I thought this video was interesting. I don’t know anything about the guy who made it nor do I follow this particular channel. A (liberal) friend of mine sent me the link to watch, saying it was an example of conservatives trying to bash liberals and paint them with a broad brush. I watched the video and have to say that I disagree with her overall point. Some of what’s in there actually resonates with my experience here on the Straightdope with some of the more radical left wingers or fervent liberals here. The parts that resonate, with me at least are things like how some want to stifle free speech when it runs counter to their world-view. Even if you don’t agree with what they are saying, even if it’s patently wrong, I still think that people should have the opportunity to speak and be heard. Hell, I think that’s one of the big ways to counter hate speech and the like is to let the assholes spout off then to crush them like bugs, not to try and ban them or stifle their message. Another thing that I see a lot of, especially in the last 5 or 10 years is people automatically playing the racist card and calling people racist or bigot as a first step. I’ve had this done to me a number of times, which is probably why I noticed it.
At any rate, if you feel like you can watch the video without blowing a blood vessel, feel free to watch and comment on your impressions. Did/do you think that it’s accurate for a small number of left wingers/liberals or is the video way off base and just another example of conservatives attacking liberals/left wingers?
I am a life long republican conservative who will be voting democrat in this election. I am tired of so called conservatives insisting on having their own facts. I have plenty of issues with the liberals as well but in recent years the Tea party and some othe factions of the GOP have taken stupidity to new levels.
Oh, I totally agree…and to see examples of that one has but to watch some of the footage from the RNC and Newt’s speech about crime rates in the US to see that many conservatives put feelings over facts.
I can’t watch it without blowing a blood vessel, which is too bad because I probably agree with many of the points, however hyperbolic and poorly articulated they may be. I am pretty radical left, but a certain contingent of the ‘‘social justice movement’’ has begun to make me feel completely alienated. This is why I had to take a break from Facebook, to escape my liberal friends’ divisive rhetoric and apparent lack of any meaningful strategy to realize true equality other than screaming really loud on Facebook.
Just underscores the pointlessness of divisive rhetoric. I am a person actively interested in this critique but the hostility of this video renders me unable to rationally evaluate the claims. If someone is willing to summarize I’d be much obliged.
While looking at Trump tweets for the one I was looking for the other day, I back tracked a few re-tweets to a few of what I’d call racist white supremacist bat-shit-crazy accounts.
Within the first minutes of the OPs link provided, a well-spoken but ignorant tirade of lies, reversals of facts, and out-and-out bull shit, I saw the avatar of at least ONE of those hate-mongering accounts popping up on my PC screen.
Seeing that “brand” is like seeing the name “Breitbart” or “David Duke” : There’s no need for the room to stink further for you to know that the toilet needs flushing.
I am a supporter of free speech, in that I don’t think the government should arrest or fine someone for having an unpopular opinion.
But otherwise, speech should not and has never been free from consequence. Post something inflammatory on Facebook and get fired or kicked out of school? Sucks to be you, but you aren’t a victim of anything. And although I personally believe universities have a responsibility to expose their students to diverse perspectives and not cater to any one individual’s “triggers”, I don’t think they should be compelled to open their doors to anyone with a soapbox and bullhorn. Not all ideas are equally worthy.
I believe there are “regressive” liberals, but I haven’t seen them on the Straightdope. From my vantage point, most Dopers think “privilege” is stupid, “microaggressions” are dumb, and racism/sexism are insignificant things not worth worrying about. You’d have to go to a forum with a population skewing a lot younger than ours to find true “repressives”.
As for the video, I got about halfway through - after making some sound and accurate observations about free speech, it started to get hyperbolic and undermining its own credibility, but there are real issues here.
On the right, we have many vocal people claiming that feelings (most notably bigoted feelings) are the only thing that matter, even when they are based on misconceptions, and that facts and evidence don’t matter.
On the left, we have many vocal people (supposed liberals) opposing free speech, obsessing over consensus badges of virtue rather than debating the issues. The archetypal Regressive Leftist will not criticize a Muslim who espouses misogyny and homophobia because Muslims are deemed an oppressed group, whereas a Christian who espoused identical beliefs would be “no-platformed”.
I think many liberals find this behavior shameful, just as I’m sure many on the right are aghast at the crazies who seem to have taken over the Republican Party.
