Malice or Stupidity?

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I was, but as I didn't watch the show religiously (like I did Angel), I must have missed that one.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Malice is statistically rarer, so I usually default to stupidity, or at least ignorance.

I assign ignorance. When it comes to individual situations where I have felt hurt, I have never conclusivley reached a point where I could say for certain. That strikes me as stupidity.

Is it unusual that I'm way more uncomfortable with stupidity than open malice?

I'm not talking about social faux pas or that kind of thing. I'm talking about people with ignorant bigoted opinions. It's like they get to hide behind the "I can't help it, that's the way I've was brought up, I've been indoctrinated, etc... " card. They want to be treated with kid gloves because "it's just their personal belief" and guilt trip you with the accusation being a malicious judgmental meanie if you tell them how you really feel. I'm an intolerant hypocrite for not tolerating harmful opinions. And no, it's not because the opinion "hurts my little feelings", it's that when large collectives of people share those opinions it actually hurts more than feelings. When widespread marginalization and discrimination occur that has real consequences.

I can deal with open malice because then at least all the cards are showing and they can't make me feel conflicted. Open malice is statistically rare but it's a big relief to me. I can get over it easier.

I think you need to get more specific as to what constitutes a "harmful" opinion, as the label itself is a matter of opinion.

Personally, I'm more wary of the righteous than either the malicious or the stupid, as malicious people might see you as a means to an end or as a mark and stupid people might unthinkingly harm you, but stand in the way of the righteous and you become evil, which can justify just about anything.

And your ideology has no matter of opinion? Can the truthiness of "rights" and "freedom" be empirically demonstrated like the law of gravity? It seems the early Enlightenment thinkers thought this as they liked to assert that they were "derived from nature" or "derived from god". However, collectivism is also observed in nature.


What about opinion that a collective telling someone they have to do something for the common good is evil? I've heard libertarians regularly brand all governments, even the most transparent and democratic ones, as "bands of thugs", "protection rackets", and "gangsters". That comes off as highly self-righteous rhetoric to me. A kind of extreme knee-jerk anti-authoritarian self-righteousness. Also, it's not as if libertarians are immune from getting riled up and angry when you reject their foundations. How DARE anyone ever tell ME what to do! You just can't handle the thought of FREEDOM! So it seems what is "righteous" and therefore offensive is a matter of opinion as well, determined by personality traits and nothing more.

By claiming our rights are inalienable it is a Reductio ad absurdum. By isolating typhoid Mary was her right to liberty infringed? This is the ultimate problem with libertarianism and why I have to reject their foundations as well. I used to be a libertarian. It has been shown that one person's rights end where another's begin.

Did Typhoid Mary have the right to do her job if she would be infecting people and killing people? She was a cook? Her pursuit of happiness of being a cook and her freedom to do so infringed upon other people's rights. This is why I see libertarianism, the idea of inalienability and rights coming from nature as absurd.

Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words can also hurt me.
Stones and sticks break only skin,
while words are ghosts that haunt me.

Slant and curved the word-swords fall
to pierce and stick inside me.
Bats and bricks may ache through bones,
but words can mortify me.

Pain from words has left its scar
on mind and heart that’s tender.
Cuts and bruises now have healed;
it’s words that I remember.

They did it because they could,it does not matter if they were stupid or malicious.
And they were in a position to get away with it.

I'll respond for Raptor since he isn't here right now.

You need to man up emo kid!

Captures my thoughts and feelings exactly.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

The problem with Hanlon' Razor is that is blatantly abused by those who act with malice to conceal it as stupidity.

Goes right to the government worker's motto of "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission."

People who let malice guide their behaviour are stupid.

s**t is bound to happen. Suck it up and take it like a man.

ruveyn

I think a decision on something like this would need to be made on a case by case basis. Sometimes people are malicious, sometimes they're stupid, and sometimes they're both. Or possibly they're neither. As in, you're viewed as simply a roadblock to their ambition of receiving a promotion or some such thing. Strictly business, to paraphrase The Godfather.

And you also seem to be proceeding upon the -- to my mind, at any rate -- unwarranted assumption that what is perceived as an emotional hurt is always correctly perceived as such.