Sans Fig Leaf
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"Meanie value theorem"
8 August, 2006
Several years ago I was participating in a lively debate when one of the other participants, who we will call Peter, made a very vulgar and insulting comment to a friend of mine who was also involved in the discussion. From a debating perspective, it was a classic ad hominem fallacy: attacking the person instead of the argument.
It was also one of the most bigotted homophobic remarks I had heard in a long time.
For a long time Peter had been making snide comments about several people's sexuality (perceived or otherwise). He had also often railed against actitivies and behaviours by gay participants in some events. His rants had usually been cloaked with a veneer of reasonableness: he was arguing about decorum and lack of sensitivity, he would say. But analagous transgressions by straight participants never drew Peter's ire. There was also a disproprotionality to his sense of decorum. For example, an opposite sex couple holding hands in a public space was perfectly okay, but a same sex couple doing the same thing was "gross sexual behaviour in public."
The sudden lashing out of raw bigotry wasn't a surprise to me, but the reaction of some of the other people in the discussion was. I was particularly disappointed that another friend of mine, a person whose opinion I normally respected, was one of the ones to emphatically argue that the comment was not really bigotted because Peter wasn't really a bigot. His defenders claimed that they knew Peter wasn't a bigot because all of them could remember times he had been polite to gay people in the past. "Peter was just angry and had had a series of bad days."
The first problem with that argument is that a bigot is more than capable of being polite or civil to the people they are prejudiced against, particularly in situations where they stand to gain something from "making nice."
The second and far bigger problem is that anger or other impairments do not cause alien thoughts to suddenly blossom in one's brain. Impairments remove our inhibitions, the interior editors that prevent us for saying or doing things that we might like to but think we shouldn't for some reason or other. Anything that comes out of our mouth under those circumstances would have to be something we had thought or felt when we were not angry, or not exhausted, or not inebriated.
Which isn't to say that we can't take the impairment into account. Every person has some impulses or thoughts of which they are ashamed. The lower brain functions have a lot of self-preservation and self-centeredness hardwired in. Altruism, morality, and ethics are higher functions, and they are part of that complex of inhibitions.
But there is a big difference between repressing an impulse because we think the impulse itself is wrong, versus repressing an impulse because we think someone would disapprove, for example. Just as there's a big difference between being superficially polite and actually respecting the people one is talking to.
At the time it was argued that one can't tell which category a particular situation falls into. Was he fighting his bigoted impulses because he thought they were wrong, or was he just trying to hide his bigotry?
I don't think it's so very difficult. For example, there are some life decisions that my siblings have made which I think were foolish. I can remember a particular time that one sister called me in the wee smalls hours of the morning, on a work night, all upset about something which I didn't believe was an emergency. It was also a situation that was clearly and undeniably a self-inflicted problem, and one to which she knew a solution. What she wanted was for me to rescue her so that she didn't have to make the tough choices and deal with the problem herself.
I was not very nice in my response. Afterward I regretted how I said it but not what I said. If I hadn't been tired and cranky I would have given her the same answer and advice, it just would have been phrased less harshly and there would have been more sympathy offered. At a later conversation my sister agreed that the advice I gave her was correct, and it is exactly how she went about solving the problem.
So that's the first test: if the outburst were phrased more politely, without any anger or condescension, would the essential content of the outburst be acceptable or useful?
In Peter's case, no matter how you rephrased it, the essence of his comment was that his opponent's sexual orientation invalidated the logic or facts of any argument the opponent made on any subject. Specifically, that no one should listen to his concerns because he was gay, which implied he was irresponsible, perverted, and worthless on every possible level. Not a position most of his defenders would be willing to endorse. It's pretty clear the outburst represented genuine bigotry.
In my other example, my the outburst doesn't indicate an underlying resentment toward my sister in specific nor to sisters (or women) in general.
The next test is consistency. When looked at in the context of past actions and comments, is the outburst in total contradiction with previous expressions? Are there previous actions and comments that hint at or lean in the direction of the outburst? Please note that a neutral response to a previous situation is not the same thing as a contradiction. In other words, just because in certain social situations Peter refrained from saying nasty things to gay people he was interacting with doesn't contradict the later outburst.
The third test is sincere contrition. Does the person express any remorse for the outburst? Does he apologize to those offended? Does the apology express genuine regret for the content of the offense, or does it try to sidestep that and only vaguely refer to the giving of offense?
Figuring out whether the person is sincere is subjective, but there are some indicators. If the person apologizes to everyone but the victim for being hot headed or letting them down, that doesn't indicate sincerity. If the content of the outburst itself failed the first test, and he doesn't express remorse for harboring bigotted views, that doesn't indicate sincerity, either. If he refuses to apologize and accuses his victims of being overly sensitive, that's an irrefutable proof of insincerity.
Peter refused to apologize. He said anyone who thought he was bigotted were delusional. Which should have been the final nail in the coffin for any notion that he wasn't a flaming bigot to be disdained by all. Unfortunately, it wasn't. There had to be a few more outbursts. And most of his defenders didn't wise up until some of them were the victims of those outbursts.
Unfortunately, that's what it takes for some people to recognize a jerk.
Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.
--Henry Ward Beecher
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