No, that’s why the OP is right. Whether or not you are Maori is irrelevant, and does nothing to establish your position.
Yes, it is about the truth or falsehood of a proposition. That’s all that’s important.
I’m not doing any of those things. You are trying to argue based on your identity, which is what the OP said.
Your ethnicity doesn’t change anything. Your argument is neither better, nor worse, than if it came from anyone else.
That’s something the Left doesn’t seem to get. ‘I’m such-and-such an ethnicity, therefore my argument should receive some kind of special deference’ and then crying racism when it doesn’t happen only works with leftists. People who aren’t spring-loaded to go into allergic guilt reactions when the race card is played don’t care.
“How DARE you” doesn’t work well when it is met with “sure, whatever - get back to us when you want to actually debate”.
As a Hispanic that has encountered prejudice in Arizona, I will have to say that it is not “special deference” but simply to ask for fairness and equal rights.
So, sure, whatever - get back to us when you want to actually debate…
Well, because it’s irrelevant to the topic? This is (again) about how to promote goals, which is independent of what the goals are.
If you want to promote the goal of diminishing racism, calling a racist a racist indeed might not help—which, in your words ‘should be pretty fucking obvious’. You don’t want to promote that goal—which is fine, but irrelevant. But it does matter for the topic of how to promote goals (not, specifically, the goal of diminishing racism—that’s just an example to illustrate the general point that confronting people with their biases may be counterproductive).
Your fighting or not fighting racism isn’t part of the problem, but your fighting me—as in, engaging in counterproductive debate tactics, such as claiming that I’m lying when I state what my values are—is. Not what you do, but how you do it.
Identity constructions used to be set by your birth, so choosing, constructing an identity indeed wasn’t the same problem it is now. As I put it in the OP:
Another attempt to head off the obvious misinterpretation that didn’t land with you, but I’m getting used to that.
I’m repeating, in brief, a couple of claims from the OP:
[ul]
[li]the social progress that’s been made freeing (some) people (sometimes) from these rigid structures introduces new challenges[/li][LIST]
[li]that is, at least some people are, under certain circumstances, more free to choose their own identity than they used to be—there is, for instance, some upward mobility, the farmer’s son no longer is as likely to remain a farmer, and so on[/li][li]this freedom of choice, however, while intrinsically a good thing, can have adverse psychological consequences—the so-called ‘Paradox of Choice’ [/li][li]hence, the progress that has been made also introduces novel challenges[/li][/ul]
[li]I think there are different kinds of identity construction[/li][ul]
[li]identity can be constructed by dissociating from or associating with certain groups—‘I am like those, and not like those’[/li][li]this can be due to overt characteristics, like hair color, or due to opinions—‘I am a person who things killing is bad’, for instance[/li][/ul]
[li]I think some kinds of identity construction are inherently more vulnerable towards internal tension[/li][ul]
[li]those types of identity construction that rely on overt characteristics are hard to doubt[/li][li]none of your fellow gingers, for instance, can doubt whether you’re ginger[/li][li]a hard dividing line allows an easier separation of people into in- and out-group[/li][li]‘people who’ve run a marathon’ have completed a race over 42.195 km; all who haven’t are therefore not in the club[/li][li]but there are groups that are very important to their members, whose membership is defined along less overt, unambiguous characteristics[/li][li]take, for instance, religion: religions often split along disagreements of what the ‘true faith’ exactly entails[/li][li]hence, it becomes harder to say who is and who isn’t part of the club[/li][li]consequently, the claim that one is part of the club becomes harder to evaluate[/li][li]thus, if your identity is based on ‘being part of such-and-such club’ (say, being a member of a certain religion), it is in your interest to draw that dividing line as sharply as possible—exactly define who you’re like, and who you’re not like[/li][li]consequently, people who derive their sense of identity from this kind of group have to do more work to maintain this identification then people who define themselves along overt, indubitable characteristics[/li][li]members of the former kind of group can then disagree about what it means to be a ‘proper’ member of the group, where members of the latter can’t (as easily)[/li][li]hence, interior stresses are a greater danger for those former groups than for the latter[/li][/ul]
[/LIST]
All of this is, though perhaps not in all this detail, in the OP.
You responded to a misunderstanding of almost every word I’ve written in this thread, and so far steadfastly refused to even consider my actual points, no matter how hard I try to make them clear.
OK, I think at this point, I’ll have to accept that (once again) trying to clarify the relevance of this example isn’t going to do anything.
