This started out as a response to Opinions, by Zero, which I've been thinking about it all morning. And it mostly still is a response, but it also kind of spiraled out of control into its own commentary on tribalism and tolerance.
In this post, Zero offers that one's answer to the following questions are matters of opinion:
- are trans people legitimate
- should gay marriage be legal
- are black people human
Zero is correct to not accept any answer to these questions different to their own.
But Zero is incorrect to call these matters of opinion.
Personhood, and matters of human rights and equality, are matters of fact. Anybody who argues on these points is not the holder of an unpopular opinion, but is a victim of the irrational belief that some people are superior to others because of some arbitrary tribal affiliation.
I think it is almost a moral imperative to be utterly intolerant of such intolerance, because it is dangerous to the individual, to the individual or group they are dehumanizing, and to society at large.
But that intolerance must be productive, or it will be useless. And useless intolerance, like impotent rage, will only poison your own well and turn you into a small, angry person.
I don't think that it's a good idea to actually facepunch a nazi even though it might feel really good and cathartic, both to the person doing the punching, and to the people who get to see or hear about the punching. It's not a good idea because it's not productive. A physical attack like that can only strengthen tribal borders in their mind. It heightens the us vs. them mentality.
You should not attack the person's face. You should infiltrate their tribe.
The single best way to eliminate the homophobia in a person is for that person to love a gay person in some fashion.
I've seen US politicians support homophobic legislation for their entire careers, and then immediately reverse their stance once a child or loved one comes out to them as gay.
The reason this works is because it attacks tribalism. To have an "outsider" in your inner circle challenges the fundamental us vs. them core belief. They suddenly have to identify their loved one as an "us AND them". Which after all is just an "us".
In conclusion, the most productive form of intolerance is love 💖
But love is also the most expensive and impractical resource you can invest in a person. So, that's hard.
On Zero's opinion scale, "are black people human" is opposite "is pineapple a valid pizza topping." Zero claims to have no interest this class of opinions, and I think they are right to. These are opinions of zero consequence and no import. You are as likely to eagerly discuss these opinions as you are to eagerly listen to somebody tell you about a dream they had, or an episode of television they watched.
To further fill in the gaps between these two, one step up from inconsequential "pizza topping" opinions are what I think of as "Hobby Opinions." They're also largely inconsequential but you might earnestly engage in active conversation about them. Consider, is it okay to spend +$200 on a keyboard?
From there I think we get into tribalist opinions like what is the nature of government, and what is the value of religion. These tribalist opinions are interesting, and I'll come back to them in a second.
Perhaps the strongest measure of a person's intelligence is their ability to change their opinions in the face of new facts and experiences. Maybe you didn't know you liked pineapple on pizza, but then you tried it and it was great. Maybe you didn't think gay people deserve equal rights, but then you had a gay daughter you love and realized that gay people are human.
It's a sign of poor health in a person and in a society to be unable to change your opinion. It shows an inability to reason, think, learn, and grow.
Disclaimer: this whole next section is kind of experimental, and is also super overly general and over simplified.
Consider the role of government. The role of government is to allocate our collective resources.
People who believe the government's ultimate responsibility is to its citizens probably think those resources should be allocated to the people and to social programs. Whereas people who believe the government's ultimate responsibility is to create a strong economy probably think those resources should be allocated to businesses and corporations.
Those who find themselves on opposite ends of this divide will point to the other and say, Your opinion is wrong. Your way of governing is wrong. Mine is right.
And so they form their own tribes around their differences: those who value investing in society vs. those who value investing in capital.
So the core belief that kicks this question back up into Facts territory is the question of core belief: are all people human? (that is, do all people have equal rights and access and resources?) Or are only some people human?
Investing in society should mean that all people are human. All groups are invested in equally.
Investing in capital means that only corporations that create capital have value. Not all people are human. Most people, in fact, are resources. And a couple people get to be billionaires, black holes of resources that could instead be invested in people.
So in our tribalism theory, socialism is right and capitalism is wrong not as a matter of opinion, but as a matter of fact because capitalism treats some people as less than human and is immoral.
Using this lens, most evangelical religion is probably "wrong".
I don't know what to do about toxic tribalism at this level. Unlike with homophobia, you probably can't love a capitalist into socialism.
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