So.. you actually do. Otherwise the idea of an open minded leftist wouldn't be incomprehensible to you.
> Can you point to a single piece of evidence for the left being more open-minded?
Leftist philosophy has its roots in the French Revolution and the Renaissance, it and the left/right political axis wasn't invented on Tumblr. Traditionally, leftist belief tends to be the secular and progressive counterpart to the conservatism and religious ideology of the right, so by definition, the left tends to be open to new ideas, whereas the right wants to maintain the status quo.
The left was more open minded about secular science versus religion when the right was burning heretics.
The left was more open minded about the viability of models of government other than rule by the Church and a King. The Magna Carta, Declaration of the Rights of Man and US Constitution are all leftist in principle.
The left is more open minded about sexual identity, accepting LGBT culture and nonbinary gender identity, as opposed to the right.
The left is more open minded about race and gender roles, being the side that embraces civil rights and feminism, rather than the right.
The left is more open minded about sexual expression than the right, which still believes any sexual expression outside of monogamous, heterosexual marriage is immoral.
The left is more open minded about cultural and artistic expression than the right. The left writes most of the books that get burned and movies that get banned, because the left is the side constantly transgressing societal norms (which makes them more open minded about than the right in that regard.)
The hacker ethos[0] is entirely leftist, and I can't think of a more open minded philosophy. The right definitely would not have come up with something that threatened the gatekeepers and information brokers keeping Ma Bell, the big 3 tv networks and newspapers at the top of the information pyramid.
And here's something that will blow your mind - not every leftist agrees with cancel culture. Leftists are even more open minded about that than the right, which, like yourself, seems to see the left as some kind of SJW hivemind.
> like yourself, seems to see the left as some kind of SJW hivemind.
I'm unable to have a meaningful discussion here as long as you are putting words in my mouth. I'm not sure why you decided it was necessary to embark on this ideological crusade due to my honest question but I hope you find peace somehow.
(Unless, of course, you're saying there's something inherently out-group about LGBT; i.e., there's something inherently wrong with it. It would not be charitable of me to assume that this is what you meant, but it's the only way I can make "Supporting LGBT is a demonstration of open-mindedness" into a true sentence. Otherwise... it's never the case that supporting any group—other than the out-group, i.e., the morally wrong group—is a demonstration of open-mindedness. So I don't think it applies to LGBT.)
If you are finally willing to accept an explanation of what I originally meant, instead of once again claiming that my immediate and complete repudiation of things I never said is just further evidence that I believe—checks notes—some different things I never said, then I guess that's good enough. But I'm merely restating something I already said, so I trust that anyone acting in good faith will not turn around and claim that I've changed what I'm saying.
> (Unless, of course, you're saying [snip for restatement below])
This entire parenthetical which has caused so much grief and/or hysteria is an attempt at counterfactual inductive reasoning. (I tried to set it off with "unless...you're saying...It would not be charitable of me to assume...it's the only way I can make [sense of something you said]". It was a classic ASD mistake for me to assume that this was sufficient for such an emotionally charged subject, I admit.) Maybe I can make it more clear:
You claimed that left acceptance of LGBT is evidence of open-mindedness. I pointed out that you don't get open-mindedness credits for accepting something you already believe. As an exercise in inductive reasoning I was trying to figure out what it would take for your original claim to be true in light of my addendum. For my protection, what should be an unnecessary disclaimer: THE FOLLOWING IS A COUNTERFACTUAL VIEWPOINT TO EXPLORE AN IDEA SPACE, NOT SOMETHING I BELIEVE. In order for the left's acceptance of LGBT to be an example of open-mindedness, it would be necessary for LGBT really to be an outgroup of the left (inductive reasoning), so that when the left would treat LGBT like an ingroup they were really practicing open-mindedness (counterfactual). But the only way LGBT could be an outgroup of the left (which it isn't: counterfactual reasoning) is if it were (hint: subjunctive means counterfactual) so "out" that it's a natural outgroup of everyone[0]. How could some group be an outgroup of everyone? They would have to be (counterfactual! inductive!) morally wrong according to the very few shared moral principles of the left and the right. But since this is obviously not the case, we conclude that it's impossible for left acceptance of LGBT to be evidence of open-mindedness.
> The right considers lgbt people to be morally wrong. The left does not. This makes the right more intolerant than the left.
