[kaens]

Part of his point, I think, is that holding an opinion does not harm anyone. Would it be an offensive opinion? Yes. Are you right that there are a bunch of people who would be very angry about it? Yes. And that those people would likely never forgive someone who thought slavery should be brought back? Yes.

There's also nothing to forgive the person with the offensive opinion for, other than offending someone. I don't think that the opinion-holder would have a right to not have that offense expressed, and I don't think people should have the right to hold and express any opinion with the expectation that no one will express offense, but I also don't think people have the right to not be offended.

[hullibu]

I believe in freedom of opinion and speech, but I also believe in freedom of sense. Believing that slavery is good is not only a generally offensive position, but it is an opinion that implies poor morals. Therefore not only in general company is expressing such an opinion a poor choice if one wishes to be socially accepted, but having the opinion itself is an abomination.

Being easily offended is not a good thing. And anything that divides for the purpose of uniting, like political correctness, enforced diversity, etc. is suspect because it can annoy or hurt a group, even if that group is in a power or majority position. And people have the right to be offended or not offended. A morally corrupt person has the right to hang out in the Hall of Evil if they would like. That is freedom.

But the purpose of the original post being discussed is that there is a way to apologize, and for that matter a reason to apologize. I personally think the apology was warranted. But, in the case of wanting to bring back slavery, I just don't think you can defend it as a moral opinion that should be aired. Even though I wouldn't outlaw the opinion, that doesn't stop me from strongly suggesting it is a bad idea and a sign of antisocial foolishness.

[hythloday]

Here are some other things that have been considered abominations at one point or another by a dominant culture: homosexual sex; Jews marrying Germans; property right and suffrage for women; atheism (or virtually every religion, in fact).

I am pretty sure that people who held the view that those things were abominable were not Dr. Evil caricatures, but honest people who sincerely believed that these things were utterly wrong and no-one should speak in support of them. I don't say this to illustrate that I think slavery is the moral equivalent of atheism, but that I don't believe that I am smart enough to forgo all my cultural baggage and assert that I have a privileged insight into what is "truly" abominable and what was just bad stuff other people believe.

Even if you do choose to assert that, I think that slavery is an interesting choice because there are arguments that can be made for it. Athenian democracy was essentially built on the backs of disenfranchised slaves; the lack of technological sophistication of Ancient Greece wouldn't have permitted enough free time to nurture a rule by the people without it. Is the world better off for Athenian democracy, slavery and all? I don't think you can answer that with a pat yes or no, but that's the whole point, it's a complex question, not a "slavery is bad, fire everyone who thinks otherwise" question.

Libertarians would question whether the state ought to have the power to ban certain kinds of life-long contract between consenting adults. If you want to stretch the definition of slavery, the standard of living in the West is only supportable by labourers working in other parts of the world under authoritarian systems they don't have political power to change. Is that bad? Sure! Is it a very similar situation to the Industrial Revolution of the 18th/19th centuries, which is essentially the underpinning for every single employment right we have? Yes, it is. Are we then doing good by supporting slavery? I don't know, but again, I don't think these questions should be shut down without discussion.

I don't mean here to speak directly in support of some of the very hateful opinions that you can see expressed every day--I think most of them are vile and I wish their holders didn't do so (and I pity them for the emotional turmoil that must have engendered them and that they engender). But the solution is never to ban or restrict speech, legally or socially, even when a majority agrees that it's desirable to do so, because we are not smarter than everyone else who will ever live.

[muraii]

Thank you. I have tried several times to articulate how weakly we can reasonably attribute rightness to any of our beliefs, and you've done a wonderful job of it. Mary Wollstonecraft succinctly expressed this as "No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." (Full disclosure: only came across this as a section quote in _The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor_.)

On the general topic, I can't add much except that Sqoot's response adds to the apologetic miasma that suffocates honest expression. It is not the same thing, but of a piece, that several times daily a person will say "Sorry" for such transgressions as brewing their K-cup before I can brew mine, or for crossing paths as we walk around the office. It lacks conviction, and it should: these are not offenses, are not rude actions. They so quickly issue "Sorry" that it's as hollow of meaning as the familiar "You know" and "like." It is mere social lubrication without intent.

On the other hand, there is at least one subtlety I haven't read here yet, and that's this: if I enter another culture, either by travelling to another country or merely travelling down the street, I may risk doing something which is legitimately offensive in that culture but which I don't personally find offensive. I can easily, then, find myself in a situation where I am earnest in my apology even if I have no intention of changing my opinion. I can simultaneously claim my values and care enough about others to understand they may find them objectionable and respect them by either keeping my mouth shut or apologizing if I feel I've offended them.

