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How does one condemn their fringe "enough"?

OlNate

OlNate

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I'm going to leave this one as vague as possible, so as not to lead in one way or the other, as I've seen this scenario play out on both sides of the spectrum, and I'm hoping for feedback from both sides.

This is how it goes:

Group A: Group B's fringe has done something awful and I'm pissed about it, this is Group B in action!!!

Group B: Oh, sure...everyone in Group B is like that because of a few fringe idiots...mmm hmmm... :roll:

Group A: You don't condemn it. Therefore you condone it. Therefore it is Group B.

Group B: I don't participate, I don't support it, and I try to distance Group B from it, so clearly it is NOT Group B! Anyway, the best thing to do is just ignore it...you're just giving them a platform...

Group A: BS!!! ALL GROUP B ARE THE SAME!!!

Then, two weeks later, something crazy happens, and the conversation happens in reverse.

So, the question is: What would you consider an appropriate response from the OTHER side to address their fringe in such a way that you'd say "Ok, I don't need to generalize, clearly you are condemning that behavior enough"...?
 
Beware when someone tells you that something/someone is just not worth commenting on. Sometimes that’s intended to sound oppositional and dismissive but without having to say anything that’s actually negative.
 
OlNate said:
I'm going to leave this one as vague as possible, so as not to lead in one way or the other, as I've seen this scenario play out on both sides of the spectrum, and I'm hoping for feedback from both sides.

This is how it goes:

Group A: Group B's fringe has done something awful and I'm pissed about it, this is Group B in action!!!

Group B: Oh, sure...everyone in Group B is like that because of a few fringe idiots...mmm hmmm... :roll:

Group A: You don't condemn it. Therefore you condone it. Therefore it is Group B.

Group B: I don't participate, I don't support it, and I try to distance Group B from it, so clearly it is NOT Group B! Anyway, the best thing to do is just ignore it...you're just giving them a platform...

Group A: BS!!! ALL GROUP B ARE THE SAME!!!

Then, two weeks later, something crazy happens, and the conversation happens in reverse.

So, the question is: What would you consider an appropriate response from the OTHER side to address their fringe in such a way that you'd say "Ok, I don't need to generalize, clearly you are condemning that behavior enough"...?
Click to expand...

An admission that it's flat out wrong.

Confrontation with other members of group B who DO support and defend it, rather than the "silent" solidarity.
 
X Factor said:
Beware when someone tells you that something/someone is just not worth commenting on. Sometimes that’s intended to sound oppositional and dismissive but without having to say anything that’s actually negative.
Click to expand...

Yet we hear this quite often, regarding Antifa and white supremacists, which is why I included it.

I agree with you, by the way. :)
 
OlNate said:
I'm going to leave this one as vague as possible, so as not to lead in one way or the other, as I've seen this scenario play out on both sides of the spectrum, and I'm hoping for feedback from both sides.

This is how it goes:

Group A: Group B's fringe has done something awful and I'm pissed about it, this is Group B in action!!!

Group B: Oh, sure...everyone in Group B is like that because of a few fringe idiots...mmm hmmm... :roll:

Group A: You don't condemn it. Therefore you condone it. Therefore it is Group B.

Group B: I don't participate, I don't support it, and I try to distance Group B from it, so clearly it is NOT Group B! Anyway, the best thing to do is just ignore it...you're just giving them a platform...

Group A: BS!!! ALL GROUP B ARE THE SAME!!!

Then, two weeks later, something crazy happens, and the conversation happens in reverse.

So, the question is: What would you consider an appropriate response from the OTHER side to address their fringe in such a way that you'd say "Ok, I don't need to generalize, clearly you are condemning that behavior enough"...?
Click to expand...

I do not think that there is any appropriate response beyond saying "They have nothing to do with us, they are pieces of garbage and we condemn their actions." Of course I do not think that would work to convince someone not to generalize a large swathe of a political party. The moment someone says "All Group A" are responsible for the actions of a fringe subgroup of Group A, claiming that at heart, all of Group A wants what the fringe group wants, they have ceded all reasonableness in the discussion and are rarely interested in being convinced to abandon their position via reason or evidence.
 
KevinKohler said:
An admission that it's flat out wrong.

Confrontation with other members of group B who DO support and defend it, rather than the "silent" solidarity.
Click to expand...

Is there any situation you can think of where this isn't necessary? Is there an excusable reason not to do this?
 
OlNate said:
Is there any situation you can think of where this isn't necessary? Is there an excusable reason not to do this?
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Too busy. Too much. The sheer magnitude of it.


We all have lives. I can't be bothered to get into a rousing debate in every single thread where someone is flat out rediculously wrong.

Some of you are doing well with shutting down the latest extreme...that only white people can be racist. WTF??
 
