I stand by what I said: You’ve claimed harm but you haven’t actually demonstrated that claimed harm is real.
Social Cohesion is a thing, and its absence frequently leads to harm at both the macro and micro levels. Economic threats to social cohesion are frequently highlighted on these boards. Cultural or social threats less so. If a reduction in social cohesion is harmful in one case then is it not harmful in the other as well?
Why is the sort of thing we're talking about on here a threat to social cohesion? What even is social cohesion?
I stand by what I said: You’ve claimed harm but you haven’t actually demonstrated that claimed harm is real.
Social Cohesion is a thing, and its absence frequently leads to harm at both the macro and micro levels. Economic threats to social cohesion are frequently highlighted on these boards. Cultural or social threats less so. If a reduction in social cohesion is harmful in one case then is it not harmful in the other as well?
I agree, at least for the sake of argument, that social cohesion is a thing. (Though like @KarlLB, I think exactly what the relevant social cohesion actually is needs lots of unpacking.)
What has been asserted is that one boy turning up at prom in a dress is such a threat to social cohesion that it harms those who value the social cohesive status quo. That’s the claim, but no evidence has been put forward to support that claim, to demonstrate that the harm claimed is real, actual, observable harm.
Harm requires more than “I don’t like it,” or “it’s not how I/we think things should be” or “I don’t like where this might head.”
There also seems to me a suggestion, however muted, that if there's a question between an individual absorbing abuse or harm, or a status quo absorbing abuse or harm or an inferred social cohesion being threatened with an increment of erosion, the status quo or social cohesion should be protected first and foremost.
Well, that could be a thread all of its own. But I don't think it's coincidental that the reduction in social cohesion in the UK that's come from the erosion of shared values and social norms over the last few decades has resulted in Brexit and the rise of Reform, or for that matter the recent election of Muslim Independents to Parliament. Our society
(if, indeed, it is still a single society) is becoming more fractured.
Well, that could be a thread all of its own. But I don't think it's coincidental that the reduction in social cohesion in the UK that's come from the erosion of shared values and social norms over the last few decades has resulted in Brexit and the rise of Reform, or for that matter the recent election of Muslim Independents to Parliament. Our society
(if, indeed, it is still a single society) is becoming more fractured.
Seems like you are just pointing at specific things and then claiming that they show your conclusion (which is something about social cohesion).
There have long been independent MPs in the British House of Commons. When Keir Hardie became an MP in 1892 it was as an independent.
Muslims have obviously long been a part of British society. Several hundred years ago the first Somali sailors came, Muslims fought and died in two world wars for the British Empire.
So what can you possibly mean about social cohesion in the last few decades?
What are the shared values and norms which have been eroded?
Are you suggesting that all immigrants to the UK have instantly conformed to all social values and norms that existed prior to their arrival? Or that the changing social acceptance of those with Epiphanic qualities wasn’t in fact a change at all?
You can argue that the set of values and norms that existed in the past needed to change, and that the direction of travel is a desirable one. That’s fine. But don’t try to pretend that they haven’t changed at all, or that the imposition of those changes hasn’t caused an increase in social fragmentation, the loss of a sense of community, and the rise of reactionary politics.
A lot of other things happened during that same time period (including the counter-culture movement, decay of traditional institutions, the rise of neoliberalism and so on), I'm not sure how you can make definite statements like that.
Reactionary politics tend to find scape goats that are acceptable to reactionary politicians and those that fund them, and what they say is not necessarily the truth.
What are the shared values and norms which have been eroded?
Are you suggesting that all immigrants to the UK have instantly conformed to all social values and norms that existed prior to their arrival? Or that the changing social acceptance of those with Epiphanic qualities wasn’t in fact a change at all?
You can argue that the set of values and norms that existed in the past needed to change, and that the direction of travel is a desirable one. That’s fine. But don’t try to pretend that they haven’t changed at all, or that the imposition of those changes hasn’t caused an increase in social fragmentation, the loss of a sense of community, and the rise of reactionary politics.
Why are you changing the subject? We are trying to understand you and instead of answering the question you are deflecting.
Unless you are talking about historically excluded communities - which includes Romany and travellers - where's the evidence that any of the immigrant communities lack cohesion?
We all pay tax to HMRC. We all use shared civic resources. We live in the same communities. So what exactly do you mean by social cohesion? What exactly has changed?
The recent discussion above reminds me of a letter to the editor of the local paper I had just read. I quote it below:
The Feb. 14 guest editorial on the Tribune Opinion page came from the Idaho Statesman of Boise. Publishers of local newspapers are constantly concerned about their viability and outlook for longevity while not exhibiting any self-awareness about honesty in their content.
The opinion that was printed in the Tribune regarding Idaho legislators and anti-immigration bills was leftist propaganda, not truth. It claimed the Legislature to be racist, anti-immigration and “white nationalist” conforming to something called “the great replacement theory.” Whenever a journalist begins a piece describing conservatives as racist, white nationalists or Nazis, they just lost whatever argument comes next.
The whole piece was lambasting conservatives’ fear of being replaced, in America, by people of other colors, cultures and countries. False in every way, shape and form. The concern is having America replaced by other cultures from other countries.
America is a social, economic and political construct; a constitutional republic and the only one in existence on earth. Historically, immigrants from Western civilizations literally invented America some 250 years ago. Compared to all other so-called civilizations, America has done more to advance the human condition than any other in history.
The keystone to the success of America is e pluribus unum and assimilation. Now, 21st century immigration, legal and illegal, participants are more concerned with enjoying everything America has to offer except e pluribus unum and assimilation.
The Statesman was wrong to proffer their guest editorial and the Tribune was wrong to print it as truth, which it is not.
Next is my response:
XX argues that America is at risk of being “replaced by other cultures from other countries,” and that today’s immigrants no longer value e pluribus unum or assimilation. But this framing misrepresents both our history and the lived reality of immigration today. America has never been a static cultural artifact created once and preserved in amber. It has always been a dynamic, evolving nation shaped by successive waves of newcomers—Germans, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Scandinavians, Eastern Europeans, and many others—each of whom was once accused of refusing to assimilate. Over time, they became part of the American story, not a threat to it.
The idea that immigrants today “enjoy everything America has to offer except assimilation” is not supported by evidence. Immigrants learn English at rates equal to or faster than previous generations. Their children overwhelmingly identify as American. They serve in our military, start businesses at high rates, and contribute to the civic and economic life of their communities. Assimilation is not disappearing; it is happening the same way it always has—gradually, generationally, and through shared participation in American institutions.