Again, as explicitly pointed out in the OP:
It wasn’t what I wanted to discuss then, and it’s not what I want to discuss now. I have really been quite explicit about that. So no. Whether Lilla is right about the infighting on the left isn’t at all relevant; it’s just the thing that got me here.
What’s that other than saying that because he wrote a positive article about Jordan Peterson, his views are to be dismissed? And how, exactly, does an article having 2000 comments mean that it’s talking about something that doesn’t exist? Where all of them just pointing out how he’s wrong?
I think this shows there’s lots of discussion on this issue. But again: that’s not actually my point.
As I’ve pointed out, I didn’t come up with the narrative first; I read a book that brought it to mind. Yes, that book isn’t accessible to you, and it’s written in a language you (probably) don’t speak, but that still means it’s not true that I have just (for whatever reason) constructed a narrative out of thin air and am now trying to make the facts fit the story.
The forest is on fire. People are doing things aimed at extinguishing it. The fire spreads. Shouldn’t we maybe think about better methods of combating fire before our villages burn?
Crime runs rampant in the city. Officials issue measures to cut down on crime—harder punishments, more police presence. Crime increases. Shouldn’t we think about maybe adapting measures used to fight crime?
This isn’t blaming the left for the right’s atrocities, and you’re not so simple minded as to genuinely think that’s what I was insinuating. It’s trying to figure out whether the things we do to stop these atrocities are all that we can do, or whether there’s a better way.
I haven’t said there are better ways, but that there may be better ways, and I don’t think I’ve really described any. This is—or was intended to be—first and foremost about identifying causes and problems, and only second, in what I had hoped might be constructive discussion, perhaps an attempt at finding ways to overcome them.
You first completely misunderstood my point. Now, you at least seem confused. That might be a sign I’m making progress!
I have given you a very clear dividing line: if it’s about whether such-and-such a goal is worthy, or valuable, or whether any particular goal suffers from any particular issue, you’re not talking about what I want to talk about. When it’s about how goals are reached, and what identity may or may not have to do with that, then you’re on the right track.
It’s essentially the distinction between vehicle and content—or, taking things literally, the distinction between destinations and ways to reach them: Let’s say I introduced this with an example of how it’s quicker to go from Berlin to Munich by train than by car. You response, then, essentially has been that neither do you want to go to Munich, nor are you even in Berlin, and why the hell I dare suggest you go to Munich, and so on. But that’s just missing the point. Even if it’s not actually faster to go to Munich via train doesn’t matter if my intent was to compare both modes of transportation—that just means I’ve picked a bad example.
Does any of this help at all? Because I’m really not sure I can keep explaining myself to you; the expected marginal utility is diminishing rather rapidly, I’m afraid, so I don’t think there’ll be terribly much of a point in continuing this if you still don’t see where what you’re talking about and what I’m talking about differ.
Some in the thread ask OP for cites that the problem he describes is real. :smack: One need look no further than the responses in the thread for such examples!
I’ve emphasized a key mistake in Mr. Bear’s post. If good guys don’t vote, the bad guys may win again. Rocket science to understand this much?
The excellent article by Goska is being disrespected. I’ll just quote two brief excerpts:
It doesn’t matter whether Ms. Goska’s arguments are 100% valid. What is 100% certain is that she describes ways that liberals drive citizens to vote for Republicans.
Nope, you actually brought to notice why that article should be disrespected even more.
Besides being yet another example of nutpicking, that is not what the majority of Democrats or liberals go for, and it is unanimously condemned by Democrats and liberals in congress. (conservatives in congress too, for that matter).
Do I agree with all of the above? Do I even think all of it is reasonable? Hardly. But I do think that, reading things like the above, the impression that yes, identity politics is a significant factor in the current political climate, and yes, it is troublesome in particular for the left, isn’t that unreasonable. It may still be wrong—but I don’t think that can be demonstrated by dismissing all of that as ‘opinion’ or ‘perception’. At some point, if lots of people perceive something, one should begin to wonder whether it might not just be, in fact, there.
I will have to think that you are wrong in the levels of the infighting; as noted already, I think that the evidence shows that while there is some, that infighting is not huge.
As for the cites here, first I noticed that the early cites are about the phenomenon, not a specific criticism of the left or the right; but second, then you cited an article that talked about class struggle and Corporate capitalism, “which uses identity politics, multiculturalism and racial justice to masquerade as politics”, in essence, it sounds like a Marxist disparaging the American Left… and it does:
But it then finishes with this:
Well,
“You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow”
Just a note that you seem to fall for the conservative idea that Democrats or Liberals in America are communists, as noted, those are out there, but not given much attention as it is on the fringes of what one could call the left in the USA.
