Quote:
Originally Posted by Fluffy
Arachnophobia is an irrational fear of spiders. It is totally unreasonable to be afraid of spiders because, at least in the UK, they cannot cause you any harm. However, I won't throw a spider at a person who I know to be an arachnaphobe since I know it will cause them harm.Therefore, whether a person's harm is reasonable does not dictate whether we are justified in causing it within them.
This is masterly logic and thought provoking. Fluffy wins the argument. Congratulations Fluffy.Accepting Fluffy's argument, I wish also to wonder whether we should give in to narrow-mindedness or encourage broad-mindedness. A name is a name. It ought not to be an exclusive property of anybody. Even before Prophet Mohammad was born, many were named Mohammad. A dog named Mohammad is certainly not Prophet Mohammad. I love Krishna, the avtaar of God. I would only feel more tenderness towards a dog named Krishna! For wouldn't I know that the dog, though apparently not Krishna, is one with the divine in essence?
Thank you K. Venugopal and I would have to say that the point you make is an excellent one as well. Also welcome to RF
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Originally Posted by Mr Spinkles
However, one could use similar reasoning, in different parts of the world and in different time periods, to argue for the limitation of all sorts of public/private behavior--homosexuals holding hands in public, women not covering their ankles or faces, interracial couples, expressing one's religious/political beliefs, etc.One might argue that the 'phobia' normally associated with being religiously 'offended' (e.g. when a person speaks about Mohammad [or any religious figure/idea] without special reverence) is quite different from, say, arachnophobia. Unlike arachnophobia, this 'phobia' necessarily makes unreasonable demands on the behavior of others. And, of course, unlike a true psychological 'phobia', which is abnormal and often accompanied by panic attacks and traumatic childhood experiences, this 'phobia' only survives because of continued cultural reinforcement: religious people are conditioned from an early age to be offended by the harmless things strangers may say or do relative to their religious beliefs.If we place special limits on our behavior to respect religious 'phobias', so that we don't 'harm' religious people, we may in the long run only be causing more harm. We might cause less harm if we end the cultural reinforcement of religious phobias, thereby making it impossible for people to have them anymore.This seems to be precisely what has happened in the free, open-minded, and tolerant places in the world: they used to be filled with people who would be severely "harmed" by the harmless actions of others, like if a woman showed her ankles or if a man said "degrading" things about an historical figure at the top of his lungs on a streetcorner.It's sort of like we've allowed our minds to be exposed to enough memes that we've built up our mental immunity to "harmful" ideas like seeing an interracial couple walking down the street or hearing someone fail to show special reverence for an ancient book (all of which are, of course, harmless).
However, one could use similar reasoning, in different parts of the world and in different time periods, to argue for the limitation of all sorts of public/private behavior--homosexuals holding hands in public, women not covering their ankles or faces, interracial couples, expressing one's religious/political beliefs, etc.One might argue that the 'phobia' normally associated with being religiously 'offended' (e.g. when a person speaks about Mohammad [or any religious figure/idea] without special reverence) is quite different from, say, arachnophobia. Unlike arachnophobia, this 'phobia' necessarily makes unreasonable demands on the behavior of others. And, of course, unlike a true psychological 'phobia', which is abnormal and often accompanied by panic attacks and traumatic childhood experiences, this 'phobia' only survives because of continued cultural reinforcement: religious people are conditioned from an early age to be offended by the harmless things strangers may say or do relative to their religious beliefs.If we place special limits on our behavior to respect religious 'phobias', so that we don't 'harm' religious people, we may in the long run only be causing more harm. We might cause less harm if we end the cultural reinforcement of religious phobias, thereby making it impossible for people to have them anymore.This seems to be precisely what has happened in the free, open-minded, and tolerant places in the world: they used to be filled with people who would be severely "harmed" by the harmless actions of others, like if a woman showed her ankles or if a man said "degrading" things about an historical figure at the top of his lungs on a streetcorner.It's sort of like we've allowed our minds to be exposed to enough memes that we've built up our mental immunity to "harmful" ideas like seeing an interracial couple walking down the street or hearing someone fail to show special reverence for an ancient book (all of which are, of course, harmless).
I thought Fluffy had the last word with arachnophobia. But you are superb, Mr. Spinkles. You have distinguished between psychological phobias and religious phobias. While the former is individualistic in nature, the later is usually communal and would take everything in its sweep unless checked. Appeasing communal intolerance would not check it. Challenging it would.
Heya Mr. Spinkles,Firstly, I'd like to put forward another analogy.If got a needle full of an incurable, deadly virus and injected you with it, I would be causing you harm because you would die shortly afterwards. However, if I were poised to inject you and deliberating over whether to continue or not, one factor that would not play a part would be respect for the limitations of your immune system. If I decided to put the needle down and walk away, it would not be because I respected anything about the way your body works.To return to my previous analogy, when I refrain from chucking a spider at my arachnophobic friend, I am not doing so out of a respect for their irrational fear.When deciding whether to cause harm to another, two things are, or should be, irrelevant:1) How reasonable the process that causes the harm is2) How much respect (including no respect) I have for the process that causes harmNow I said in another thread that there may be some circumstances under which we are forced to harm others in order to pursue a goal that is greater. I believe that the burden of proof is on those who desire to pursue such a course of action. That is, they must show that their goal is sufficient and that harming others is a necessary component.For example, one way to end religious phobias would be to hook everybody up to a massive computer that could read their thoughts and systematically kill anybody who felt such a thing. Now evidently this is an infeasible solution but hopefully its infeasibility is not its only objectionable attribute.I'm quite willing to offend people (and when I'm not it is certainly not because I respect them) but only when it is demonstrated that causing offense is necessary. Furthermore, if I am trying to change the worldview of another person then it seems that offending them is the most counterproductive thing I could do.
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