Helpful perspective that I'm passing along to ASPPH's "Expanding the reach, visibility, and impact of the field of academic public health" expert panel, which is working to support the Framing the Future: Education for Public Health 2030 effort (https://www.aspph.org/teach-research/framing-the-future/). Thank you!
Always appreciate your thoughts, Sandro! I deeply agree that we must reach beyond political and sociodemographic divides in our work, both in public health and politics. I believe engagement and discourse are goods unto themselves.
That said there’s an implicit both-sidesism here that’s worth facing down. So much of our divide right now is about exclusion, I grant you, but what upon? The only way you can call Suffolk more “intolerant” than Talahatchee is if you believe that intolerance of beliefs is the same as intolerance of identities. Is intolerance of hateful beliefs—that Black people are less than, that Muslims are terrorists, that immigrants don’t belong—really the same as the intolerance at the core of the hateful beliefs I just named? Is the intolerance I have for for the belief that denies that I could ever be American because of my Arab heritage or that I am a child of immigrants really the same as the intolerance of me simply for being what I am? I can’t change these things about me, but those who believe these things can (and should) change their hatred of them.
So while I agree that we must resist the urge to bubble and we must engage to bring about change, when one group of people believes that another group and those who believe in their equality is implicitly inferior, it’s no longer a both-sides debate.
Abdul, thank you as always for interesting comments that provoke thinking. I agree with your comments broadly. I have written before about the type of speech that I think we should not tolerate, and that includes ad hominem attacks, speech that others, and speech that is clearly founded on falsehoods. So, yes, while I suggest we are tolerant, I do not for a moment equate differences in challenging speech and positions and have no disagreement that speech/positions that other should not be tolerated. Having said that I do think that much of the circling-the-wagons that we see today on both sides of the sectarian divides are not about such clear cut positions/speech that should be intolerable. Much of it pertains to honest disagreement on perspectives and opinions. And that is where we can do better at lowering our sectarian drawbridges to try to find common ground. None of this is easy, and I think it is actually easier to call out the "other side" for "their" fault in arguments. I suppose what I am trying to do in these essays is to focus on what "we" can do, how we play our part in lowering those drawbridges.
Helpful perspective that I'm passing along to ASPPH's "Expanding the reach, visibility, and impact of the field of academic public health" expert panel, which is working to support the Framing the Future: Education for Public Health 2030 effort (https://www.aspph.org/teach-research/framing-the-future/). Thank you!
Always appreciate your thoughts, Sandro! I deeply agree that we must reach beyond political and sociodemographic divides in our work, both in public health and politics. I believe engagement and discourse are goods unto themselves.
That said there’s an implicit both-sidesism here that’s worth facing down. So much of our divide right now is about exclusion, I grant you, but what upon? The only way you can call Suffolk more “intolerant” than Talahatchee is if you believe that intolerance of beliefs is the same as intolerance of identities. Is intolerance of hateful beliefs—that Black people are less than, that Muslims are terrorists, that immigrants don’t belong—really the same as the intolerance at the core of the hateful beliefs I just named? Is the intolerance I have for for the belief that denies that I could ever be American because of my Arab heritage or that I am a child of immigrants really the same as the intolerance of me simply for being what I am? I can’t change these things about me, but those who believe these things can (and should) change their hatred of them.
So while I agree that we must resist the urge to bubble and we must engage to bring about change, when one group of people believes that another group and those who believe in their equality is implicitly inferior, it’s no longer a both-sides debate.
Abdul, thank you as always for interesting comments that provoke thinking. I agree with your comments broadly. I have written before about the type of speech that I think we should not tolerate, and that includes ad hominem attacks, speech that others, and speech that is clearly founded on falsehoods. So, yes, while I suggest we are tolerant, I do not for a moment equate differences in challenging speech and positions and have no disagreement that speech/positions that other should not be tolerated. Having said that I do think that much of the circling-the-wagons that we see today on both sides of the sectarian divides are not about such clear cut positions/speech that should be intolerable. Much of it pertains to honest disagreement on perspectives and opinions. And that is where we can do better at lowering our sectarian drawbridges to try to find common ground. None of this is easy, and I think it is actually easier to call out the "other side" for "their" fault in arguments. I suppose what I am trying to do in these essays is to focus on what "we" can do, how we play our part in lowering those drawbridges.