Loftwings and Demons

I think one thing that's really important is not to use specific individuals' combinations of beliefs to prove that one particular belief they have is evil simply because they hold it in combination with some other idea that is evil.  If one were to apply this consistently over all of the billions of individuals in existence, I highly suspect that the only thing it would 'prove' is that all ideology is evil.  This is why I can't accept arguments of the form 'this person believes this evil thing, so this other thing they believe must also be evil', even if I agree that the first listed item is, in fact, evil.

Are some ideas almost inevitably intertwined?  Absolutely.  But it is not enough to say that their combination in an individual or even a group proves this to be true.  It must be demonstrated on a deeper level.  I think it is fair to expect people to be able to criticize the idea itself rather than constantly relying on guilt by association. 

Morality* is one of those things that I think simply can't ever be entirely objective, because it's fundamentally about people's goals.  It's one thing to discover what is, another to decide what should be.  If one person wants something fundamentally different from another person, no one can 'prove' which one wants the 'right' outcome.  Which is not to say that this precludes any useful discussion of morality, because another aspect of such things is that most people value more than one thing, and people often agree on outcomes but disagree on the means to achieve those outcomes.   Appealing to other common goals or discussing data for viewpoints can sometimes be worthwhile.  But this does mean that there simply isn't always even a theoretical way to reconcile all disagreements of morality.

*Morality used here to refer simply to what people see as desirable outcomes.  I clarify this since people may associate strong connotations with this word, and more formal philosophies may ascribe different definitions to it.

Hmmmm, have a lot of ideas about how overly broad assumptions that certain ideas and actions necessarily have to be associated with each other leads to oversimplifying dynamics between people and towards a more inaccurate 'good/evil' binary view of the world, which ultimately also positions ourselves as either fully good or evil beings, in either case of which growth is neither necessary nor possible, but am just not sure how to coalesce that all into a better articulated series of thoughts right now.  So I just decided to write out that run-on sentence instead.

One thing I feel a lot of conflict about is discussing my personal politics more openly and in more detail.  Because on the one hand, that's very much detrimental to my conflict aversion, and I also know I don't have the definitive answers to anything.  I also have no idea how to deal with political conflicts in the realm of personal relationships, and I don't think all the stellar examples of such interactions on social media have given me much to work with in that regard. 

On the other hand, not being clear and vocal about who I am is very detrimental to me in other ways.  I am an opinionated person, and I also know that things that are left unvoiced and unacted upon become irrelevant to the wider world.  What would it even matter if I was right, if I never did or spoke anything about it?  Do I wish to let my cowardice dictate my life, my fear of unpleasantness prevail over all else?

I also view the intersection of personal and political life both as having great significance to one's actions and requiring the management of some difficult contradictions.  When am I compromising too much, and when am I compromising too little?  Shall I forsake any responsibility to another individual to prioritize my own needs and the needs of those causes I view as important?  What do I do when kindness to one friend is cruelty to another friend?  And how do I balance my own needs with the needs of others?  What scale do I use to measure all our hopes and dreams and needs upon?