What truly threatens e pluribus unum is not cultural diversity but the fear‑based narrative that diversity itself is a danger. America’s strength has never come from cultural uniformity. It has come from a constitutional framework capable of welcoming difference while forging common purpose.
Rather than fearing replacement, we should recognize what history shows: newcomers do not erase America—they renew it.
The recent discussion above reminds me of a letter to the editor of the local paper I had just read. I quote it below: . . . .
Just noting, @Gramps49, that reposting that letter on a public website, especially without any attribution and, if it’s the case, without permission, may be problematic from a copyright standpoint.
What are the shared values and norms which have been eroded?
Are you suggesting that all immigrants to the UK have instantly conformed to all social values and norms that existed prior to their arrival? Or that the changing social acceptance of those with Epiphanic qualities wasn’t in fact a change at all?
You can argue that the set of values and norms that existed in the past needed to change, and that the direction of travel is a desirable one. That’s fine. But don’t try to pretend that they haven’t changed at all, or that the imposition of those changes hasn’t caused an increase in social fragmentation, the loss of a sense of community, and the rise of reactionary politics.
If anything traditional Muslim values regarding Epiphanies issues are closer to traditional Christian values (traditional is doing a lot of work there I know, it’s a shorthand) than modern secularism. Yet the people yelling about integration are typically also harking back to “traditional values” and our identity as a Christian nation. - it makes no sense without an element of racism.
The recent discussion above reminds me of a letter to the editor of the local paper I had just read. I quote it below: . . . .
Just noting, @Gramps49, that reposting that letter on a public website, especially without any attribution and, if it’s the case, without permission, may be problematic from a copyright standpoint.
Point taken. The letter was published in the Lewiston Tribune on Sunday 1 March, 2024.
We all pay tax to HMRC. We all use shared civic resources. We live in the same communities. So what exactly do you mean by social cohesion?
I mean the sense of “us” and “them”. The way I see it today, Britain is made up of several different groups of “us” each of which sees the others as “them”. That impacts all kinds of things, not least shared resources like the NHS. People are, generally, more willing to share resources with people they perceive as “us”, and less willing to share them with people they perceive as “them”. As the sense of community and social cohesion diminishes, so does the support for whole-nation politics. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the far right is on the rise in most Western countries. I think it’s a reaction to the amount of social change and fragmentation that’s happened over the last few decades.
The recent discussion above reminds me of a letter to the editor of the local paper I had just read. I quote it below: . . . .
Just noting, @Gramps49, that reposting that letter on a public website, especially without any attribution and, if it’s the case, without permission, may be problematic from a copyright standpoint.
Point taken. The letter was published in the Lewiston Tribune on Sunday 1 March, 2024.
I forgot to add it.
But the person who wrote the letter (who I assume is “XX” later in your post) is likely the person who owns the copyright. Either way, posting the entire letter here without the permission of whoever owns the copyright—the writer or the paper—is quite possibly a copyright violation.
We all pay tax to HMRC. We all use shared civic resources. We live in the same communities. So what exactly do you mean by social cohesion?
I mean the sense of “us” and “them”. The way I see it today, Britain is made up of several different groups of “us” each of which sees the others as “them”. That impacts all kinds of things, not least shared resources like the NHS. People are, generally, more willing to share resources with people they perceive as “us”, and less willing to share them with people they perceive as “them”. As the sense of community and social cohesion diminishes, so does the support for whole-nation politics. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the far right is on the rise in most Western countries. I think it’s a reaction to the amount of social change and fragmentation that’s happened over the last few decades.
Thatcherism/Reaganism certainly did a number on class consciousness and associated solidarity, but I think you underestimate the role of propaganda. There are now a lot of extremely wealthy racists in control of much of the media, and social media has created an algorithmic environment that rewards outrage even when the owners are not putting their thumb on the scales to favour the far right.
We all pay tax to HMRC. We all use shared civic resources. We live in the same communities. So what exactly do you mean by social cohesion?
I mean the sense of “us” and “them”. The way I see it today, Britain is made up of several different groups of “us” each of which sees the others as “them”. That impacts all kinds of things, not least shared resources like the NHS. People are, generally, more willing to share resources with people they perceive as “us”, and less willing to share them with people they perceive as “them”. As the sense of community and social cohesion diminishes, so does the support for whole-nation politics. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the far right is on the rise in most Western countries. I think it’s a reaction to the amount of social change and fragmentation that’s happened over the last few decades.
I don't know anyone who has a problem sharing the NHS with other people, I've not heard anyone say that other ethnicities are not entitled to the NHS. I have heard nonsense spoken about illegal immigrants, but that's not couched in terms of ethnicity.
There is a 'them' and 'us' but the divide is between people who use the NHS, work low paid jobs and send their kids to the local Academy school on the one side and those who have private health insurance, fat company pensions and send their kids to expensive private schools on the other.
"fat company pensions" are a thing of the past. Very few people are retiring with them, and even fewer actively earning them. Such "fat" pensions as there are are very much a quid pro quo for relatively modest public sector pay, and as such are leaner than they might be: 2/3 of less than it could be is a lot less than it could be. As usual, the conservative position bends away from the truth.
Automatic enrolment is creating very lean pensions as a privatised alternative to increasing the state pension. People are starting to retire with them, and finding just how lean these pensions are.
You appear to be missing the point or not understanding the paradox of tolerance.
The point of the paradox of tolerance is that if you think tolerance is a good you think intolerance is bad. If you think it's good to live and let live, you rather have to object to the people who aren't letting live.
I think maybe you need to read up on Bullfrog's paradox of intolerance.
And why do you think that? Here is the wikipedia article. Which bit of "a truly tolerant society must retain the right to deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance" do you think I need to read up on?
You appear to be missing the point or not understanding the paradox of tolerance.
The point of the paradox of tolerance is that if you think tolerance is a good you think intolerance is bad. If you think it's good to live and let live, you rather have to object to the people who aren't letting live.
I think maybe you need to read up on Bullfrog's paradox of intolerance.
And why do you think that? Here is the wikipedia article. Which bit of "a truly tolerant society must retain the right to deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance" do you think I need to read up on?
