Spin-off discussion #1: Actual taboos

[jack]

http://cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com/846610.html

I notice I listed taboos like "don't support mandatory cycle helmets" not "don't be racist", even though the latter is hopefully more verboten, and I'm not quite sure why.

I think things on the boundary of acceptability get more attention, because they come up more often, and people feel insecure about them. So cycle helmets are likely to start a big discussion, but racism may just get a "don't say that". (Or unfortunately, possibly, many people may be too tired to continue the debate, assuming anyone who hasn't got it yet, won't ever get it.)

But I'm not sure why? Is it because I took anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc to be so obvious that people who disagree are just wrong, rather than breaking a taboo? But that's not right -- it clearly is a taboo, it's just that I can't imagine holding a belief extreme enough to break it, even though I'm sure most of used to at some point in our lives.

Or is it that everyone agrees racism is a lot worse, but there's more people for whom cycle helmets personally affect them, so there's more emotion? I don't think so, but I'm not sure.

Is there a difference between the two groups? Is there any reason the less-wrong ones felt more like a taboo than the more-wrong ones?

Comments

[ceb]

Perhaps length of resulting argument?

[liv]

Racism: I saw a few people in your original discussion about taboos saying things that to my mind boil down to "it's ok to be somewhat racist as long as you couch it in genteel language". So I think there is a minority within your social circles who would in fact question or qualify "don't be racist", but would probably find it taboo to outright state that they're pro-racism.

I think the opinion I hold that I would guess to be most controversial among your crowd is that I think it's sometimes acceptable for parents to smack their children. But since I'm childfree I don't normally bother arguing about this, I think the people who are passionately anti-smacking hold a reasonable position that I just happen not to agree with.

[naath]

I guess "being more racist *than the group-norm*" is taboo. But people will tend to view opinions on the "right" side of said norm not as "acceptable racism" but as "not racism". I think everyone I know would agree that "racism is bad" but we probably have as many definitions of "racism" as there are people.

I think smacking children is acceptable in most of the same circumstances it is acceptable to strike adults (immediate defence of self, others, possibly property, and to prevent harm to the person you are hitting - supposing for some reason that hitting them is the best way to achieve that) (it is also acceptable to strike adults who have consented for sporting or sexual purposes, but consent and children is more complex). I think it is utterly wrong to hit an adult in punishment for wrongdoing, even wrongdoing that merits serious punishment... I'm aware people disagree with me on that. I find a position that it is OK to hit children in punishment but not adults bizarre.

[liv]

Are you sure this is the argument you want to be making about smacking children? I mean, it's not normally acceptable for adults to send other adults to their room or make them sit on the naughty step or take away their iPad! More seriously, I think the difference is that young children don't yet have the brain development to make complex, abstract connections between actions and consequences. I think it can be fairer on a child if misbehaviour leads to an instant unpleasant sensation. Not a complex discussion, not a loss of privileges which may take effect hours or days later, and most certainly not the kind of withdrawal of affection which some non-smacking parents use as a punishment and I think risks making children feel really insecure. I mean, once they are old enough to really understand a discussion about why what they did wasn't acceptable, or to make the connection between being deprived of a fun weekend activity and being defiant on Tuesday, then they're also likely too old for smacking.

[naath]

British society views fines (removing people's stuff) and imprisonment (confining them to a designated area) as reasonable punishments for crimes; small scale I would certainly chuck someone out of my house, refuse them the loan of my stuff, and deny them the pleasure of my company for "crimes" such as "breaking my social taboos". I don't like parents acting as judge and jury, but I accept that children are going to do a wide range of "naughty" things that deserve some punishment short of actual legal intervention.

But really I think that most of the things that got *me* smacked as a child simply aren't things deserving of punishment *at all*. Things like "defiance" and "swearing" and so forth.

[adrian_turtle]

I think a lot of people are emotionally invested in the idea that modern society is so enlightened we don't have any real taboos left. It's only primitive superstitious people that take taboos seriously. So when you think about "taboos" in your community, among the enlightened people you respect...you don't think of stuff we take terribly seriously.

And racism is still a taboo, even among people who aren't racist. Consider a sentence that my grandmother (of blessed memory) and I both consider so offensive it's hard to say or type, even though the meaning is fairly simple.
"That [rude word for a person who has sex] [rude word for a person with dark skin] took my parking space!"
She and I would each consider one of the rude words to be breathtakingly offensive, and the other to be only moderately rude. Taboos determine how offensive that kind of thing is, and they've changed in the last few decades.

I think smoking is taboo in some subcultures but not all. It's especially noticeably in movies...Heroes used to smoke, but modern heroes don't.

Considering the scale of things you put on your list, I'm surprised you didn't include denial of climate change, young earth creationism, criminalization of sodomy, or advocacy of torture. Those are issues that a lot of people feel strongly about on both sides, that tend to divide by subculture. I mean, within one subculture, saying anything in favor of young earth creationism gets a person called (at best) a gullible idiot who has been taken in by malicious liars. And in other subcultures, any hint of doubting young earth creationism gets the same kind of reaction.

[chess]

I think most of those things (apart from perhaps criminalisation of sodomy, which has a personal-harm-to-known-individuals angle on it) you would actually get away with in Jack's circle of friends, so long as you weren't _preaching_ them - if your position is 'I believe this but it's fine for you to believe that' you might get some disbelieving looks and some attempts at argument but you wouldn't actually be ostracized.

(Possibly if you had any success at influencing policy for the climate change one, because again that has a survival-of-me-and-mine angle to it)