They are at the bottom.

A well known chef has developed cancer of the tongue.

This post is in response to comment left in the Good Sense to Judge post.

Tolerance

For the record, I was not talking about classically defined tolerance I was actually referring to a more recent variant that is heavily informed by relativism. This form of tolerance aims to eliminate judgment completely by using relativism’s argumentation that all truth is relative to the person. Since truth is confined within the individual, judgment beyond the person is not justifiable. One can never know another person and therefore one must always abstain from judging others.

You current definition of tolerance is mildly incoherent. It seems to be making the strong claim that people can judge all they like, but are restricted from taking action. In matters of judgment it’s unclear when one can and can not take action. The obvious example is the context of this discussion. Your definition of tolerance tells us nothing about how the university of Columbia should proceed.

Some judgments warrant action. One of the most common ways to avoid the required action is to ignore the judgment. The father of a murderer is less eager to call his child bad then the father of the one that was murdered. This is in large part because admitting the judgment justifies taking the action of having his son incarcerated or sentenced to death.

One gets the sense that Columbia university is refraining from judging President Ahmadinejad as a terrorist, oppressor, and killer or our soldiers merely so they can avoid the action of refusing to let him speak. How does one get around the problem of denying the obvious fact that President Ahmadinejad is an oppressor, terrorist, and killer? Using relativism one denies such judgments because one can’t know things from his perspective. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Lacking his perspective we can’t judge him bad, and therefore we can have him speak.

I should like to know does you definition of tolerance allow or prohibit President Ahmadinjad from speaking?

Generalize or Analyze?

You object to my characterizing the whole of one culture as being either good or bad. You desperately want to analyze further and talk about different components. Certainly one can analyze a culture into bits and often times one is wise to do so. However, one can be just as wise to make broad judgments provided they are willing to do the work of analysis when their broad judgment fail to be effective. In this regard I think its fair to say that on the whole, contemporary middle-east culture is bad.

To put the question to you: on the whole, would you say contemporary Middle-East culture is good or bad?

If you know anything of Middle-East culture you will have to resist the urge to respond with bad. You might take comfort, as my roommate did, by dismissing the question as being nonsensical. Nevertheless in your heart of hearts you know the answer. Certainly I can understand why people struggle with answering the question. The response makes them look ugly. Leaves them vulnerable to charges of; how did Jamie characterize me: “a biggot, an idiot, a racist and a simple-minded fool“. Quite a price to pay for uttering something that is so trivially true.

Analysis at such a broad level leads to the conclusion that Middle-East culture is bad. Sure we can analyze it in to different components and show that some parts are bad and others are not. But in the final analysis, when we aggregate everything together, when we give a cost benefit analysis of the culture in its entirety, we have to give it a thumbs down. The culture is just a little to intolerant (irony intended) of heterogeneity to be considered good.

Middle-East culture is not evil. Such terms are invariably used to censor valid counter arguments. Its much like using terms like ‘bigot’, ‘racist’, or ’simple minded fool’ to characterize a valid if not overly broad generalization about a culture. For the record i make no distinction between Christian or Muslim culture. Its not the Muslim faith that makes a culture bad. Cultures that are all about lethally enforcing homogeneity are bad whether they believe in Jesus Christ or Mohammad or they are still waiting on their prophet.

Demonstration of Lacking Good Sense

Your last paragraph captures perfectly what I’m trying to say. While President Ahmadinejad kills our soldiers and gives material support to terrorists we can’t judge why he does things until he we understand his perspective. Thus, it makes sense to refrain from judging him as bad and therefore not worthy of speaking until we can hear what he has to say. Oddly you freely admit what he says lack merit and yet you still want him to speak.

This is what is meant by lacking good sense. The virulent form of tolerance that restricts judging a demonstrably bad guy as bad all for the edification of a perspective you freely discredit. It just plain good sense to judge this guy bad and for that reason refuse to let him speak. Further analysis is just not needed.

Check it out.

Apparently the White House showed interest in having Bush doing a sit down interview with NPR concerning race in this country. However because of NPR neutrality they rejected such a partisan maneuver. It’s a good thing the federal government funds a new organization to insure some degree of media neutrality.

This is pretty cool:

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

Jamie responds to my post about Columbia university:

Yeah, I can see how threatening sanctions against an organization because you don’t like their speaker list is indeed libertarian. Where does it end?

Pulling funding does not explicitly prohibit Columbia from bringing in certain speakers. Some might argue that they want to pull funding because it puts Columbia in a financial situation that they must comply with an approved speaking list. I have no desire to pull funding for this purpose.

It makes no sense for the state to fund institutes that happily give legitimacy to it’s enemies. The state should not be allowed to prohibit institutes from selecting certain speakers, but it makes no sense that the state must fund those institutes. It’s unclear how this is an anti-libertarian position. If anything the mere reduction in funding regardless of reason is very libertarian.

But now lets turn it on you. How do you justify giving legitimacy to the head of state that’s actively killing our soldiers? If the response is that he can’t possibly gain legitimacy than the next question becomes why have him speak? If everyone knows he is crack pot and has nothing of value to say then what’s the point of him speaking?

Would you support a university that brings Osama Bin Laden to speak? It’s hard to see how you would discriminate between a head of state who’s policy have lead to citizen death and a head of an organization whose policy have lead to citizen death. If you support a university’s right to let Ahmadinejad speak then you should also let Osama speak.

Along the same lines you should also support that University’s decision to allow Timothy McVeigh or Jeffrey Dahmer to speak? How about the shooters from the Columbine killings? Would you support the University’s right to bring the murderer of your wife and kids to speak on the proper ways of raping a child? If you were contributor would you continue funding the university?

Concepts informed by relativism like tolerance and multiculturalism mutate into a childish world view that leads to poor judgment. Some people are monsters and they are not to be tolerated, but put down. No amount of ‘understanding’ is going to civilize them. Some cultures are superior to other cultures. No amount of ‘understanding’ is going to stop the stoning of homosexual in middle-eastern cultures. Some people are simply bad and some cultures are simply bad.

One must have the good sense to discern between good and bad. Western culture is good while middle-east culture bad. Capitalism is good while Communism is bad. Soldiers sacrificing themselves to protect civilians are good while terrorists intentionally blowing themselves up to kill civilians are bad. Relativism robs the person of this good sense of discriminating between good and bad. It denies simple judgments even when those judgments are warranted. (The opposite, which is endemic to conservatives, is hyper-judgment which leads to missing essential nuance for proper judgment.)

Relativism corrupted the good sense of the administrators of Columbia to judge Ahmadinejad as bad, and as such, someone not suitable for inclusion in serious discussion.