The spirit of opposition

[aadler]

 
I just saw some kind of online poster, that started out:

Don’t like gay marriages? Don’t get one.
Don’t like cigarettes? Don’t smoke one.
Don’t like abortions? Don’t have one.
Don’t like porn? Don’t watch it.
Don’t like drugs? Don’t do them.
…
— and on and on. The obvious message, underlined at the end, was that we should all be content to live and let live, and leave other people to follow their own preferences.

So I have to wonder what the people who think that sentiment is so wonderful, so apropos, so true, would think if it read:

Don’t like gay-bashing? Don’t bash one.
Don’t like rape? Don’t commit one.
Don’t like genital mutilation? Don’t perform one.
Don’t like car-bombs? Don’t plant one.
Don’t like child molestation? Don’t molest one.
…
— with the same implication of Follow your own inclinations, and leave other people to follow theirs, because it’s none of your business.

Live-and-let-live applies to a lot of things, but it doesn’t apply to everything. We all have things that we disapprove of to the point that we won’t participate in them, and we all have things that we despise to the point where we feel a moral obligation to oppose them.

Either way, as I saw someone observe, you don’t settle the disagreement by dismissing the opposing viewpoint with a smug cliché.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

The distinction is that all the acts in the first list (save, arguably, abortion) involve no aggressive use of force or fraud on another individual, and that all the acts on the second list (save, arguably, "gay bashing" if confined to mere insult) do involve the aggressive use of force or fraud on another individual. The principal being appealed to is that of Natural Right.

[aadler]

As I observed to mymatedave, I formulated the second list not to be an exact counterpart to the first, but to show that the argument itself can’t be applied across the board. In fact, I consciously chose extreme examples for the purpose of making that point in a clear, striking manner.

And, as I observed to you in the reply to a previous comment, my principal objection is to the notion that — to repeat myself — smug clichés can ‘settle’ questions of serious disagreement.