Yes, yes, this is just the same argument in different words. I addressed it above by pointing out that you don't get open-mindedness points for making the ingroup an ingroup, because... they're already an ingroup. No ingroup gets you open-mindedness points. Only accepting and coexisting with outgroups is open-minded. But with your new statement of the same point I can address it in a different way too:
The left considers people born into wealth to be morally wrong. The right does not. This makes the left more intolerant than the right.[1]
Now of course you don't agree. The usual reasoning trotted out is "but being LGBT is something you're born with, so it's not okay to discriminate on that basis, but everything that the left discriminates on is different and it's okay!" Well first of all this is why I said "people born into wealth", as awkward as it makes the argument. But the objection is wrong anyways, because the left has simply defined all the spectra along which they accept all points as part of "identity" while all the spectra along which there are some unacceptable points (e.g., along the "believes in welfare only"..."believes in charity only" spectrum, only points closer to "believes in welfare only" are acceptable for the left) as part of not-identity, "mutable" characteristics. So in the end both the original statement and also this objection are just examples of assuming the conclusion by declaring that the left's ingroups and outgroups are "right" and the right's ingroups and outgroups are "wrong". According to this way of looking at the world, making LGBT an ingroup is righteous but making wealthy people an outgroup is also righteous, and doing the opposite is wrong and intolerant. Well of course when you make that assumption, then you can only possibly conclude that the right is "more intolerant", because they have made outgroups of all the wrong groups!
Neither the left or the right has a "more tolerant" or "more open-minded" set of ingroups and outgroups because, dare I repeat it again, you don't get open-mindedness points for who is in your ingroups and outgroups, only for how you treat the outgroups. How does the majority of the right treat LGBT? And how does the majority of the left treat people in their outgroups? I'd much rather be LGBT in a mostly right-leaning place than, say, publicly ask questions about the left on somewhere, like, say, HN. Because I've been both, and I am both. And the right treats me far better than the left does; in fact there's no contest because literally no one cares that I'm LGBT—I'm not even the only one in my way-to-the-right-of-me family, and no one bats an eye—but if I even have a question about leftist ideology, let alone actually identifying with an outgroup, it's end of the world level hysteria, making up wild stories about what a crazy right-wing fascist Trumpist racist misogynist Nazi like me must be dogwhistling about. What a nightmare.
The right has never been anything but entirely tolerant of whatever beliefs I hold which differ from theirs; and every time I'm accused of being on the right myself, I believe it a little more and more every time. Another non-personal example is Chick-fil-a. Let's see here... Chick-fil-a serves anyone and everyone with respect and doesn't give a shit who you are as long as you just want to buy a fucking chicken sandwich. And frankly in the south LGBT people love Chick-fil-a as much as anyone; maybe more because you are fucking guaranteed never ever to be discriminated against by their employees. It's not even conceivable. But the west coast elite now... they boycott a business for the sole reason that—how terrifying—the founder believes the wrong things! And therefore every franchisee, every employee, they are all outgroup and not deserving of patronage, and anyone who patronizes them is also evil. Being seen talking to someone wearing a CFA uniform is also sacrilege I'm sure. Wow. Many tolerant, so open-mindedness, wow.
[0] Even though AFAICT, as much as I dislike the guy Trump did have the most legitimately pro-LGBT post-primary presidential campaign ever in 2016; not a statement I expect you to agree with though.
[1]Incidentally, this isn't counterfactual, it's just equally as meaningless as your statement.
To rephrase, your assumption that to demonstrate open mindedness, one must act a certain way towards the outgroup is a self defeating premise. As soon as you provide the requisite amount of acceptance to the outgroup, they are no longer the outgroup, so you are no longer being open minded. Under this framing, everyone is exactly equally open-minded because open mindedness is encoded in our preexisting personal prejudices.
A more useful definition of open mindedness is less relative to the person under the lens. And under this lens, the left is significantly more open minded. Progressives have been the side of social progress since the beginning of politics. That's why they're called conservatives and progressives. Arguing that conservatives are more open to new ideas than progressives seems challenging, given the definitions of the words.
> The left considers people born into wealth to be morally wrong. The right does not.
This is a straw argument. The left does not claim it is immoral to be born into wealth. There are claims about certain systems that pereptuate wealth being immoral, but those arguments don't ascribe some sort of original sin to babies of wealthy people.
This may seem true if one can't conceive of being accepting of an outgroup. But if we apply this claim to my multiple examples of LGBT acceptance by the right (e.g., my family, Chick-fil-a) then we would (counterfactually) have to conclude that LGBT is an ingroup of the right. This contradicts your claim that "The LGBT community is an outgroup in society". It cannot simultaneously be true that LGBT is an outgroup of the right (surely a subset of society), that treating someone with respect and acceptance makes them an ingroup, and that LGBT are treated with respect and acceptance by at least some people on the right. How do you explain this contradiction?
An argument based on the definitions of "progressive" and "conservative" is no better than saying North Korea is a democracy. In the past twenty years the left has had a shocking reversion to moral puritanism, such as by policing speech. This again contradicts the definitions, so unless we claim that it's reality which is wrong, then we must abandon the original meaning of the words.
