[wcarron]

Indeed. My wife, whom i consider relatively open-minded in today's society, is somewhat offput by the fact that I engage with and consider 'conservatives' friends. There is a pervasive and insidious association with disagreement with 'evil' or 'wrong' in society today. People who espouse themselves as tolerant, are not. Any opposition to a held belief is considered 'wrong', inherently.

This attitude is destroying society. There is no place for nuance in general discourse anymore. It bothers me greatly. I have no solution, only an ability to despair.

[samtp]

I wouldn't consider your wife that open minded if she is off put by you engaging with "conservative" friends. There is nothing off putting about that.

But if your "conservative" friends happen to drop openly misogynist, racist, and/or xenophobic things inappropriately into casual conversation - she might be justified in feeling a little off put since she is probably worried that you also hold similar hurtful views but are more careful with what you say.

[TeMPOraL]

> But if your "conservative" friends happen to drop openly misogynist, racist, and/or xenophobic things inappropriately into casual conversation

The problem is that today, unlike a decade or two earlier, the conversation on-line (and increasingly off-line) is dominated by people who will happily choose to call anything they feel like as "misogynist, racist, and/or xenophobic", using it to invalidate what others have said wholesale (and in some contexts, also make an implied threat).

You are, I assume unintentionally, doing that too, this very moment: the problem with calling something "misogynist", "racist" or "bigoted" is that it's an asymmetric superweapon - once you say, or even vaguely suggest, that I'm saying something racist, it's impossible for me to argue my way out: any attempt of proving it's not is considered an admission of guilt. "Kafkatrap", I believe, used to be a term for this.

There are severe consequences to being seen as a misogynist or a racist or a bigot. There are no consequences whatsoever for accusing someone of being a misogynist or a racist or a bigot, for any reason whatsoever, including just for shits and giggles. No third party wants to challenge the accusation either, because it carries a risk of becoming seen as guilty by association.

> she might be justified in feeling a little off put since she is probably worried that you also hold similar hurtful views but are more careful with what you say

And herein lies another problem: fear of people secretly committing wrongthink. There is no way one can prove whether or not a person is nice, or is a wrongthinking racist bigot who's just being careful with what they say. By finding reasons to assume the latter, one is not only making their own life worse, but also that other person's, and their combined social circle.

[samtp]

He said his wife felt off put by him engaging with them. I said that was wrong, but also put forward a hypothetical situation where her feelings would be justified. That is not the same at all as saying "they are misogynist, racist, and/or xenophobic".

> There are no consequences whatsoever for accusing someone of being a misogynist or a racist or a bigot, for any reason whatsoever, including just for shits and giggles.

That's just how accusations work. I can just as easily say: "There are no consequences whatsoever for accusing someone of being woke, for any reason whatsoever, including just for shits and giggles."

> And herein lies another problem: fear of people secretly committing wrongthink.

Well I would be concerned if my partner had misogynist, racist, and/or xenophobic thoughts. Because those are not the thoughts of a kind, secure, and empathetic person (the type of person who I wish to share my life with). But you may have different morals where having misogynist, racist, and/or xenophobic thoughts is not an issue.

[wcarron]

Really, I think it's just a consequence of living so long in what I consider an echo chamber. It's jarring to move back out of a huge, exceedingly left/liberal metro area into a much more politically mixed area.

And yeah, as an immigrant, certain conservatives have absolutely espoused views that are... antagonistic towards her family, even though they didn't know it at the time. You're basically on the money with your last sentence. It's really more of an apprehension that my political views are shifting (or I hid them) as a result of hanging out with those who hold contrary views.

[notch898a]

This may be accurate, but a couple notes.

1) Other ideologies are not immune to having people with such views, so I'm not sure why to single out conservatives for those kind of worries.

2) A truly open mind might be open to 'racist' viewpoints, such as blacks are more likely to suffer from sickle cell anemia and this trait is inferior to whites in regions without mosquitoes. That's just a straight up racist viewpoint (by the dictionary definition) coupled with the assertion whites legit have a characteristic here that is racially superior in places without malaria. I wonder how many other biological traits like this, of any 'race' (to the extent such a concept exists), we've thrown aside because scientists are just too scared to investigate it.

[samtp]

I only "singled out" conservatives because I was replying to a comment that specifically mentioned conservatives. I didn't think it would be relevant or useful to generalize or list the stereotypical flaws of every political belief system.

I'm really struggling to follow what you're trying to say in your second point. Honestly, if I'm hanging out with a friend of my wife and she starts going into "racially superior" traits of whites vs blacks - I'm going to either look to change the conversation or excuse myself to grab a beer because that's a strangely detailed and long example to get into.

[notch898a]

That's certainly your choice to bow out. My wife is a different race from me, one that has a significantly different composition and cultural background than mine. We spend a lot of time comparing our physical and cultural differences and how they are superior in different situations, and I feel like I learned a lot from it. It's unfortunate others aren't able to appreciate diversity in this way.

I'm pretty sure the person you replied to said nothing about their friends being misogynist/racist/xenophobic. The only thing we know is they were conservative, so your statement "I only singled out..." is a complete sidestep from your process conservative -> "If your conservative friends happen to drop misogynistic/racist/xenophobic ..."

When literally the only thing we know is the person's political ideology and you go straight to talking about if they were saying racist stuff we all know what the implication is, and we all know it was said in a weird way to create plausible deniability that just maybe it wasn't being made.

[samtp]

> The only thing we know is they were conservative

Well no, that's not true. We also know that his wife was "off put" by him engaging with them. And if you re-read my rely, you'll see that I specifically mention her being "off put" 3 different times because that was the main part that I was replying to.

And if someone tried to shoehorn a long winded discussion about "racial superiority" into an unrelated conversation (much like you are doing right now on a discussion about free speech), I would certainly bow out because it's irrelevant and weird.

[notch898a]

>Well no, that's not true. We also know that his wife was "off put" by him engaging with them.

No being off put was a description about the wife not them. All we know about them is they were conservative.

>And if you re-read my rely, you'll see that I specifically mention her being "off put" 3 different times because that was the main part that I was replying to.

There was no mention of xenophobia/racism/etc that was entirely your introduction.

>And if someone tried to shoehorn a long winded discussion about "racial superiority" into an unrelated conversatio

My guy, racism was your introduction, why did YOU shoehorn it in. Don't get upset you brought up racism and now you have to deal with replies including the subject you roped in.