…being Maori, in context, is relevant. It does everything to establish my position.
"Understanding is a three edged sword: your side, their side, and the truth.” JMS.
Sure you are. And you double down on that in this very post.
But we haven’t heard your argument, and you haven’t heard mine.
Who is this “left” you are talking about?
Yah see, this right here is a strawman. I haven’t requested “special deference.” I haven’t gone “crying racism” to anyone. I don’t even consider myself a “leftist.”
We all know you don’t care about us Shodan.
Its remarkable how you’ve managed to create an entirely new narrative out of a conversation that happened a few days ago. I’m here to debate if you want. That was what I explicitly said. The OP doesn’t want to have that debate. They have said that explicitly over and over again. Do you want that debate or do you want to continue your snide insinuations? Where do you want to start?
…this isn’t a mistake. It certainly isn’t a **key **mistake. It doesn’t take rocket science to understand that.
The article by Goska deserved to be disrespected. It was a load of fucking tosh. Those two examples you cite? Firstly, the opinion that “clitoredectomy is just another culture’s rite of passage” is not a mainstream “leftest” position. The left are not out marching in the streets in the defense of clitoredectomy." This has nothing to do with the left. It has everything to do with 1) an idiot fellow graduate student and 2) the idiot who was writing the article. As for the second: what was it about that complete mishmash of talking points makes you think that it drives citizens to vote Republican? Was it a black man criticizing what many would regard as a “liberal institution?” Do you honestly think that makes any sense at all?
You are locked into a binary paradigm. I think calling racists racist often helps. It can promote your goal of diminishing racism. It doesn’t matter if that person doesn’t think they are racist. There is no point in coddling a racist.
“Claiming you are lying” is against the rules of this forum and I haven’t done that. You haven’t stated what your values are. You have refused to answer those questions. These are debate forums. We debate here. If the act of debate in a forum dedicated to debate is what you consider problematic then we’ve got a great big huge problem here. We may as well shut the forums down and go home.
Cite?
What do you mean by “constructing an identity?”
This is an awfully Western centric version of history. Lets take a black man, stolen from his homeland, locked in chains, taken against his will to the other side of the world, whipped and dying in a ditch. Do you think that man identified himself as his job, the way you think the famer’s son would?
Why do you think that people “choose” their identity?
This can all be summarised into a single, concise sentence: “Life is hard.”
You are making this more complicated than it is in reality. You are overthinking this to the point of absurdity.
Nope. You don’t have a clear idea of what it is your point actually is. You are struggling to articulate it, and you compensate by writing more and more words. And when I respond to the words you’ve actually written, you pivot and put all the blame for any “misunderstanding” on me. I have engaged you. To say otherwise is willfully misleading.
Did you cite any other examples?
If she is wrong: then what is this thread all about then?
You missed the bit about “an old man yelling get off my lawn” That was the actual critique of the article. It was a rant. You could have linked to a rant in the pit and it would probably have had more substance to it than that ridiculous article you cited.
What something doesn’t exist what? And you can look at the comments yourself. Many agreed with it. Many didn’t. It was a comments section! It generated a lot of responses, that’s all I was pointing out.
You’ve already been caught posting links to articles that you hadn’t even read that you claim back up your position. I’m actually reading the cites that you post. So don’t criticize me for how I’ve treated your cites.
I get how it all started. You read a book. Then formed a narrative. Now you are trying to back up that narrative. And failing miserably.
You aren’t advocating “better methods of combating fire.” You are standing in front of the firefighters while they are dragging tankers of water uphill to get to the fire. And as they are ready to start putting water onto the fire you interrupt them to say “Excuse me, but there might be a better way to put the fire out. Have you thought about maybe low-expansion foams such as AFFF, have an expansion rate less than 20 times are low-viscosity, mobile, and can quickly cover large areas?”
And when the firefighter says “that’s all very well and nice, but can you please get out of the way so we can fight the fire” you get all offended and you walk off in a huff. Then you start a thread on the straightdope dot com complaining that “those firefighters were so rude. They make me not want to support firefighters at all. And they were using water. There are better methods of combating fire before our villages burn. Lets not discuss those though, because I don’t actually have any better ideas, but those firefighters should be able to come up with something.”
White supremacy is running rampant. This guy is in charge of the United States immigration policy. He has set up concentration camps. They are disappearing people. How is anything that you’ve suggested in this thread going to deal with this?
Do you know what isn’t going to fix any of this? Criticizing infighting. Because infighting is often about people arguing if there is a better way to do things. What is it do you think the fighting is about?
