Great minds don’t think alike

I think there should be efforts in making laws that prevent discrimination against homosexuals in Malaysia. But at the same juncture, I don’t think gay marriage should be legalised (as of now) in Malaysia.

I found that every time I talked about this, I face backlash. The interesting point is I’ve faced backlash from two distinctive groups — the conservatives and the liberals.

The conservatives would hate when I say we should not discriminate the gays, because “I am promoting the LGBT lifestyle”. I think they’re missing the point.

The main problem we’re trying to solve here is discrimination. Discrimination is wrong, period. There are homosexuals who are fired from their jobs even when their job-scope has 0% relation to their sexual orientation. This is a concrete problem that we must solve.

On the other hand, (most of) the liberals would lose their minds, if I say gay marriage shouldn’t be legalised yet in Malaysia. They equated my argument with: hating the homosexuals, discriminating them, not believing in equality. While I understand not letting a group of people marry legally is a form of discrimination, I think they’re also missing the point.

My proposition isn’t an argument on substance; it’s an argument on procedures.

You can’t force change.

Do you know why it’s very impractical to implement Hudud in Malaysia? Simple, the majority would reject it.

The Islamists can’t simply force the enactment of a law that the majority of the country reject. If they want to, they should educate or focus on making the people understand the need for it first, before implementation. Implementing the law before the majority can accept it will cause chaos in the country.

Same thing goes to gay marriage. Many Muslims in the country even got angry when Shell Malaysia posted an LGBT-version of its logo for fuck’s sake. What do you think will happen if we legalise gay marriage now?

You might hate that the majority of the country are close minded and our laws were decided based on that. But do you know what’s that called? Democracy.

The same mechanism that prevents Hudud from being implemented now, is the same one that prevents gay marriage from being legalised now. You can’t cherry-pick where Democracy should apply.

You want change? Spread awareness. Educate people, don’t condescend to them. Be practical with your cause. And that, is the topic of my discussion today. We must be practical with our cause.

Recently, this video shocked the Twitter-verse:

This video of course resulted in one of the most divisive opinions ever. But among all of the responses, I think the most irritating kind of response would be: “Yes the video is mocking the Malays, but whatever he said is true.”

No shit, Sherlock.

No one is arguing that what he said is wrong. We all know it’s true, even the ultra-Malays themselves. My contention here is the video’s counter-productive to its supposed goal — to improve the Malay society.

The video is dividing the society more than it unites them. When he posted the video, you know who loved the video so much? The extreme-liberals who already have those pre-conceive judgments towards the conservative Malays.

How about the conservatives then? Of course they got angry, and generalising all non-conservatives as “liberals” and hate all causes and efforts that are related to liberalism & equality.

The video didn’t persuade the conservatives to be open to self-reflection, to improvement, and to accept the values of equality. It just made them angry. And when that happened, the extreme-liberals would say that “they didn’t get it”.

Just because your arguments are disagreeable, doesn’t mean that it’s sound and logical.

The goal of an argument is to be persuasive, to result in the other side listening to you and agreeing to your points. If side A criticizes side B, but the outcome is side A loves that criticism yet side B hated it, itu namanya syok sendiri.

Is your goal to unite the people to the right cause, or for you to feel good? Do you wanna solve the problem, or do you wanna feel good?

If you wanna solve the problem, be practical. Be outcome-based rather than saying your intention trumps the outcome.

Some people thought that “niat menghalalkan cara” is the same as “the end justifies the means”. It is not, in fact it’s the opposite.

“Niat” means intention, and it signifies the onset of an action, not the outcome. “Niat menghalalkan cara” is what made some Muslims dumb enough to say a rape threat is a “dakwah”. Because supposedly, their intention is to make sure the women dress properly.

Well you know what, fuck your intention.

What happened when guys threaten to rape with the intention of ensuring the women dress modestly? What is the outcome of that? It backfires. It made women hate the message more. If those guys prioritise the outcome, they wouldn’t do that. Outcomes matter.

Same goes to the video. Now, if Haikal tells us that his goal is just to make fun of the Malays, I might understand it. But when the arguments from the video-proponents were “so that the Malays will change after watching that video”, I don’t buy that bullshit.

Malique’s song Layu made the Malays think. Mahathir’s Melayu Mudah Lupa made the Malays think. Haikal’s video just made them angry.

Just because a message is a criticism, doesn’t mean it’s constructive.

Win Bigly by Scott Adams is a good book to understand how Trump won. One of the points he made is that the liberals like to argue in a method that they like to hear it themselves, while the conservatives hate to listen to it. The result was the country’s more divided, not united.

Learn from Hilary Clinton’s mistake of describing Trump supporters as “basket of deplorables”. Isn’t that true, what she said? Well of course it’s true. But look at the outcome.

Diane Hessan, who was hired by the Clinton campaign to track undecided voters, wrote that “all hell broke loose” after the “basket of deplorables” comment, which prompted what she observed as the largest shift of undecided voters towards Trump.

Saying the right thing with the wrong method, is a wrong thing.

Recently I’ve been thinking what’s the cause of all this? Why are we extremely divided? And I cannot see but one factor — As an individual, we don’t think independently.

For instance, let’s go back to my earlier discussion on the state of homosexuals in Malaysia. I noticed that many Malaysians feel that we are dependant on an ideology.

If we do not support gay marriage because we are Islamists, we must not support the anti-discrimination laws, because we are Islamists.

If we support the anti-discrimination laws against the homosexuals because we are Liberals, we must support gay marriage because we are Liberals.

As if we can’t think on one issue independently, without referring to the inclination of the ideology that we hold.

“When you identify as part of a group, your opinions tend to be biased toward the group consensus.”
— Scott Adams, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter

I think the lack of independent thinking among Malaysians is the root of the problem. We don’t evaluate, but we pick a side, and we choose arguments that support our side to confirm it. We don’t think, we don’t learn, we confirm.

Every issue is unique, and every subset of those issues is equally unique. Don’t shape your opinion just because you think you’re part of a group. You might deny that, but you know you’re subconsciously doing it.

You are not owned by any ideology. Instead, you apply them depending on a particular issue.

Ideologies are a set of ideas. Just because you pick one idea to apply in one issue, doesn’t mean you need to pick the rest of the ideas to apply in all issues. Don’t think in patterns.

When you engage in independent thinking, you will not be liked. Because your opinion will not based on a group’s consensus. You will be hated by the far-right, and by the far-left.

But that’s okay, because the goal of an argument is to improve the status quo. It’s not our goal to be liked, or to be hated. That is just not a factor to consider.

I’m a major proponent of doing the effective thing. In doing so, things won’t be easy. But that’s okay, because great minds don’t think alike — they embrace independent thinking.