Finally, I frankly don't know how to respond to the notion that open-mindedness in the sense we're using it here, or the sense I thought we were using it here (viz. as a rough synonym of "tolerance"), has anything to do with the age of ideas. Moreover I dispute the claim that the left's ideas are primarily new, because they again seem to be a reversion to older ideas; for example, socialism (late 18th century) and the idea that society and history can only be properly be viewed through the lens of race (early to mid 20th century Germany).
This doesn't follow. The existence of a continuum of levels of acceptance within the right doesn't mean that the right, as a whole is accepting. Consider if we took this to the extreme: I am accepting of LGBT people, therefore society is. Your parents, as individuals, being accepting of LGBT people does not make the whole of "the right" accepting of LGBT people any more than me, as an individual, makes society accepting.
> It cannot simultaneously be true that LGBT is an outgroup of the right (surely a subset of society), that treating someone with respect and acceptance makes them an ingroup, and that LGBT are treated with respect and acceptance by at least some people on the right. How do you explain this contradiction.
You're using absolute terms when I used relative ones. And when dealing with people, who are fuzzy, relative terms are more correct. I can be more to the right of someone else. Not all right wing people share exactly the same views.
I don't consider supporting politicians who wish to remove your rights to be "accepting". You seem to consider "personal politeness" to be "accepting". If your parents identify as "the right" they presumably support Republican candidates. The republican party wishes to remove the right of lgbt individuals to marry. I don't think that is accepting. Perhaps they don't support those right wing policies, but then by the same token I'd argue that they are not paragons of right-wing ideology, so to bundle them into "the right" is to include moderates under the right wing umbrella. That's why I'm not talking about individuals, but the republican party platform, which is I think as close as well get to an official statement of the beliefs of the right wing.
> Chick-fil-a
I'm lost.
> In the past twenty years the left has had a shocking reversion to moral puritanism, such as by policing speech.
It hasn't though. This is an invention of people on the right. The internet has made it easier for us to see examples of people disagreeing, and the right has done a good job of branding individuals exercising their first amendment rights to criticise as an attack on "free speech". I'll warn that were running headlong into paradox of tolerance territory.
But the right is no stranger to policing speech. Consider that the most commonly banned books in the us schools are the handmaid's tale (sexual themes), harry potter (witchcraft), and 8 books about lgbtq topics. The right likes to shift the focus to cancel culture, but...
> This again contradicts the definitions, so unless we claim that it's reality which is wrong, then we must abandon the original meaning of the words.
This does not follow. I'll also note that someone did go to the effort of explaining why progressive and conservative are fitting (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24402840), and you ignored the body of the response.
> Moreover I dispute the claim that the left's ideas are primarily new, because they again seem to be a reversion to older ideas; for example, socialism (late 18th century) and the idea that society and history can only be properly be viewed through the lens of race (early to mid 20th century Germany).
Compare to the right, which gets it's ideas from the Bible and enlightenment philosophers, both of which predate leftist philosophy by decades or centuries ;). You're also greatly oversimplifying critical theory to the point of parody. Perhaps remove the "only" from your sentence.
... can be used as an apparent counter-argument to literally anything, and is meaningless. I don't believe the contradiction has been addressed at all.
> I'm lost.
Ah yes, a brilliant response to any concrete example I might bring up of leftist intolerance, such as the widespread informal boycott of Chick-fil-a. (This is called an example.)
> I'll warn that were running headlong into paradox of tolerance territory.
The so-called "paradox of tolerance" is literally an admission that the left does not tolerate those with whom they disagree; i.e., they are not open-minded. I'm not sure why you want to bring that up now. The left has twisted the definition of "tolerance" until it means the exact opposite. This is presumably why you can't get past "claiming that to be tolerant you must be tolerant of people you are intolerant of". Of course if the word has been twisted to mean two opposite things, but you still try to use the word to shape your understanding of the world, you will inevitably conclude that acceptance of those with whom you disagree is impossible. It's baked right into the meaning of the word (for you, as it seems to me)! The word has been used to mean both "acceptance" and "agreeing", to the point where disagreement is declared intolerance, which is absurd. I urge you to reject "tolerance" as a notion altogether due to how it's been mistreated, and use more precise concepts for more accurate reasoning.
> Compare to the right, which gets it's ideas from the Bible and enlightenment philosophers, both of which predate leftist philosophy by decades or centuries.
I really don't see much similarity between the protestant Bible (I assume that's the one you mean) and the philosophy of the right. But you have correctly identified enlightenment philosophy as a prominent influence.