Since the @WhimsicalChristian is citing me as an authority, for some reason I do not fully understand, I shall exercise my granted authority and declare that @Dafyd has the right end of the stick in this matter, as I do understand it.
Also, far as "us" and "them," I find that one very simple:
Don't feed the nativism. Scarcity will always be a problem. You have to be willing to share with people with no concern for "where are they from?"
Trust me, if nativists didn't have "nationality" to start sneering at people for, they'd find something else to sneer at people for. This isn't unique to England.
And seeing a Christian give cover to that kind of "thinking" is truly shocking to some part of me. No offense, but it's an emotional tic of mine.
It's shocking because it's entirely against the teachings of Christ. Actually, that's not entirely true: the gospel record is ambivalent. There is a lot of "them" and "us", because that was the live issue at the time the gospels were finalised - who is a Christian and how do they become one? "Whoever is not for me is against me" comes up against many of Christ's more inclusive sayings. Also one of Paul's more inclusive sayings: "In Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Greek [etc]". The Christian tradition is not wholly in one camp or the other. The point requiring discernment is where the balance, the weight of the faith sits. To me, it is on the inclusive side, because all were caught up in both the crucifixion and the resurrection, and indeed the ascension - all signs of humanity caught up in the reality of God.
And I really need to find a better paradox to append myself to, because I love paradoxes. But the paradox of tolerance isn't something I came up with. That notions is...*checks wikipedia*...older than my dad. Thank Karl Popper for that one.
I think 'social cohesion' is a very dangerous tack because the goalposts for who's in and part of the 'good' socially cohesive folk and who's out and a threat constantly change - and they are set overall by irresponsible opinion influencers in politics and in newspapers and other media who can and do manufacture new enemies at the drop of a hat.
For example Catholics and particularly Irish Catholics were considered a different culture and even a different race and their mass immigration a threat to society within living memory ( in some quarters still are). Meanwhile new 'threat to society' enemies are being set up - trans people and neurodivergent people among them. 'These people cost too much and are fakers' is a rallying call for society to cohere against us.
The theory might be that people will pay more generous welfare benefits if they feel their society is socially cohesive but in practice it's often used by political parties who serve rich donors as a populist dogwhistle against those who they 'other' and they will absolutely tear down what's left of the social safety net to deliver tax cuts to their masters.
By the time socety looks 'cohesive' to them it will have been purged and ethnically cleansed and it won't actually be cohesive at all because their policies widen the gap between rich and poor. It'll just look white and people in any way different will be persecuted.
We all pay tax to HMRC. We all use shared civic resources. We live in the same communities. So what exactly do you mean by social cohesion?
I mean the sense of “us” and “them”. The way I see it today, Britain is made up of several different groups of “us” each of which sees the others as “them”. That impacts all kinds of things, not least shared resources like the NHS. People are, generally, more willing to share resources with people they perceive as “us”, and less willing to share them with people they perceive as “them”. As the sense of community and social cohesion diminishes, so does the support for whole-nation politics. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the far right is on the rise in most Western countries. I think it’s a reaction to the amount of social change and fragmentation that’s happened over the last few decades.
Yes. And the rise of the right is generally ignored as "misinformation and etc".
Those that ignore the significant rise of the right in many European countries, even Australia, are ignoring the democratic principles and brushing them off as all idiots. That's very tunnel visioned and dismissive of huge numbers of your countrymen.
We all pay tax to HMRC. We all use shared civic resources. We live in the same communities. So what exactly do you mean by social cohesion?
I mean the sense of “us” and “them”. The way I see it today, Britain is made up of several different groups of “us” each of which sees the others as “them”. That impacts all kinds of things, not least shared resources like the NHS. People are, generally, more willing to share resources with people they perceive as “us”, and less willing to share them with people they perceive as “them”. As the sense of community and social cohesion diminishes, so does the support for whole-nation politics. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the far right is on the rise in most Western countries. I think it’s a reaction to the amount of social change and fragmentation that’s happened over the last few decades.
Yes. And the rise of the right is generally ignored as "misinformation and etc".
Those that ignore the significant rise of the right in many European countries, even Australia, are ignoring the democratic principles and brushing them off as all idiots. That's very tunnel visioned and dismissive of huge numbers of your countrymen.
When I say "misinformation" I mean things which are objectively not true:
"Vaccines cause autism"
"mRNA vaccines change your DNA"
"The Elite plan to replace white people in the West"
'Asylum Seekers are given free phones and cars by the government"
"Asylum seekers are Islamic invaders with a secret plan to take over"
And I never say "and etc." because the 'et' means 'and' so it would be a tautology.
You appear to be missing the point or not understanding the paradox of tolerance.
The point of the paradox of tolerance is that if you think tolerance is a good you think intolerance is bad. If you think it's good to live and let live, you rather have to object to the people who aren't letting live.
I think maybe you need to read up on Bullfrog's paradox of intolerance.
And why do you think that? Here is the wikipedia article. Which bit of "a truly tolerant society must retain the right to deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance" do you think I need to read up on?
Uh. I said that already. The left is allowed to be intolerant when it suits them.
You just can't complain when the right do the same.
What are the shared values and norms which have been eroded? And how does that lead to Brexit or the election of Muslim MPs?
I think you need to join the dots in your narrative.
I don't think we're allowed to talk about that here.
But presumably the police cover up of the Pakistani rape gangs has been discussed already.
Cover ups of child sexual abuse are by no means limited to those perpetrated by men of Pakistani descent. Astonishing that with an international child rape gang comprised almost entirely of wealthy white men all over the news somehow the existence of child rapists of Pakistani descent is treated as a foreign aberration rather than a universal problem of male entitlement.
@The_Riv Riv and @Nick Tamen it was my comment days (weeks?) ago on the perceived threat to conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity.
That can be considered a harm to some.
The question we asked is exactly how are those “some” actually harmed by perceived threats to conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity? Just because I consider something to be a harm doesn’t mean it actually is a harm.
The way I see it today, Britain is made up of several different groups of “us” each of which sees the others as “them”. That impacts all kinds of things, not least shared resources like the NHS. People are, generally, more willing to share resources with people they perceive as “us”, and less willing to share them with people they perceive as “them”.
I find this particularly bewildering. I was in hospital last week: the surgeon was Spanish, of the nursing team, I judge one was Eastern European, one from the Indian sub-continent, another from the Horn of Africa and a Muslim. They aren't 'sharing' the resource, they are the resource.
