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Counterpoint: we absolutely can. https://twitter.com/cumiskey/status/1254090853817085953
We go on about this all the time, but we're so exhausted by the endless arguments about political violence or free speech or whatever that *insist* on breaking every concept down to its most basic formulation in order to appeal to some foundational notion of logic.
*Why* must we act, every single time, as if human beings are agents in a simulated reality whose actions must be governed and judged by a set of inflexible algorithms?
"Well who decides who gets punched???"
We do. Each of us. In our big, complicated brains. That's what morality is about. It's not some philosophical exercise. You decide, in your head, whether a situation is right or wrong.
We do. Each of us. In our big, complicated brains. That's what morality is about. It's not some philosophical exercise. You decide, in your head, whether a situation is right or wrong.
Governed by whatever knowledge or experience you have. Endless attempts at post hoc justifications, arguing from first principles, are just obfuscation of your intuitive understanding of a situation's moral underpinnings.
And, if you see a video of someone openly (and cheerfully) racially abusing someone before their victim hits back with physical violence, and your instinct is to sympathise with the piece of shit lying on the floor...well...what does that say?
Because that's what it comes down to. On some deep level, you felt the white racist was hard done by. You're trying to justify that now with "oh, I don't *agree* with him, of course, but..."
Maybe you don't agree *per se*, but you obviously feel that what he said wasn't *bad enough* to justify the anger demonstrated. So the question then becomes: how far would he have to go? At what point would his words become vile enough that you'd try to stop him?
Or maybe you never do. Maybe we just have to accept that in a free society, anyone can say literally anything without consequences. Or maybe only the state can impose penalties? Does that seem a better solution?
Why are you so desperate to stand up for racists?
You feel intuitively that you are closer to the man on the ground than the one being abused, and now you're coming up with a complicated moral argument that lets you feel okay about that.
Never mind that racial slurs used with impunity in such a fashion are surely more harmful and violent than a single sucker punch. Never mind that there is an endless list of physical violence meted out upon racial minorities that this pales into insignificance beside.
One white guy gets knocked on his ass for being gleefully racist - he was given ample opportunity to back down even! - and it's cause for some liberal navel-gazing.
