What about people who simply are silent, but not necessarily embarrassed?
I mean, there are lots of people in the world whose rights are being deprived, and I am silent about most of them most of the time. So is pretty much everyone I know. I don’t know all of our emotional motivations, but our silence is demonstrable.
If that means we’re all implicit in the murder of human rights and the spread of tyranny, I can accept that, but it’s not clear that there’s any grounds for singling out Swimmer’s community for special treatment (which I understood to be the original context) on that basis.
I don’t spend every minute decrying all the injustices of humanity, but if someone I know says in my presence that muslims are violent I at least let them know of my disapproval. Maybe that’s a contributing factor to Swimmer’s non-believing friends seeming grumpy and judgmental.
Actually I like it when people frankly correct other people’s incorrect opinions. The negativity I’m talking about is more on the line of ‘I hate this job, I’m so bored, my family is so stupid, I’m so sick of school’ and also comments like ‘That kid has the biggest head ever, I bet it makes her sink to the bottom of the pool’ or ‘seriously, why do fat people keep coming here and buying chips? They should just die.’ This is the kind of negativity I see a LOT less of in Christian circles. Atheists may also be more likely to correct people’s opinions, being more contrarian, but it’s not something I’ve noticed personally.
What about people who simply are silent, but not necessarily embarrassed?
I mean, there are lots of people in the world whose rights are being deprived, and I am silent about most of them most of the time. So is pretty much everyone I know. I don’t know all of our emotional motivations, but our silence is demonstrable.
If that means we’re all implicit in the murder of human rights and the spread of tyranny, I can accept that, but it’s not clear that there’s any grounds for singling out Swimmer’s community for special treatment (which I understood to be the original context) on that basis.
I don’t spend every minute decrying all the injustices of humanity, but if someone I know says in my presence that muslims are violent I at least let them know of my disapproval. Maybe that’s a contributing factor to Swimmer’s non-believing friends seeming grumpy and judgmental.
Actually I like it when people frankly correct other people’s incorrect opinions. The negativity I’m talking about is more on the line of ‘I hate this job, I’m so bored, my family is so stupid, I’m so sick of school’ and also comments like ‘That kid has the biggest head ever, I bet it makes her sink to the bottom of the pool’ or ‘seriously, why do fat people keep coming here and buying chips? They should just die.’ This is the kind of negativity I see a LOT less of in Christian circles. Atheists may also be more likely to correct people’s opinions, being more contrarian, but it’s not something I’ve noticed personally.