Is there a line to be drawn between that scenario, which doesn't seem controversial, and Sqoot's predicament? Is there room for allowing the male-and-macho developer set to think sexism is cool and still earnestly apologize because they realize others are offended?

[cerales]

Athenian Democracy was not a rule of the people, it was the rule of a massive slave and underclass population by a tiny, exclusively male minority who happened to have a certain internal decision-making process.

[kaens]

While I would agree that believing that slavery is "good" would imply poor morals, I also don't think that morality is objective, and while I think my criteria for evaluation of it are fairly good, I don't think that I would be comfortable making that level of value judgement over someone holding an opinion, particularly if the held that opinion out of ignorance or unknowingly incorrect things they held internally as being axiomatic.

I agree in principle about things that, in your words "divide for the purpose of uniting" to do more harm then good. From the standpoint of idealism, I think that the best way to go about ending inequality is to simply cease treating people unequally. We can't just go straight from here to there though, and I don't have good solutions. I suspect that it's the type of thing that phases itself out as cultural patterns live and die, and that's slow. The ramifications of that are a separate, stupidly large can-of-worms topic.

And people have the right to be offended or not offended.

I agree that people "have the right" to be offended or not offended. I mean, in case the above is indicative of me not expressing myself clearly, that people do not have the right to suppress other people's expression of their opinions because of their offense. And people are not obligated to be sorry for offending somebody by having and expressing an opinion. And people do not have the right to expect that no one will be offended by their opinion. And people do not have the right to only have opinions expressed to them which they do not find offensive, assuming they are not in a ridiculously coercive situation, in which case the breach of right by the gun being held by their temple is probably of bigger concern than the offensive opinions being expressed to them forcibly. Outside of the context of extremist opinions, which are the majority of examples that get brought up in this type of discussion, there are way too many people for that to even be a feasible scenario.

A morally corrupt person has the right to hang out in the Hall of Evil if they would like.

As long as everyone in the "Hall of Evil" is consenting to hang out there, I don't think I could make a moral judgement about them. I could make one about myself, and how I would not feel morally "right" if I was doing what they were doing, but if they know what they're getting into and they're consenting to it, I could not call it morally corrupt. I know enough people that are legitimately into things that make me uncomfortable to think about participating in to not be able to hold another opinion while being intellectually honest with myself.

But the purpose of the original post being discussed is that there is a way to apologize, and for that matter a reason to apologize. I personally think the apology was warranted.

I agree. And I think the second apology they posted was much better. An apology here is absolutely warranted because they ended up making a whole bunch of people think that they were ignorant, or bigoted, or malicious in someway when they are (most likely) not, and did not intend to be so ridiculously insensitive to stuff they knew about. They made a stupid mistake, caused a bunch of people to be offended where they did not intend to, they're in the process of owning up for it, and that's good and will likely cause people to respect them a bit more.

If they posted that they thought "women should stay in the kitchen", and they really thought that, then the most honest apology they could make would be that they were sorry people got offended. I wouldn't agree with them, I would actively show people reasons why their opinion should be ignored if they were campaigning for laws requiring "women to stay in the kitchen". If they realized later they had been publicly holding a pretty ridiculously offensive opinion for no good reason, I would expect they would be apologizing, probably for their ignorance, but mostly for actions and offending people. If they just held it, honestly thought it, expressed it, and offended somebody, I see no reason for apology, and don't see how any genuine apology, other than "being sorry you're offended" would be possible.

Do I think slavery is defensible as a moral opinion? No. I think that if someone does, they should be able to express that, and that if they hold that opinion out of ignorance or misunderstanding that that ignorance or misunderstanding can be addressed. I think that suppressing the expression, the ability to express an opinion, any opinion, because it's offensive or "morally unsound" is dangerous. I don't think that many, if any, of the "extremist" opinions I've heard have enough weight that they should be considered so dangerous as to be banned. Doing so does nothing to solve the problem of people holding those opinions when they do not know they should not be.

Slavery, by the way, is alive and well. A number of people not only think it should exist, but actively purchase humans. A large part of minimizing or stopping that is making it so that when people who think that slavery "is just how it is" -- because they've been surrounded by it, or had ideas drilled into their heads as children, or grasped onto some fallacy they didn't identify -- are capable of being presented with information to the contrary in such a manner as to actually change their minds. This does happen. It does not happen when expression of opinion is suppressed.