I'm not Racist But . . .

There is an odd and frustrating trend in our society where people want to distance themselves from a particular position that they hold while still holding that position. All too often this manifests itself in the form of them declaring "I'm not an x, I just believe" followed by them listing off some beliefs which clearly demonstrate that they are exactly what they claim not to be.

I'm not a blogger, I'm just a guy who likes to post his opinion
online then begs his friends to come read it.

A textbook example of this happened last weekend when Jenny McCarthy (aka the person most responsible for the anti-vax movement gaining huge traction) wrote an op-ed piece explaining that she isn't anti-vax, but rather that her views actually fall into a gray area. The basic formula that Jenny, and all persons trying to utilize this argument goes like this:

1. Declare that you are not what you are being accused of. (in Jenny's case anti-vax)
2. Redefine what you are being accused of so that only someone with the most extreme position would meet your definition. (Jenny redefines anti-vax as wanting to force other people to not vaccinate their children)
3. Paint yourself as taking a reasonable middle of the road approach, by virtue of not meeting the criteria you outlined in #2. (Jenny just wants everybody to be able to choose for themselves)
4. Imply that anyone whose position is far removed from the "middle" you just defined in #3 (including those who would have applied the unwanted label to you in the first place) are the ones who are unreasonable and deserving of a negative label. (Jenny wants us to think the real crazies are the people who would deny parents the opportunity to choose what's best for their children)

You can see this line of reasoning being applied all over the place; pretty much any time a label given to a position starts to take on negative connotations in society, there are people who will use this tact. For example:


Racist (I'm not racist, a racist would hate all people of a certain race, I just have noticed certain negative traits that are always possessed by a particular racial group. People who deny these traits exist are naive.)

Conspiracy Theorist (I'm not a conspiracy theorist, a conspiracy theorist is someone who believes in Roswell Aliens. I just happen to believe that something has occurred for which there is solid evidence against it happening and only pure conjecture in favour. People who don't believe what I believe have been brainwashed by the media.)

Homophobic (I'm not homophobic; people who are homophobic hate gay people, while I love the sinner hate the sin. I just believe that because my church won't allow gay marriage that neither should the law. The truly intolerant people are those who wish to label me because of my religion.)

Creationist (I'm not a creationist, a creationist is someone who denies science. I just believe that in the absence of eye witness testimony we can't be sure that the science is true nor that the bible isn't literally true. The real fools are the people who think they can know anything with certainty about the past.)


But while the cases I have mentioned so far might make this sound like a disease of the ignorant, it is not; there are many times that very intelligent people will fall back on this line of reasoning. I'll leave you with a video of fricking Neil DeGrasse Tyson explaining that he isn't an atheist, he's just someone that can't believe in god unless/until he finds more compelling evidence (which, of course, is exactly the position of most atheists).