As the saying goes, you don't get too many turkeys voting for Christmas either.

I worry that relying on logic as a counter to racism, or all the other raft of -isms like that, gives away too much ground. Even if it was "logical" to discriminate against people because of their ancestry or their culture or their ex or their disabililties or whatever, it'd still be wrong, and that's what matters. You don't have to believe in God to believe in right and wrong, and try to do what needs doing to put that into practice.

We find ourselves holding certain views on particular issues, but underlying these are value systems out of which they grow. However the same value systems can give rise to different patterns of growth.

What that means is that we can find ourselves arguing against people with whose value systems we largely share, and in alliance with people whose value systems we do not share. The former are the opponents we get on with, the latter are the allies who make our skin crawl. I think if we recognised this, both in ourselves and others, it could generate more light and less heat sometimes.

To use a musical analogy - two instruments which are in tune with each other can sound pretty ok, even if they are playing different tunes. But two instruments which are out of tune with each other playing the same tune will sound absolutely awful. So you get make sure the instruments are properly in tune, and take it from there.