I simply don't understand the concept of something that belongs exclusively to me and those like me (Grumpy Old Irishwomen?) but not to those working and contributing to my standard of living and, indeed, survival.
@WhimsicalChristian Conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity change over time, and across cultures. For instance, women wearing trousers, men wearing make up, and so on.
@WhimsicalChristian I don't think any of us here are dismissing or ignoring the rise of the right.
Heck, most of us are painfully aware of it.
What I do find - and no, I'm not dismissing all right-wingers as 'idiots' is that those on the right who moan the loudest about 'mainstream' or 'legacy media' often think nothing of citing highly questionable sources or spreading misinformation themselves.
I used to think that the Conservatives were pretty bad at making unsubstantiated claims in their local and regional election literature until Reform came along.
They think nothing of spreading misinformation through social media and making extravagant claims in their election literature that they know darn well they can't back up.
I'm not saying that populism is an entirely right-wing phenomenon. Heck, Zack Polanski of the UK's Green Party unashamedly claims to be a populist.
Corbyn is a populist too.
Of course, whether we cut Polanski and Corbyn more slack than we'd cut Farage or Tice is going to depend on where we stand politically.
That isn't to say there's an equivalence necessarily. I'd openly say I'd cut the first two more slack than the second, which doesn't mean I'd vote for either of them or agree with everything they come out with.
What worries me about the rise of the right is what I see as a very real danger of discrimination against minorities, the vulnerable and the scapegoating of groups or individuals. There are very genuine concerns about that.
Yes. And the rise of the right is generally ignored as "misinformation and etc".
Those that ignore the significant rise of the right in many European countries, even Australia, are ignoring the democratic principles and brushing them off as all idiots. That's very tunnel visioned and dismissive of huge numbers of your countrymen.
Those are my relatives you're talking about. And I got that really funny feeling of "I love you dearly and you're being a self-destructive hateful bigot." The fact that a lot of people are choosing bigotry doesn't mean it ain't bigotry. It just means bigotry is getting popular again.
As my right wing step-cousin once said about gay marriage, "What's right ain't always popular, and what's popular ain't always right."
I spend a lot of my time yelling at leftists for their failure to understand rural conservatives, I just whipped out a metaphorical shotgun on someone on bsky the other day for being stupid about West Virginia. I know what you're talking about there.
But that don't mean that rural conservatives aren't being stupid, hateful, or unreasonably mean and self destructive. It doesn't mean they aren't selling out to corruption, greed, and pretty much every deadly sin at the same time.
I’d also note that these threads are discussing the underlying nature of morality, ethics and social norms as things in their own right, rather than any specific form or outworking thereof. A meta-discussion, if you will.
Well, that could be a thread all of its own. But I don't think it's coincidental that the reduction in social cohesion in the UK that's come from the erosion of shared values and social norms over the last few decades has resulted in Brexit and the rise of Reform, or for that matter the recent election of Muslim Independents to Parliament. Our society
(if, indeed, it is still a single society) is becoming more fractured.
Maybe it's just me, but doesn't a supposed decrease in social cohesion count as an "outworking thereof" rather than something inherent in "morality, ethics and social norms"?
We all pay tax to HMRC. We all use shared civic resources. We live in the same communities. So what exactly do you mean by social cohesion?
I mean the sense of “us” and “them”. The way I see it today, Britain is made up of several different groups of “us” each of which sees the others as “them”. That impacts all kinds of things, not least shared resources like the NHS. People are, generally, more willing to share resources with people they perceive as “us”, and less willing to share them with people they perceive as “them”. As the sense of community and social cohesion diminishes, so does the support for whole-nation politics. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the far right is on the rise in most Western countries. I think it’s a reaction to the amount of social change and fragmentation that’s happened over the last few decades.
This reminded me of your exchange with @Doublethink that "British Jews are part of our society". This is not a traditional view. For example, G.K. Chesterton referred to British Jews as "foreigners; only foreigners that were not called foreigners". This was not an uncommon belief in the 1930s. I guess my question is whether moving this "them" group into the "us" category over the past century was destructive of what you call "social cohesion"? My belief is that it is actually an example of increasing social cohesion, but maybe I'm using that term differently than you are.
I can't 'speak to' your particular context, @Bullfrog but recognise what you are saying and there can be a metropolitan smugness towards socially-conservative working-class/blue collar folks here too.
Our Australian friends can enlighten us further but I detected a certain condescension towards Adelaide when I visited Melbourne - not in a 'classist' way but in the sense that the former was seen as a bit backward, rural and less progressive.
Conversely, Melbourne was regarded with some suspicion in Adelaide as a place which was too politically-correct for its own good.
Even allowing for the context, Farage describing his busy schedule, comments from right-wing politicians like, 'I don't listen to music. I don't watch television. I don't read' hardly fill me with confidence about the populist right.
But no, not all right-wingers are 'idiots'. Of course not. But populism plays to the gallery.
Elon Musk backed Trump in the last election precisely for these values. To prevent government censorship, freedom of speech and cancel culture. That's why he bought Twitter.
I can't 'speak to' your particular context, @Bullfrog but recognise what you are saying and there can be a metropolitan smugness towards socially-conservative working-class/blue collar folks here too.
Our Australian friends can enlighten us further but I detected a certain condescension towards Adelaide when I visited Melbourne - not in a 'classist' way but in the sense that the former was seen as a bit backward, rural and less progressive.
Conversely, Melbourne was regarded with some suspicion in Adelaide as a place which was too politically-correct for its own good.
Even allowing for the context, Farage describing his busy schedule, comments from right-wing politicians like, 'I don't listen to music. I don't watch television. I don't read' hardly fill me with confidence about the populist right.
But no, not all right-wingers are 'idiots'. Of course not. But populism plays to the gallery.
I see what you're worryin' about and it ain't me. And no, they're not stupid. Calling that "stupid" is kind of an insult to stupid people. It's something more sinister, pardon me for insulting left handers, but...I am left handed. See how that works?
And because you've hit on a nerve ending really deep in my identity that takes a lot to explain...sorry guys, it's story time! Sit down, grab some popcorn, settle in. And weaponize my personal history at your own risk. I'm very familiar with rural conservatives because I grew up in a land that was thick with them and my understanding of bigotry comes from familiarity, not from distant mockery or elitism. And yes, bigots can be quite shrewd sometimes, and take some particular handling and care. I wouldn't insult idiots like that.