Video accuses “regressive liberals” of substituting name-calling and buzzwords for rational argument. Video is nothing but name-calling and buzzwords, and offers no rational argument. It’s not without value, as it serves as an object lesson in hypocrisy.
This is how I see it. The video brings up some issues that might be worth discussing, but completely loses credibility and any capacity to be taken seriously by being a through and through illustration of what it is decrying.
There are many examples. Just one: “[Third wave feminism] has already destroyed gender dynamics in the West and practically obliterated the institution of marriage.”
A statement like that, when proffered as rational argument, does (nearly) blow a blood vessel in me. Not because it offends any liberal sensibilities I might have, but because it is, when unsupported by any evidence, soooo blatantly antirationalistic.
It pains and frightens me that people can be so nakedly hypocritical and selfrighteous.
Liberals can be (and many are) stupid, irrational, hateful, arrogant, or many other negative qualities. “Regressive liberal”, however, is very close to being a contradiction. Why do people who criticize liberals choose the least applicable possible insult?
The term Regressive Left was coined (I think) by Maajid Nawaz to describe a specific faction in the context of the debate about Islam. The fact that it is almost an oxymoron is the troubling issue. I think it’s now used more widely to describe the supposed liberals who oppose free speech, etc.
to add further, in case it wasn’t clear: It has generally been used by liberals to criticize a tendency among other supposed liberals, not by the right (although that may be changing now).
Jerry Coyne comments on the issue frequently, especially in academia, see here:
[ul]
[li]Do not support freedom of speech when it doesn’t support social agenda[/li][li]Racist and bigoted (against white heterosexual males)[/li][li]You use insults, doxxing, character attacks, etc instead of debating[/li][li]You like to ban things you find offense (this is really the same as point 1)[/li][li]You deny reality (deny that a large minority of muslims support terrorism, that men and women are different, the gender pay gap)[/li][/ul]
There weresome valid concepts in there. I wouldn’t take it as far as the guy in the video does.
The video may be describing a vanishingly small number of left wingers/liberals who I suspect would be considered crazy assholes by everyone else who is left wing/liberal.
Seriously, this a cartoonish and buffoonish bunch of straw men depicted in the video. It’s not a description of the real world. It seems to me it was made by a person who feels mostly powerless and thus oppressed and this was a way of trying to box their perceived oppressors into boxes that can be labeled as Morally Wrong and thus feel empowered and righteous.
He makes sweeping statements, uses loaded terms regularly (calling education “indoctrination”, for example) and uses an oxymoronic moronic phrase to try and lend negative connotations to a group he clearly and obviously loathes.
TL; DR: what a stupid bunch of crap that video was.
Labels rarely mean exactly what the words mean. “Liberal” has a certain meaning in English, but “liberal” in the political sense carries a lot of extra baggage, some of which has nothing to do with the English meaning, and some of which is exactly opposite the English meaning. I find that I have to correct myself in conversation pretty frequently saying things like “liberal economic policy” since it could be misunderstood.
Obviously “regressive liberal” was coined to be symmetrical with “progressive liberal”, where “liberal” is the label with all the baggage, while “regressive” is the common English adjective. “Progressive”, for that matter, has very little to do with progress in most areas. The fact that “regressive liberal” is an oxymoron is basically the joke.
No, see my posts above. Forgetting this video for a moment, the term means something quite specific, and it’s not a straw man - it’s something real and widespread in academia.
I don’t think that contradicts what I said. Maajid Nawaz allegedly coined the term “regressive left”, which isn’t quite the same as “regressive liberal”. Furthermore, while he says that it it was due to the association of these people with regressive regimes, he was also looking for a catchy phrase that made a statement in and of itself. He could have said “repressive left” or “authoritarian left” or any number of similar words, but he chose “regressive” due to the symmetry with “progressive”.
Peter Boghossian, cited in the Wiki article, agrees with me: In November 2015, in an appearance on the talk radio show The Humanist Hour, author, philosopher and atheist activist Peter Boghossian defined the term as a pejorative used to describe those on the left that have made the “strangest bedfellows” with the Islamists. According to him, the word “regressive” is used to contrast with the word “progressive”
Well, that’s just some guy and it doesn’t necessarily prove anything, but it does demonstrate that some people use the term with the contrast in mind.