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Why are you right?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
A conundrum that's been circling my head for a few months now. I'm starting to think about applying for jobs soon, and I need to be able to get it straight in my head first....
So I work with homeless people, and I'm studying Politics and Sociology so that I can work in human and civil rights, I've demonstrated for causes I believe in since the age of 12, and my mother tells me that at the age of three I stood up on a chair in a restaurant and told everyone not to order the tuna because dolphins get caught in the nets.
I know what I believe is right and wrong, and my blood literally fizzes when I hear of cases of racism and homophobia, child soldiers and domestic violence.
But I'm also a firm believer that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and will fight for everyone's right to express and realise their beliefs.
And here is my problem. I believe that homophobia is wrong, with all of my heart. But I know that out there are thousands of people that believe homosexuality is wrong, with all of their hearts. And I know I'm not better than them. And I know I'm not more important, or enlightened, than them. So how can I say I'm more right than them? And how can I fight for something I believe is right, when really, I'm not sure that objectively it is? How can I go into a career where I campaign against the death penalty when I believe in relativism, that what's right for one person is not for another? How can I justify suppressing another's beliefs and changing poiltical policy to stop their passions and beliefs being realised, just because I have passions and beliefs too?
How do you do it?
So I work with homeless people, and I'm studying Politics and Sociology so that I can work in human and civil rights, I've demonstrated for causes I believe in since the age of 12, and my mother tells me that at the age of three I stood up on a chair in a restaurant and told everyone not to order the tuna because dolphins get caught in the nets.
I know what I believe is right and wrong, and my blood literally fizzes when I hear of cases of racism and homophobia, child soldiers and domestic violence.
But I'm also a firm believer that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and will fight for everyone's right to express and realise their beliefs.
And here is my problem. I believe that homophobia is wrong, with all of my heart. But I know that out there are thousands of people that believe homosexuality is wrong, with all of their hearts. And I know I'm not better than them. And I know I'm not more important, or enlightened, than them. So how can I say I'm more right than them? And how can I fight for something I believe is right, when really, I'm not sure that objectively it is? How can I go into a career where I campaign against the death penalty when I believe in relativism, that what's right for one person is not for another? How can I justify suppressing another's beliefs and changing poiltical policy to stop their passions and beliefs being realised, just because I have passions and beliefs too?
How do you do it?
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more right or more ethical and less harmful?
morally justifyable
Personally I'm not a relativist, I think anyone can see that what is perceived as morally acceptable varies from culture to culture and from individual to individual, I don't dispute that, however what I do dispute is that some things (eg. female circumcision) are completely 100% morally right for people in one culture and completely 100% morally wrong for people of another culture. From my point of view there are some things that are morally right and some things that are morally wrong regardless of what you personally believe. I don't see how something like female circumcision can ever be morally right, I can see why those that practice it THINK it is a morally acceptable thing to do, but this doesn't make it right in my view.
As to what makes things right or wrong there are various responses to that, obviously some people would say it is to do with what God commanded, others would say that we have intrinsic value as humans and have basic rights not to be harmed and rights to personal freedom etc, and that campaigning against those that seek to restrict our personal freedom when we are causing no harm to others (like those that think homosexuality should be punished) is the morally acceptable thing to do not simply because your personal beliefs indicate that it is, but because it upholds our intrinsic entitlement to basic rights as humans.
Sorry I probably haven't put any of that very well but I guess that is what I think on the matter!
:yes: :banghead: lol
Says who? The reality is, all men are not created equal. Some are right, some are wrong. Some have no ethics, some do. Some people are important, some are worthless. Some are enlightened, and some are ignorant.
You shouldn't and you don't. It isn;t a case of supression or stopping someone's passions. It's more a case of explaining why they are wrong and hoping that, over time, they will come to agree with you... Yuo cannot change viewpoints through force of law.
How can your opinions NOT affect your interactions with the world around you? Surely that's all that affects them?
There is nothing wrong with that, i have frmed my opinion based on substance/fact that the person i'm talking to really is an idiot.
If I dislike them because they happen to be gay then i have formed my opinion on nothing more than my dislike of homosexuality, there is nothing wrong with my opinion on it's own, disliking them is my own perogative, however to let an opinion based on nothing more than a belief is wrong and shouldn't be allowed to affect my interactions with them.