Honestly, small towns have so much more nuance and I can tell from the way you talk, @Gamma Gamaliel , that you're not familiar. So watch out, I'm not that familiar either but I think I have more nuance about this than you realize.
I may live in Chicago, but I'm not originally from a metro area. Go find 'Coney on a map. That's what locals call it. Hint: It's in Maryland. Google is your friend.
'Coney is very near to where I'm from, hometown to one of my best friends from...*does math*...30 years or so. I'm from nearby Frostburg and Cumberland, which are easier to locate.
Probably the first time I ever got hit with "metropolitan elitism" full in the face was when I was in undergrad and this young woman walks up to me...
"Where are you from?"
"Western Maryland."
"Oh! Do you know any rednecks?"
*brief double-take followed by a quiet stare*
"Yeah, I got some in my family."
*quiet stare continues until the unfortunate liberal elitist leaves my presence in silence*
Yeah. I know what you're talking about, but I fucking hate metropolitan elitism. I'm fiercely protective of small towns and have a great big chip on my shoulder about rural Appalachia in particular. The phrase "voting against their own self interest" will instantly drive my rural twang up to 11 along with my temper and I will stop giving a flying fuck about your political preferences and start telling you off on behalf of my poor neighbors because goddammit I expect better of you than that, fuckwit liberal ass who clearly never leaves the city. As black folks like to say, "stay in your lane." I cross lanes on the regular. It's what I do. It has led to accidents, very educational.
That said, are some small town folks from Western Maryland being kinda harmful and ignorant when they support a big city slicker exploiter who is blatantly feeding off of racism, nativism, and every kind of bigotry under the sun? Yes, they are! No shit! I know locals who'd say the same thing with twice as much anger as I carry! Because they still live around these folks! It's painful to watch and share in the suffering.
That's not metropolitan elitism from me, sir. That's years of close observation coupled with sympathetic pain and some deep understanding, also trauma. I know what I'm talking about because, frankly, I grew up in that world and it was a damned close thing and a few very dear friends that kept me from hating it.
Or as the fine queer North Carolinian country musician Adeem the Artist once said at a concert I attended, introducing this wonderful ditty:
Spreading unfortunate stereotypes? I was born there! Spreading unfortunate stereotypes about where I'm from is my birthright!
All in love of course. My love often looks like anger because that's the cost of integrity for me. As they say in the city, "we cool."
But do me a solid and don't accuse me of being an ignorant city slicker. I don't think you have enough cred to pull that off. You're still talking about small towns as abstractions.
Note to self: You don't like being called an urban elitist. Maybe try to avoid that situation.
On the other hand, it is rather patronizing when people from rural areas are making absolutely terrible choices to say "Oh, they can't help it! It's patronizing and elitist to say that they're making terrible choices!" Welp, those are terrible choices. And they're harmful. And they're not even helping themselves. I know folks from my own high school who understand this. I've tried prying into @WhimsicalChristian to see if he can explain with some depth but...nope. Just weaponizing and "hey! There are a lot of "us" and "we are angry!" No shit, sherlock. These are your foot soldiers? Marching as to war? Under whose orders? Interesting...
Maybe I should start a new Purg thread on the psychology of the average small town conservative. God knows I know some of these folks and I've been carrying my pet hypotheses for years.
Trouble is this could turn into an "own voice" situation and I do not envy anyone who has to give voice to that particular corner of the world. I'm close enough to try, but...nah. I'm not that close and it would involve a lot of screaming and swearing. There's a reason I've been quietly angry for years, though I'll be damned if I sell my soul out to That Guy.
You guys think I'm hard to understand now? *whistles* There's a reason that I'm hard to understand when I employ my more native accent and go "hick" on people. For the unenlightened, "hick" is shorthand for "unfortunate rural stereotype." I kind of am one sometimes, which is why I find this "Oh, the poor rural folks..." dynamic deeply aggravating.
You're kind of talking about me, though you don't realize it.
Elon Musk backed Trump in the last election precisely for these values. To prevent government censorship, freedom of speech and cancel culture. That's why he bought Twitter.
Kind of a adaptation: If you meet one small town conservative, you will have met one small town conservative.
My point is be careful about painting who is conservative--or who is liberal, for that matter--in a broad brush stroke
At the same time, there are definitely trends and people get pulled into them.
You can't talk about a political movement without talking about people in large numbers. Cultures are real, and there are patterns to elections. @WhimsicalChristian isn't wrong to acknowledge that Trumpism is more popular in some places than others and I do see some of what they're kvetching about.
At the same time, it's wrong to say that Trumpism is universal to rural America or completely absent from urban America (speaking from the USA context because that's where I live.)
A little nuance goes a long way. Election maps do not lie, but they also do not tell the whole story. The urban/rural election divide does exist, but the reasons it exists are a lot more complex, I think, than most individuals are aware.
That's my beef, so to speak. I do think there's some truth to the usual canard that people in rural America are voting for stupid reasons and there's a measure of "FAFO" that's going to come down in the future. But that doesn't mean they're stupid.
And that might be the problem with this whole thread. It's framed as "progressives" versus "conservatives" and here we are talking in a crippling binary because that's how the entire conversation is being framed from the very start. No kidding, real world politics is truthfully a lot more complex than that. I know it, but...you can't talk about two factions without cramming people into said factions.
And darkly, there's a lot of power to be made in cramming people into a faction and giving them marching orders.
The point of the paradox of tolerance is that if you think tolerance is a good you think intolerance is bad. If you think it's good to live and let live, you rather have to object to the people who aren't letting live.
I think maybe you need to read up on Bullfrog's paradox of intolerance.
And why do you think that? Here is the wikipedia article. Which bit of "a truly tolerant society must retain the right to deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance" do you think I need to read up on?
Uh. I said that already. The left is allowed to be intolerant when it suits them.
You just can't complain when the right do the same.[/quote]You have not answered my question, nor have you said it already. It's true that you're repeating yourself, but what you're repeating is your starting position.
No, the left is not allowed to be intolerant whenever it suits them. The position is that one has to be intolerant only when other people are being intolerant first, and only of the intolerance.
People who want to be intolerant obviously don't like this, which why they make up specious comparisons. I note you implicitly say that the right don't have principles about when it's ok to be intolerant and when it isn't; they just want to be intolerant when it suits them - you explicitly say that the right do what you're accusing the left of doing.
