Benjamin T. Awesome
2 min readJul 22, 2017

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So let’s trot out some examples of this.

Someone asserts they believe in racial equality. They also assert they believe in cultural diversity. Then, they say that all white people are racist, and no black people can be racist.

Yup, that happens, so you’re right, it’s possible. Is it consistent though? Or do you find it a bit hypocritical?

Let’s try another example.

Someone asserts they believe in racial equality. They also assert they believe in cultural diversity. Then, they insist that right-wing voices from outside of their cultural bubble, be prevented from sharing their point of view.

Yup, that also happens, so you’re right, it’s possible.

Still smells hypocritical and inconsistent though.

I get the feeling that you didn’t think of those two examples when you wrote your statement though.

You are correct that I didn’t think of those examples. Primarily because those are terrible and irrelevant examples. The notion that “right-wing voices” or ideas are somehow equivalent to human beings is nonsense, but, nonetheless, this remains a standard fallacious trope that illogical people keep repeating.

Consider: is “diversity of opinion” important to consider when one person states that 2 + 2 is 4 and another says it is 17, or do you just go with the one who is right? When one person says “the Earth is an oblate spheroid” and another says “the Earth is flat,” is there any value gained from embracing the voice outside the cultural bubble of rectitude? If someone says “lung cancer is correlated with smoking cigarettes, and cigarette smoking likely leads to lung cancer” and another says “God gives us cancer because he hates gay people,” do we really need to consider both arguments?

I don’t think so.

Some ideas are just dumb and do not merit inclusion in serious discussions whose epistemological bases include such precepts as logic and reason. If some ideas like that also happen to be talking points among the right wing, it’s entirely their right to be incorrect, but it doesn’t mean I have to take them seriously or waste time talking about the merits of their foolishness.

In short, if smart, grown-up adults don’t want to talk about your ideas, you should reflect upon the objective merits of those ideas instead of acting like butt-hurt special snowflakes because other people aren’t interested in them.

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Benjamin T. Awesome

Just the facts: Writer. Gamer. Feminist. Educated in Astrophysics. Professional Gambler. Student of Language. Satanist. Anarchist. He/Him.