Quite often I'll meet people who are bigoted for whatever reason, usually against black people/asylum seekers e.t.c. Whilst they are entitled to their opinion, they are not entitled to go off on an ill-informed rant at me, and I will challenge them on it.
(btw, i'm not a homophobe, sexuality was a convienient example).
They are born equal - they just lose their humanity by having inhumane ideas.
Homosexuality isn’t right or wrong, it just is. It often wrongly acquires a status of being wrong when you get small-minded bigots discussing the issue – usually in a religious context. Religion has a tendency to polarise issues, probably because when trying to keep control and ensure servitude you need to control group thinking; this is effectively done with the arbitrary notions of heaven and hell. An action only then needs to be labelled as right or wrong to ensure its abandon or proliferation.
Homophobes have done a lot less rational and critical thinking on the subject than you have, and hence their opinion is less valid than yours – by any like-minded rational thinker anyway.
As you believe you have a firm grasp of "reality", ask yourself a couple of questions.
In which of those categories would YOU place yourself ?
Would you be right to do so ?
You're not serious I hope. Of course you get people who are idiots, in the same way you get people who are genius.
As I have already said, we are not all equal. To think so is, well, naive.
So, a kid born with a 180 IQ is equal to one born with a 120? A kid with asthma is equal to one in peak physical condition? While we may all have equal rights in the eyes of the law, we are not all created equal.
It does not matter, as any answer I give would only be relative. I mean sure, I'm more important than a whole lot of people... But then again, there's going to be a whole load of people who are more important than I.
And yes, as long as the person has no delusions about just how far along they are, then they would be right to do so.
But they are all entitled to the same rights as each other and deserve to be treated with respect. This world wouldn't work if everyone was born with the same skills and tallents - that doesn't mean that someone with an IQ of 120 (which isn't exactly low anyway) can't contribute as much if not more to society as someone with an IQ of 180.
Butterflykisses - i'm sure 99% of what you belive is already enshrined in International Human Rights Law. (its called rights for a reason)
I never once said they aren't entitled to the same rights. My point was that we are not all equal, not that certain groups of people should have more rights than others, or that certain groups shouldn't be allowed rights at all.
Although I have to disagree with the respect part. Respect is something that has to be earned, it in itself is not a right. (EDIT: Please note, this is not me saying that it is acceptable to be disrespectful to someone fitting with some of the examples previously stated in this thread; ie, homosexuals, people of different ethnicities etc., only that true respect isn't something everyone is deserving of.)
Society as a whole, yes. But in the grand scheme of things, someone who develops a cure for aids, cancer, solves world hunger and eradicates third world debt is a liiittle bit more important than the guy who serves me burgers at McDonalds.
EDIT 2: I can see where this is going to go actually. Just to be clear, there is a difference between being 'respectful' to someone (ie, not being nasty, being generally polite, showing common curteousy etc.) and actually 'respecting' someone (ie, looking up to and admiring them for something they have done/achieved, or by the things they do).
I was going to ask you what you mean by important, but you have alluded to it here :
Imagine,if you will, you are a healthy guy (without aids and cancer at least) and you have lost your way in a relatively barren land. A few days pass without food then,thank your lucky stars, you happen upon a McDonalds in the middle of nowhere,with a fiver in your pocket.
As you approach the counter which of the two people you compare above would you consider the most important at that moment in space-time ?
Which wouldn't surprise me, since they seem to have exhausted every high street of every town and city.
It depends - alot of people would rather starve to death than eat a McDonalds :razz:
Regardless, I said in the grand scheme of things. Who is important in that 'space and time' doesn't factor into it. Even then, I wouldn't consider those people to be important. If they hadn't served you, one of the other thousands of their legions of employees would have. They have done nothing special. They have done nothing a well trained monkey could not do. Given this, the food is what's important. Put the same McDonalds there in the same circumstance, take away the employees, and the guy goes to the kitchen and makes his own food.
Although if we assume you are correct, and those people are important, who is more important? Say the guy later goes on to contract aids, cancer, or both, and someone came along and cured him, who do you think he would consider to be more important? Someone who can do nothing special, or someone who can do something noone else in the world has ever managed to?
So, given that you ALWAYS may be wrong, why should you promote and persuade others of any cause at all? Because you also may be right. Which is why in full conscience you can't not do it.