It's like a criminal complaining that the police are allowed to arrest people when it suits them, so the police can't complain when the criminal does the same. For that matter, you never have said why it's alright for the right to be intolerant of deviations from social norms, but not alright for radical Islamic theocrats to be intolerant. You said the cases were different because... you said the cases were different.
To echo something you wrote on another thread about not dissing RCs and Orthodox @Bullfrog and if my post was misleading, I'm not accusing you of metropolitan elitism.
I was simply making the observation that metropolitan elitism is a thing, not accusing you of it. You've shared a few things about your particular background on these boards before and whilst I've said I can't 'speak to' your situation I can certainly feel your passion.
I think we are posting at cross purposes here.
And yes, I think things can become too binary and polarised and that bothers me too.
Comments
Why is the sort of thing we're talking about on here a threat to social cohesion? What even is social cohesion?
What has been asserted is that one boy turning up at prom in a dress is such a threat to social cohesion that it harms those who value the social cohesive status quo. That’s the claim, but no evidence has been put forward to support that claim, to demonstrate that the harm claimed is real, actual, observable harm.
Harm requires more than “I don’t like it,” or “it’s not how I/we think things should be” or “I don’t like where this might head.”
Well, that could be a thread all of its own. But I don't think it's coincidental that the reduction in social cohesion in the UK that's come from the erosion of shared values and social norms over the last few decades has resulted in Brexit and the rise of Reform, or for that matter the recent election of Muslim Independents to Parliament. Our society
(if, indeed, it is still a single society) is becoming more fractured.
What are the shared values and norms which have been eroded? And how does that lead to Brexit or the election of Muslim MPs?
I think you need to join the dots in your narrative.
Seems like you are just pointing at specific things and then claiming that they show your conclusion (which is something about social cohesion).
There have long been independent MPs in the British House of Commons. When Keir Hardie became an MP in 1892 it was as an independent.
Muslims have obviously long been a part of British society. Several hundred years ago the first Somali sailors came, Muslims fought and died in two world wars for the British Empire.
So what can you possibly mean about social cohesion in the last few decades?
Are you suggesting that all immigrants to the UK have instantly conformed to all social values and norms that existed prior to their arrival? Or that the changing social acceptance of those with Epiphanic qualities wasn’t in fact a change at all?
You can argue that the set of values and norms that existed in the past needed to change, and that the direction of travel is a desirable one. That’s fine. But don’t try to pretend that they haven’t changed at all, or that the imposition of those changes hasn’t caused an increase in social fragmentation, the loss of a sense of community, and the rise of reactionary politics.
Reactionary politics tend to find scape goats that are acceptable to reactionary politicians and those that fund them, and what they say is not necessarily the truth.
Why are you changing the subject? We are trying to understand you and instead of answering the question you are deflecting.
Unless you are talking about historically excluded communities - which includes Romany and travellers - where's the evidence that any of the immigrant communities lack cohesion?
We all pay tax to HMRC. We all use shared civic resources. We live in the same communities. So what exactly do you mean by social cohesion? What exactly has changed?
Next is my response:
XX argues that America is at risk of being “replaced by other cultures from other countries,” and that today’s immigrants no longer value e pluribus unum or assimilation. But this framing misrepresents both our history and the lived reality of immigration today. America has never been a static cultural artifact created once and preserved in amber. It has always been a dynamic, evolving nation shaped by successive waves of newcomers—Germans, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Scandinavians, Eastern Europeans, and many others—each of whom was once accused of refusing to assimilate. Over time, they became part of the American story, not a threat to it.
The idea that immigrants today “enjoy everything America has to offer except assimilation” is not supported by evidence. Immigrants learn English at rates equal to or faster than previous generations. Their children overwhelmingly identify as American. They serve in our military, start businesses at high rates, and contribute to the civic and economic life of their communities. Assimilation is not disappearing; it is happening the same way it always has—gradually, generationally, and through shared participation in American institutions.
What truly threatens e pluribus unum is not cultural diversity but the fear‑based narrative that diversity itself is a danger. America’s strength has never come from cultural uniformity. It has come from a constitutional framework capable of welcoming difference while forging common purpose.
Rather than fearing replacement, we should recognize what history shows: newcomers do not erase America—they renew it.
If anything traditional Muslim values regarding Epiphanies issues are closer to traditional Christian values (traditional is doing a lot of work there I know, it’s a shorthand) than modern secularism. Yet the people yelling about integration are typically also harking back to “traditional values” and our identity as a Christian nation. - it makes no sense without an element of racism.
Queen Elizabeth II as a hijabi.
Point taken. The letter was published in the Lewiston Tribune on Sunday 1 March, 2024.
I forgot to add it.
I mean the sense of “us” and “them”. The way I see it today, Britain is made up of several different groups of “us” each of which sees the others as “them”. That impacts all kinds of things, not least shared resources like the NHS. People are, generally, more willing to share resources with people they perceive as “us”, and less willing to share them with people they perceive as “them”. As the sense of community and social cohesion diminishes, so does the support for whole-nation politics. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the far right is on the rise in most Western countries. I think it’s a reaction to the amount of social change and fragmentation that’s happened over the last few decades.
Thatcherism/Reaganism certainly did a number on class consciousness and associated solidarity, but I think you underestimate the role of propaganda. There are now a lot of extremely wealthy racists in control of much of the media, and social media has created an algorithmic environment that rewards outrage even when the owners are not putting their thumb on the scales to favour the far right.
I don't know anyone who has a problem sharing the NHS with other people, I've not heard anyone say that other ethnicities are not entitled to the NHS. I have heard nonsense spoken about illegal immigrants, but that's not couched in terms of ethnicity.
There is a 'them' and 'us' but the divide is between people who use the NHS, work low paid jobs and send their kids to the local Academy school on the one side and those who have private health insurance, fat company pensions and send their kids to expensive private schools on the other.
Automatic enrolment is creating very lean pensions as a privatised alternative to increasing the state pension. People are starting to retire with them, and finding just how lean these pensions are.
Since the @WhimsicalChristian is citing me as an authority, for some reason I do not fully understand, I shall exercise my granted authority and declare that @Dafyd has the right end of the stick in this matter, as I do understand it.
Don't feed the nativism. Scarcity will always be a problem. You have to be willing to share with people with no concern for "where are they from?"
Trust me, if nativists didn't have "nationality" to start sneering at people for, they'd find something else to sneer at people for. This isn't unique to England.
