The Antisocial Socialist

While two posts in one day is certainly more than the good Reverend deserves, the blogosphere reaction is, as always, terribly intriguing. The majority of you immediately posted "Falwell is dead, haha" or some witty variation thereof; a minority expressed some sympathy for his family and/or expressed the opinion that celebrating anyone's death, even that of a hateful bastard like Falwell, is wrong for reasons of ethics, morals, or good taste.

Outside of my bubble, the latter sentiment was far more common, even within progressive circles. Many people seem to feel that it's wrong to speak ill of the dead, or to hate someone who was himself full of hate. I admit that I can't emotionally or intellectually understand this position. I suspect that it has something to do with not coming from a Christian background and not coming from an American liberal tradition. So while I respect tact (I lack it, for the most part), I don't really get it.

I'd heard that the Fark.com thread on Falwell's death garnered more comments than the September 11th one, so I hopped over to check it out. One comment seemed particularly intriguing:

I came here completely expecting to find kind words of hope for this man, seeing as how the vast majority of farkers are liberal, empathic, and everyone knows that liberals don't hate others they disagree with...they all celebrate diversity and hold no opinion to be superior to another.

Oh wait, what was I thinking?
-- NateInYourFace. Emphasis mine.

While our Farker is obviously poking at a liberal strawman, he's not actually far off—a lot of American liberals really do seem to think that everyone's opinion is equally valid, and respect strongly held beliefs, no matter how wrong. Witness the discussion around Reagan's death—people quite happy to (sensibly) denounce him as pure evil while he was alive, and even while he was suffering from Alzheimer's, suddenly got very tactful and quiet. Or started talking about his principles (though failed to mention that those principles were essentially murderous). Worse yet, they seemed to think that this dignity afforded to one's political and class enemies was an integral part of liberalism. Maybe it is, and maybe that's why I'm not a liberal, but to me, moral relativism is not on a right/left axis. It looks something like this:

Moral absolutism
|
Commie wankers__|______Fundagelicals
|
Left_____________________Right
|
Libruls______|___Neo-cons
|
Moral relativism


Your mileage may vary. Most of us are somewhere in the middle of one of those quadrants. I'm rather far to the left, of course, but I'm fairly centrist on the moral absolutism/moral relativism scale. Incidentally, anarchism veers towards relativism, mostly because of a variation on Geek Social Fallacy #1.

I suppose what I'm saying here is that I don't think it's wrong to speak ill of the dead. I mean, it's wrong to denounce them to their grieving friends and families, but it's not inherently wrong. And what I'm also saying is that it's okay to be intolerant.

Gloves off, kids. Reagan wanted most of you dead. Falwell wanted even more of you dead. These men consider you, your friends, your families, and most of the world, subhuman. It's fine to hate them—they hated you too—if your personal moral code allows for hate. It's fine to be relieved that they're gone.

Tolerance is something that ought to be reserved for that which you find distasteful but which does not adversely affect your life. Tolerance is for people who write crappy fanfic or engage in coprophilia. You do not have to tolerate anyone who advocated apartheid, queer-bashing, murder, or genocide. Their beliefs are not equally valid to your own. You can totally be a dick about it, and you don't even need to feel guilty.

There. Isn't that a relief?