- Anything Else -

On With lark...

Posted by: Red Deathy ( Socialist Party, UK ) on April 26, 1999 at 13:58:19:

: Or I could say why is the abnormal better that the regular system of values and mores? I dont think it's an issue of "winners" and "losers" or "Right" and "Wrong" it is an issue everyone has an opinion on formed through experience etc.

Abnormal isn't better, however, your substantive proposition is that people should conform to the norm, and that it is naturally healthier and better- why is this?

: Well to my mind this is self-evident, I have ideas about decency that are part handed down to me, that is part determined through socialisation etc. but the ability to acknowledge this means I also have the ability to reject this process if I so choose, I dont I agree with a lot of those values. I dont think they are that "Superior" to deviant ones, or abnormal (your term), just they are mine and allow me to live a happier life.

So, in the name of liberty, and cultural performativity/integrity, you claim the capcity to demand 'invisiblity' (for want of a better term), and the marginaliosation of minorities cultures...

: Some people really love orange parades or nazi marches but I find them strange and militaristic and would prefer that I did not have to observe the practice of such conventions, if they had to be carried out at all.

Surely, though, people have the liberty of freedom of expression, no matter how repugnant their views. Orange parades are provactive for the route they choose, not by dint of their existence.

: Well I consider it linked intrinsically to BDSM and I consider it to always entail hurting people.

Erm, BDSM is practised enough, perhaps predominantly so, by heterosexuals, and how does homosexuality *always* (pretty tall claim there) hurt people?

: Fine I dont care I've yet to hear a solid case as to why Socialism must necessarily be married to things like abortion and homosexuality.

Well, in terms of hoimosexuality, Socialism is about individual liberty- 'so long as ye hurt non, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law', I cannot comensurate this central principle, with teh prospect of silencing and marginalising an entire area of social human praxis and expression. If socialism means anything, it means exploring humanness to the full, including, for those as want, homosexuality.

Also, homophobia, is linked very closely with certain models of masculinity that are repressive, and a property based version of human sexual relations and marriage, which would also come to an end.

: Yes, something you didnt realise when you posted in Capitalism and Alternatives that the rule of society was preferable to the rule of state.

Erm, but a state is always inherently repressive, whereas society, as the final arbiter, would only need act to defend its own culture of liberty and freedom. A good society, a culturally free society, would defend liberty and diversity, not monological sameness.

:It could be construed as repressive but I think it is only right that you demonstrate your respect for others etc. by conforming to their conventions, that is within reason I wouldnt say you'd have to be racist in a nazi society.

But where to draw the line? the line surely is where you are physically impinging upon someone, or threatening to do so...?

: Because it disgusts me. Is that the response you want? I just consider it to be harmful to the social fabric, today homosexuality's fine tommorrow it's peadaphilia, then snuff films that people are raped and die in, then nazi propaganda in cause of freedom of speech etc. etc.

Ah, slippery slope arguments- we can't be accepting them, if you start accepting slippery slope arguments, just once, now and then, you'll wind up accepting them all the time, there'll be slippery slopes everywhere, we wouldn't be able to do anything.

Please provide me with a causal link between homosexuality and pædophilia, snuff movies, etc.

: That's not what the peadaphils say they say it's just a misunderstood sexuaity like homosexuality. Where do you draw the line RD?

The line is drawn at consent, and mutuality, again, pædophilia *always*, *necessarilly*, abosulutely by definition, involves abuse, is rape, that is the line.

: Maybe but I find it an attack on society, a society in which a lot of straight people think they should have rights but are attacked on mass but this "new culture". Just as may feminists in "all men are bastards" mode forget that some men where on their side in the issue of rights etc.

But no feminist says all men are batards, no serious feminist, and no-one is attacking heterosexuality, merely its undisputed dominance and superiority...

: Listen RD prove to me for a change that I should accept your views, you've been reading your rule book on arguments again and it is clever to keep putting the burden of proof on me but I'm the currently popular view the alternative needs to be demonstrated to me.

No, you are asserting that certain biological organs have a specific design, a function which is not to be transgressed, you must prove this, my case is that they have none, I have no case to prove.

: Funny you think God is a he.

Many do...

: Yes I consider it irrelevant too but I think the natural laws of deceny should be respected too.

What natural laws? What are they, and how are they set?



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