And seeing a Christian give cover to that kind of "thinking" is truly shocking to some part of me. No offense, but it's an emotional tic of mine.
For example Catholics and particularly Irish Catholics were considered a different culture and even a different race and their mass immigration a threat to society within living memory ( in some quarters still are). Meanwhile new 'threat to society' enemies are being set up - trans people and neurodivergent people among them. 'These people cost too much and are fakers' is a rallying call for society to cohere against us.
The theory might be that people will pay more generous welfare benefits if they feel their society is socially cohesive but in practice it's often used by political parties who serve rich donors as a populist dogwhistle against those who they 'other' and they will absolutely tear down what's left of the social safety net to deliver tax cuts to their masters.
By the time socety looks 'cohesive' to them it will have been purged and ethnically cleansed and it won't actually be cohesive at all because their policies widen the gap between rich and poor. It'll just look white and people in any way different will be persecuted.
Yes. And the rise of the right is generally ignored as "misinformation and etc".
Those that ignore the significant rise of the right in many European countries, even Australia, are ignoring the democratic principles and brushing them off as all idiots. That's very tunnel visioned and dismissive of huge numbers of your countrymen.
When I say "misinformation" I mean things which are objectively not true:
"Vaccines cause autism"
"mRNA vaccines change your DNA"
"The Elite plan to replace white people in the West"
'Asylum Seekers are given free phones and cars by the government"
"Asylum seekers are Islamic invaders with a secret plan to take over"
And I never say "and etc." because the 'et' means 'and' so it would be a tautology.
That can be considered a harm to some.
Uh. I said that already. The left is allowed to be intolerant when it suits them.
You just can't complain when the right do the same.
I don't think we're allowed to talk about that here.
But presumably the police cover up of the Pakistani rape gangs has been discussed already.
Cover ups of child sexual abuse are by no means limited to those perpetrated by men of Pakistani descent. Astonishing that with an international child rape gang comprised almost entirely of wealthy white men all over the news somehow the existence of child rapists of Pakistani descent is treated as a foreign aberration rather than a universal problem of male entitlement.
I find this particularly bewildering. I was in hospital last week: the surgeon was Spanish, of the nursing team, I judge one was Eastern European, one from the Indian sub-continent, another from the Horn of Africa and a Muslim. They aren't 'sharing' the resource, they are the resource.
I simply don't understand the concept of something that belongs exclusively to me and those like me (Grumpy Old Irishwomen?) but not to those working and contributing to my standard of living and, indeed, survival.
Largely a case of existing attitudes to children in foster care coupled with police corruption. All thoroughly British.
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
X posted with @la vie en rouge
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
Thanks for the edit.
Heck, most of us are painfully aware of it.
What I do find - and no, I'm not dismissing all right-wingers as 'idiots' is that those on the right who moan the loudest about 'mainstream' or 'legacy media' often think nothing of citing highly questionable sources or spreading misinformation themselves.
I used to think that the Conservatives were pretty bad at making unsubstantiated claims in their local and regional election literature until Reform came along.
They think nothing of spreading misinformation through social media and making extravagant claims in their election literature that they know darn well they can't back up.
I'm not saying that populism is an entirely right-wing phenomenon. Heck, Zack Polanski of the UK's Green Party unashamedly claims to be a populist.
Corbyn is a populist too.
Of course, whether we cut Polanski and Corbyn more slack than we'd cut Farage or Tice is going to depend on where we stand politically.
That isn't to say there's an equivalence necessarily. I'd openly say I'd cut the first two more slack than the second, which doesn't mean I'd vote for either of them or agree with everything they come out with.
What worries me about the rise of the right is what I see as a very real danger of discrimination against minorities, the vulnerable and the scapegoating of groups or individuals. There are very genuine concerns about that.
Those are my relatives you're talking about. And I got that really funny feeling of "I love you dearly and you're being a self-destructive hateful bigot." The fact that a lot of people are choosing bigotry doesn't mean it ain't bigotry. It just means bigotry is getting popular again.
As my right wing step-cousin once said about gay marriage, "What's right ain't always popular, and what's popular ain't always right."
I spend a lot of my time yelling at leftists for their failure to understand rural conservatives, I just whipped out a metaphorical shotgun on someone on bsky the other day for being stupid about West Virginia. I know what you're talking about there.
But that don't mean that rural conservatives aren't being stupid, hateful, or unreasonably mean and self destructive. It doesn't mean they aren't selling out to corruption, greed, and pretty much every deadly sin at the same time.
So, Christian, what have we here?
Maybe it's just me, but doesn't a supposed decrease in social cohesion count as an "outworking thereof" rather than something inherent in "morality, ethics and social norms"?
This reminded me of your exchange with @Doublethink that "British Jews are part of our society". This is not a traditional view. For example, G.K. Chesterton referred to British Jews as "foreigners; only foreigners that were not called foreigners". This was not an uncommon belief in the 1930s. I guess my question is whether moving this "them" group into the "us" category over the past century was destructive of what you call "social cohesion"? My belief is that it is actually an example of increasing social cohesion, but maybe I'm using that term differently than you are.
Our Australian friends can enlighten us further but I detected a certain condescension towards Adelaide when I visited Melbourne - not in a 'classist' way but in the sense that the former was seen as a bit backward, rural and less progressive.
Conversely, Melbourne was regarded with some suspicion in Adelaide as a place which was too politically-correct for its own good.
Even allowing for the context, Farage describing his busy schedule, comments from right-wing politicians like, 'I don't listen to music. I don't watch television. I don't read' hardly fill me with confidence about the populist right.
But no, not all right-wingers are 'idiots'. Of course not. But populism plays to the gallery.
This is pretty typical. Whine about censorship and then try to dictate what other people are allowed to complain about.
I see what you're worryin' about and it ain't me. And no, they're not stupid. Calling that "stupid" is kind of an insult to stupid people. It's something more sinister, pardon me for insulting left handers, but...I am left handed. See how that works?
And because you've hit on a nerve ending really deep in my identity that takes a lot to explain...sorry guys, it's story time! Sit down, grab some popcorn, settle in. And weaponize my personal history at your own risk. I'm very familiar with rural conservatives because I grew up in a land that was thick with them and my understanding of bigotry comes from familiarity, not from distant mockery or elitism. And yes, bigots can be quite shrewd sometimes, and take some particular handling and care. I wouldn't insult idiots like that.
