bad people in the world, yes, but thinking the majority of people who disagree with a given person are out to ruin everything is called paranoia. Average people are not that different from each other in terms of what it means to be a decent person, and the kinds of indecent things average people are capable of seems fairly consistent to; there’s no reason to think we’re all that different are anyway. Most people have at least some experience interacting with people who are different from themselves in some way, and for the majority, this goes just fine, even when they meet people who have very different values or outlooks. It seems plausible that this positive experience can be extrapolated to apply to others we haven’t met as well. Or put it another way, it seems statistically unlikely that a given person has only met the “good” types of people in the world, and all or most of the other categories of people are made up of mostly “bad” people.

But what about people from the inside of a given group? Why don’t they do something about the ones misrepresenting them?

There’s always the idea that a really extreme idea makes the others seem less extreme; I know comedy writers use this to get away with jokes that TV and movie censors would otherwise stop. Maybe we all do this sometimes, but that requires more planning and thought than I think your average person is willing to put effort into on a regular basis.

I think letting those people have their say is like punching a wall when you’re angry; ultimately, you only hurt yourself, and you may even regret it later, but in the moment, that release feels good (to some people anyway). And when you’re removed from directly hurting the other person yourself, it’s easier to think there’s no victim.

And I’m sure there’s all sorts of elements of denial about how offensive they are, of not wanting to blame someone “on your side” (even when you disagree), of secretly agreeing (at least somewhat), of thinking others who are better-representing you are getting more attention outside your group, and a million other detailed psychological explanations.

Any other more general ideas?

You're not helping

While I don't generally call myself most of these things, I am essentially an environmentalist, animal-right supporter, feminist, liberal, non-believer, scientist. Yet almost every singe one of those catagories has a person or a group within them that make us look bad, but that somehow other people think represent the rest of us. They don't. I was originally going to write this about just one person/category, the scientist, but I've become frustrated with the misrepresentation of all of the ideologies I associate myself with and decided to list them here.

I'll start with environmentalist. This one's more complicated than the rest I think, and I can't think of one specific group or person for this one, but I can think of some past events that have given the bad reputation. Early in the environmental movement, some environmental accomplishments did result in human tradgedies, such as saving the redwoods in the Pacific NW resulting in people from the area losing their only source on income. This was the result of ignorance on the part of both environmentalist and lawmakers who didn't understand the economics of the area. Was saving that forest valuable? I'd say yes, since the US has a history of completely destroying forests in ways that they can't fully return. But there was probably a way to do it without destroying the livelyhood of the people in the region. Because of events like these, environmentalists have developed a reputation for not caring about people or the economy. But this was never true and things have changed, environmental activism has become more sophisticated and aware of how communities and lives can be affected, in fact, that's the whole point of environmentalism. It's not just about "the planet" as something separate from human life, but "the planet" as something we need and value (and therefore need to take care of)! Yes, there are people who care more about the non-human life, and yes, arguments for protection are often framed around the non-human side of things (because we generally think not everything needs to be about us and we do care about things that have no direct connection to human well-being), but we're humans too. We want to live comfortably and in societies that are functioning too, just as non-environmentalists do. So we're not going to propose something that knowingly would hurt the human side of things either. When I tell people they shouldn't eat bananas unless they're organic fair-trade, it's not because I have some idealistic but unrealistic dreams about a perfect world that only result in people paying more for bananas, it's because almost everyone who works on or lives near banana fields gets cancer from the pesticides, because the pesticides and poor land management result in literally toxic rivers and soil, because the plastic used to protect the bananas from brusing gets into the ocean and kills turtle that confuse it for food, because the risks of working in those fields is so high, only poor illegal immigrants will take the risk, hurting the economy and communities of the countries where the fields are, because the companies aren't owned by people in the countries where they operate, so they have found ways around the local laws that should prevent all this. So yes, I  do ask people to pay 80-90 cent/pound instead of 30-40, or not eat them at all. And for me, the fact that it kills turtles and other aquatic life is enough of a reason to pay a whole 50c more. But I would hope people realize that doesn't mean I don't care about the human side of things; just the opposite, I think I care more that people are dying than those who only selfishly care about get cheap fruit.

