It absolutely is counterproductive! It's also a form of gaslighting: we have a problem in this country (assuming that you're also American) with extrajudicial murder of black and brown people. Instead of talking about that and how we've gotten to this point, we have to to rehash the feelings of an extremely powerful man who is anxious about feeling vulnerable on the Blue Bird Site for his opinions. It's perfectly fine to talk about that; I wish we wouldn't do it under the pretense (and abuse) of terminology like "privilege."
> when the point is something we can all agree on, which is that everyone's ideas should be tolerated, orthodoxy or not.
Except that we don't agree on this: I do not believe that everyone's ideas should be tolerated. I think there are ideas that are analytically incompatible with my existence, and that something roughly resembling the paradox of tolerance[1] applies to them. I've written up a more constructive summary of my opinions here[2][3].
> when the point is something we can all agree on, which is that everyone's ideas should be tolerated, orthodoxy or not.
Except that we don't agree on this: I do not believe that everyone's ideas should be tolerated. I think there are ideas that are analytically incompatible with my existence, and that something roughly resembling the paradox of tolerance[1] applies to them. I've written up a more constructive summary of my opinions here[2][3].
[1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/#ConTolPar
[2]: https://blog.yossarian.net/2018/08/20/Disagreement-Language-...
[3]: https://blog.yossarian.net/2019/07/24/Reasoning-about-faithl...