Honestly, small towns have so much more nuance and I can tell from the way you talk, @Gamma Gamaliel , that you're not familiar. So watch out, I'm not that familiar either but I think I have more nuance about this than you realize.
I may live in Chicago, but I'm not originally from a metro area. Go find 'Coney on a map. That's what locals call it. Hint: It's in Maryland. Google is your friend.
'Coney is very near to where I'm from, hometown to one of my best friends from...*does math*...30 years or so. I'm from nearby Frostburg and Cumberland, which are easier to locate.
Probably the first time I ever got hit with "metropolitan elitism" full in the face was when I was in undergrad and this young woman walks up to me... Yeah. I know what you're talking about, but I fucking hate metropolitan elitism. I'm fiercely protective of small towns and have a great big chip on my shoulder about rural Appalachia in particular. The phrase "voting against their own self interest" will instantly drive my rural twang up to 11 along with my temper and I will stop giving a flying fuck about your political preferences and start telling you off on behalf of my poor neighbors because goddammit I expect better of you than that, fuckwit liberal ass who clearly never leaves the city. As black folks like to say, "stay in your lane." I cross lanes on the regular. It's what I do. It has led to accidents, very educational.
That said, are some small town folks from Western Maryland being kinda harmful and ignorant when they support a big city slicker exploiter who is blatantly feeding off of racism, nativism, and every kind of bigotry under the sun? Yes, they are! No shit! I know locals who'd say the same thing with twice as much anger as I carry! Because they still live around these folks! It's painful to watch and share in the suffering.
That's not metropolitan elitism from me, sir. That's years of close observation coupled with sympathetic pain and some deep understanding, also trauma. I know what I'm talking about because, frankly, I grew up in that world and it was a damned close thing and a few very dear friends that kept me from hating it.
Or as the fine queer North Carolinian country musician Adeem the Artist once said at a concert I attended, introducing this wonderful ditty: And here's another hyper local case study if you want to talk about rural poverty and stereotypes. Do lend a hand if you're actually concerned about the nuanced reality instead of lazy "urban versus rural" narrative.
All in love of course. My love often looks like anger because that's the cost of integrity for me. As they say in the city, "we cool."
But do me a solid and don't accuse me of being an ignorant city slicker. I don't think you have enough cred to pull that off. You're still talking about small towns as abstractions.
Note to self: You don't like being called an urban elitist. Maybe try to avoid that situation.
On the other hand, it is rather patronizing when people from rural areas are making absolutely terrible choices to say "Oh, they can't help it! It's patronizing and elitist to say that they're making terrible choices!" Welp, those are terrible choices. And they're harmful. And they're not even helping themselves. I know folks from my own high school who understand this. I've tried prying into @WhimsicalChristian to see if he can explain with some depth but...nope. Just weaponizing and "hey! There are a lot of "us" and "we are angry!" No shit, sherlock. These are your foot soldiers? Marching as to war? Under whose orders? Interesting...
Maybe I should start a new Purg thread on the psychology of the average small town conservative. God knows I know some of these folks and I've been carrying my pet hypotheses for years.
Trouble is this could turn into an "own voice" situation and I do not envy anyone who has to give voice to that particular corner of the world. I'm close enough to try, but...nah. I'm not that close and it would involve a lot of screaming and swearing. There's a reason I've been quietly angry for years, though I'll be damned if I sell my soul out to That Guy.
You guys think I'm hard to understand now? *whistles* There's a reason that I'm hard to understand when I employ my more native accent and go "hick" on people. For the unenlightened, "hick" is shorthand for "unfortunate rural stereotype." I kind of am one sometimes, which is why I find this "Oh, the poor rural folks..." dynamic deeply aggravating.
You're kind of talking about me, though you don't realize it.
Freebie link for that article I posted above, come to think of it.
Musk is doing all kinds of censoring over there on Twitspace.
The passive aggressive whining about censorship is an old argument, I heard it from my uncle when I was a kid. "Political Correctness," wah wah wah.
I would dearly love to hear something new.
My point is be careful about painting who is conservative--or who is liberal, for that matter--in a broad brush stroke
At the same time, there are definitely trends and people get pulled into them.
You can't talk about a political movement without talking about people in large numbers. Cultures are real, and there are patterns to elections. @WhimsicalChristian isn't wrong to acknowledge that Trumpism is more popular in some places than others and I do see some of what they're kvetching about.
At the same time, it's wrong to say that Trumpism is universal to rural America or completely absent from urban America (speaking from the USA context because that's where I live.)
A little nuance goes a long way. Election maps do not lie, but they also do not tell the whole story. The urban/rural election divide does exist, but the reasons it exists are a lot more complex, I think, than most individuals are aware.
That's my beef, so to speak. I do think there's some truth to the usual canard that people in rural America are voting for stupid reasons and there's a measure of "FAFO" that's going to come down in the future. But that doesn't mean they're stupid.
And that might be the problem with this whole thread. It's framed as "progressives" versus "conservatives" and here we are talking in a crippling binary because that's how the entire conversation is being framed from the very start. No kidding, real world politics is truthfully a lot more complex than that. I know it, but...you can't talk about two factions without cramming people into said factions.
And darkly, there's a lot of power to be made in cramming people into a faction and giving them marching orders.
You just can't complain when the right do the same.[/quote]You have not answered my question, nor have you said it already. It's true that you're repeating yourself, but what you're repeating is your starting position.
No, the left is not allowed to be intolerant whenever it suits them. The position is that one has to be intolerant only when other people are being intolerant first, and only of the intolerance.
People who want to be intolerant obviously don't like this, which why they make up specious comparisons. I note you implicitly say that the right don't have principles about when it's ok to be intolerant and when it isn't; they just want to be intolerant when it suits them - you explicitly say that the right do what you're accusing the left of doing.
It's like a criminal complaining that the police are allowed to arrest people when it suits them, so the police can't complain when the criminal does the same. For that matter, you never have said why it's alright for the right to be intolerant of deviations from social norms, but not alright for radical Islamic theocrats to be intolerant. You said the cases were different because... you said the cases were different.
I was simply making the observation that metropolitan elitism is a thing, not accusing you of it. You've shared a few things about your particular background on these boards before and whilst I've said I can't 'speak to' your situation I can certainly feel your passion.
I think we are posting at cross purposes here.
And yes, I think things can become too binary and polarised and that bothers me too.