Felis Leo said:
I do not think that there is any appropriate response beyond saying "They have nothing to do with us, they are pieces of garbage and we condemn their actions." Of course I do not think that would work to convince someone not to generalize a large swathe of a political party. The moment someone says "All Group A" are responsible for the actions of a fringe subgroup of Group A, claiming that at heart, all of Group A wants what the fringe group wants, they have ceded all reasonableness in the discussion and are rarely interested in being convinced to abandon their position via reason or evidence.
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I tend to agree...but I see often where this is not enough in this forum, so I'm curious to what other folks have to say on it. :) But, yes, I agree.
 
KevinKohler said:
Too busy. Too much. The sheer magnitude of it.


We all have lives. I can't be bothered to get into a rousing debate in every single thread where someone is flat out rediculously wrong.

Some of you are doing well with shutting down the latest extreme...that only white people can be racist. WTF??
Click to expand...


How do you prioritize your debates? Do you generally come down harder on "your side", or "their side"?

(Sorry, you brought up an interesting discussion, would chat with you in another thread, but trying to keep this one about methodology, if that's cool..)
 
OlNate said:
So, the question is: What would you consider an appropriate response from the OTHER side to address their fringe in such a way that you'd say "Ok, I don't need to generalize, clearly you are condemning that behavior enough"...?
Click to expand...
You lost me at “other side”. In the context of criticising blaming entire groups for the actions of a minority, isn’t expecting a response from an entire group more than a little hypocritical? The whole problem here is the identification of “us” and “them” groupings and treating everyone as being either definitively for or against everything you believe (and imagine “your” group believes too).

If you’re talking about bad actions, talk about bad actions. Beating people up is wrong, vandalism is wrong, fraud is wrong, sexual abuse is wrong… it doesn’t really matter who is doing it or why and it doesn’t matter and who they are in relation to you doesn’t either. Condemning bad actions is about the action, it shouldn’t matter who did it.
 
HonestJoe said:
You lost me at “other side”. In the context of criticising blaming entire groups for the actions of a minority, isn’t expecting a response from an entire group more than a little hypocritical? The whole problem here is the identification of “us” and “them” groupings and treating everyone as being either definitively for or against everything you believe (and imagine “your” group believes too).

If you’re talking about bad actions, talk about bad actions. Beating people up is wrong, vandalism is wrong, fraud is wrong, sexual abuse is wrong… it doesn’t really matter who is doing it or why and it doesn’t matter and who they are in relation to you doesn’t either. Condemning bad actions is about the action, it shouldn’t matter who did it.
Click to expand...

You're preaching to the choir... ;) I'm merely asking because of what I see here, not because I agree with it - division is the biggest problem America faces at the moment, in my opinion. However, in order to fix the division problem, American's need to be able to talk to each other, and so this thread is for people to discuss what it would take to do so... How do you guys see each other as individuals who think individually, vs. being members of one faction or the other, thinking exactly the same way, which is what a LOT of posts from both sides on this forum would suggest.
 
This is one of the problems with identifying as a group rather than just supporting your own ideals. If I see something that I think is bad enough I will condemn it. But I don’t feel a stronger need to do so just because the person doing the bad thing agrees with me on most other things. Everyone is responsible for their own actions and their own actions only.

I do understand that a person in a position of leadership may feel the need to denounce bad actors of the group they are leading, but again, I don’t personally hold them responsible for such bad actors.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
This is one of the problems with identifying as a group rather than just supporting your own ideals. If I see something that I think is bad enough I will condemn it. But I don’t feel a stronger need to do so just because the person doing the bad thing agrees with me on most other things. Everyone is responsible for their own actions and their own actions only.

I do understand that a person in a position of leadership may feel the need to denounce bad actors of the group they are leading, but again, I don’t personally hold them responsible for such bad actors.
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I absolutely agree. Yet time and time again we see the general dialogue being about "the Right" vs. "the Left", or some other grouping along similar lines. It's not just a few isolated people in America that think that way, in fact based on what I see in the media, and in here and other social media, it would appear like you're in the overwhelming minority....it would appear such insight could be considered counter culture these days.
 
OlNate said:
Yet we hear this quite often, regarding Antifa and white supremacists, which is why I included it.

I agree with you, by the way. :)
Click to expand...

To your larger point, personally I do feel something of a responsibility to denounce white supremacists and make it clear they don’t speak for me even though we may generally share a lean.
 
X Factor said:
To your larger point, personally I do feel something of a responsibility to denounce white supremacists and make it clear they don’t speak for me even though we may generally share a lean.
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I know you do. And you take a lot of crap in here despite that. The same could be said about a good number of folks on the left in here as well. I have seen lots of left leaning folks denounce Antifa, yet Antifa, for many right leaning posters, is "the Left".

How do you think we escape the rhetoric?
 
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