Reply to The problem with Desmond Tutu’s quote:

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP’s question makes sense when you realize that everyone thinks that THEY are the victim. The quote only means something in situations where there is a clear oppressor. This happens almost never.

That’s why people fall all over themselves to relate situation X to one of the very few instances of historical clarity (apart, Nazism)- but of course saying “current situation is just another instance of this historically clear injustice!” is demanding that you exchange your own judgment for theirs, and trust them that they are accurately assessing the situation. [/quote]

Yeah I mean it's not an accident that the examples cited so far in the thread are slavery, apartheid, and Nazis. The quote is applicable in times of injustice. The hard part is determining the injustice, not determining what side you're on.

It's weird that the OP would take the quote so personally given that, which is why I suspect something is going on in OP's life where they are being accused of taking sides on something. I hazarded a guess earlier in the thread that this is about Israel / Palestine. [/quote]

Black and white thinkers really like these simple issues because they believe they can extrapolate them to other, far more complicated problems. Given that they are using hindsight to determine where the injustice was, is part of the fallacy of their arguments. It's difficult to use hindsight with a current issue.

History is written by the victors. [/quote]

I don't think that taking a statement that Desmond Tutu made in 1984, the year he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting Apartheid, in the context of Apartheid, makes someone a black and white thinker.  Many of us who were alive in 1984 were able to determine where the injustice was at the time.  We didn't need to wait for hindsight.[/quote]

This is true, and I was also there. But people wildly overestimate how many cases of moral clarity there actually are, and of course always completely convinced that they themselves are 100% correct in determining who the oppressed is and who the oppressor is. This quote is generally used as a cudgel to try to force agreement with the quoter’s own assessment of who the oppressor is in a situation.

In the real world, someone who hasn’t taken sides between the Star-Bellied Sneeches and the Plaiin-Bellied Sneeches either

1) is intelligent enough to realize that it’s not clear which set of Sneeches is being subjected to injustice, but also is not interested in investigating for themselves extensively enough to draw their own conclusion;

2) has a perfectly clear idea of which set of Sneeches they think is in the right, but is aware that the other person doesn’t share their opinion and has zero desire to argue about the situation.

I mean, it really comes down to AGREE WITH ME OR YOU’RE A BADDIE. Some people just desperately don’t want to have discussions with people who see things in black and white, particularly if they think it will make their home, workplace, or neighborhood a more unpleasant place to be. [/quote]

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