Animal rights: PETA, I'm looking at you. Seriously, I want to support you, I really do, but when your "raise awareness" tactic is based on insulting people, how in the world do you expect to change those people's minds about anything? Ex: your "Save the whales, go vegetarian" billboard with an image of an obese woman. Where do I even begin? Taken literally, being vegetarian does nothing for whales, taken as what you really meant, that's just cruel, and it isn't even true! A person who eats junkfood all day can be vegetarian, but certainly, they wouldn't be the pinacle of health. You're just making the rest of us who care about animals look stupid! Not wanting animals to suffer doesn't mean you have to hate people, and there's more than one way to live your life without hurting animals. Lot of people do.

Feminism: Real feminists don't hate men! OK, some do, but they don't represent the ideology. And many feminist care very much about poor representations of men as well as women. You don't raise yourself up by putting others down or doing exactly what you want to stop. This applies to racism as well, obviously. Feminism is a philosophy about changing social structure and ideas, and what exactly that means depends very much on the society in exists in, but generally speaking, it is about accepting that there are many ways of being in the world, and not trying to tell people how to "be". That means not putting down traditional femininty or masculinity (roommate, that means you) as much as it means supporting nontraditional roles. That means actually recognizing when those traditional roles are holding people back and when they're not. Ex: Cartoons for little girls tend to be overly feminized and don't often give good, healthy perceptions of what it can mean to be female. Does this mean all girls' shows are bad and must be criticized? I don't think so. Ms Magazine blogger who wrote put down the new My Little Pony cartoon without watching it, that wasn't right. Yeah, it's girly, but the creators, predominantly women, were actually aware of the issues we care about and actually wanted to make a show for little girls that had a good message and good characters! So don't assume! Unlike people like that blogger, the rest of us actually do care enough to look for and support issues we care about in unexpected places instead of blanket generalize.

Liberal: I actually don't have much to say on this one. Sure there are liberals who I wouldn't want representing the rest of us, but I can't think of any off the top of my head who are generally portrayed that way, and most of the criticism I hear (whether from the news or from relatives) is flat-out untrue and I have no idea where they get it from. I can only really speak from experience with my own family, but I blame their poor skills at logic and reasoning. Ex: Dad's family: I love you, but being an African-American Muslim does not make a person a liberal, socialist, Pakistani terrorist who hates America. I mean, you're daughter married him after all, and she hasn't changed any, so what's the deal? He's a real estate agent from Conneticut!! So yeah, if that's how they treat their own son-in-law, I place any and all blame for misrepresentations and misunderstandings entirely on them.

Non-believer and scientist: These two things don't necessarily go together (I know a number of religious scientists), but I'm grouping them together because of the person I want to talk about here. Richard Dawkins. YOU DO NOT REPRESENT ME OR MANY OTHERS IN SCIENCE! To a certain extent, I suppose I do agree with some of what he has to say, and he does have some interesting and scientifically important ideas. But I disagree with his method for communicating with the public. Everything he has to say is seems to be anti-religion (as opposed to a-religious, as science as a field is), and it's inflamatory! That doesn't help the perception that science and religion are at war (Science can't be anti-religion any more than the study of history is anti-math. That makes no sense.) Science does shape the world view of people in it, though, and people in science can be anti-religious, so Dawkins isn't "wrong" to conclude the religion is an mind-virus; it's his opinion. But it's not everyone's! Like with PETA, insulting something important to people by comparing it to a virus is not going to make you any new friends and looks bad for all of us. When you're writing about issues that people are passionate about, use some tact, OK? As for just the atheism separate from science, not believing in God shouldn't mean it's OK to put down people who do any more than believing in God means looking down on people who don't. Philosophizing about the different views is great; throwing around insults, not so much.

So what do I want? I want others to realize that when you present yourself or are seen as representative of a goup, you have a responsibility to not do or say things that undermine or misrepresent that group. And I want people outside of these of a particular group or ideaology to realize that the loudest or rudest person from that ideology does not necessarily represent the group as a whole. My test for this? 1) Does the person's views sound extreme or really far from "normal" (ie, do their views sound illogical, selfish, biased, or even just insensitive? Do they seem less than human to you?) and 2) Do you know anyone personally who belongs to the same ideology but isn't like that one representative? (statistically, you have a better chance of meeting someone "average" by their group's standards, then someone who's an exception in their group). If yes to both of these, then that "representative" probably doesn't represent anyone but him/herself (or smaller subset of the group), assuming you're not misunderstanding, and you might want to change your views. (If yes to just #1, you may need more information, either about those ideas/person or about others in the catagory before you make a decision). If you don't, you many just be predjudiced or biased.

(I do plan on writing something about how the more extreme views become the voice of not-so extreme views at some point)