Yeah, its just empty rhetoric. You think infighting is hurting the cause, when those that are fighting are just trying to figure out better ways to do things. At least they are doing something about it.
The “causes” and “problems” are specific to each and every single case of infighting you see. But you don’t want to discuss specifics. So how do you expect go have constructive discussion when all you can do is talk in generalities? A stoush over transgender issues will be about very specific things. Another infight about race and racism will be about something else. A global approach can’t and won’t fix this.
Not at all.
Except we can’t actually get to the crux of what you want to talk about unless we actually start to get to specifics. As you’ve ruled out discussion on specifics you aren’t ever going to get a resolution.
Goals are topic specific. We can’t talk about general goals, like “diminishing racism” without delving into the specifics.
Yeah, this is simply a bad analogy, not analogous to our discussion at all.
…President Trump is the current face of the Republican Party. It makes perfect sense to me that people who oppose Trump would not want to live near each other, be friends, or get married to members of the other group. Could you marry a Trump supporter? Could you be friends with someone who supports a regime that includes this guy?
That article includes an entire section on Russia, and its influence on the last election. But the article doesn’t go far enough. You completely ignore it in you summary. I think you need to go back and read it again.
The complete and utter normalisation of what has happened to the Republican Party is exemplified by that article. There is literally a white supremacist in charge of immigration policy at the White House and almost nobody in the Republican Party can give a fuck. This is about identity: but not in the way you think. You are witnessing the resurgence of white supremacy, and it is happening right under your nose. They wear red caps and they yell “SEND THEM HOME.” I don’t seek common ground with these people. And we don’t have time to “convert them to our side.” There are more of us than them. If you fight voter suppression, if you marginalise the message and put pressure on the distribution points of propaganda, you will be able to kick them out of power then strengthen the democracy so they can’t steal power again. But this is the wrong point in history to worry about “the divide.”
WARNING: Don’t click on that site. It got blocked by my firewall with the warning “An attempt to evade and bypass security filters was detected.” I intentionally broke the link on the quote. Just a hint: random googling can lead you to bad places on the internet.
That’s a pretty full on academic paper. You’ve cherry picked a very small portion of it. What is it, do you think, the paper was trying to say? A Conversation with Todd Gitlin
“My book is about how it came to pass that the right marched on Washington and took a great deal of it while the left was marching on the English department.”
Wow. Sounds like a book based on a strawman.
“I think that many people, perhaps most on the left, or at least most who are visible, have gone down a path in which they are obsessed with what differs between them and one – one crowd and another.”
Like how the Federal government of the United States of America has been hijacked by a transnational crime syndicate?
“That is why the Left cannot base itself on identity politics. It has a wider agenda.”
Fuck that. Saying the monolithic left “cannot base itself on identity politics” is literally identity politics. And “the left’s” wider agenda should prioritize anything else, no matter what that “anything else” happens to be.
Its a bunch of academics pontificating. I wouldn’t take any of it seriously.
Well: isn’t **that **what you wanted to discuss? I don’t think its troublesome for the left at all. I think the claim it is troublesome for the left is very unreasonable. We’ve already established the perception is out there. What I wanted cites on was for your claim that this is troublesome.
But it is all opinion and perception. Are you going to bring anything else to the table?
There are a lot of people in America that perceive that the American Government was responsible for 9/11. There are a lot of people in America who perceive that Pizza shops were being used as a front for child sex rings. You can wonder about these things all you like. But at some stage you have to start investigating them to see if there is in fact something there. So far all you have been able to prove is that there are a lot of people who perceive something. Now its time for you to prove that what they perceive is firstly real, and secondly troublesome.
Banquet Bear, I gather that you do NOT agree with Half Man Half Wit’s explanation (“This is a threat to you…”), so what then? You think his post had an ulterior motive? “This is why you should support issues important to me while those important to you get ignored” sort of thing? Or something else entirely?
Yes, goals, but not any specific goal in particular. If you want to discuss whether it’s faster to go by train or by car, even though each journey is taken to reach a specific destination, what that destination is matters only on a secondary level, at best. You can argue things like, while trains don’t have traffic jams, cars can take an alternate route, which is more difficult for trains, and so on—whether one wants to go to Munich or Hamburg isn’t immediately relevant. Yet that seems all you want to talk about.
I’m not saying that it never does. But, as you noted should be ‘pretty fucking obvious’, it can also be counterproductive. So one might want to find a better strategy, at least in some cases, and one might want to find out which those cases are.
I said (bolding added):
To which you replied:
What’s that if not a claim that I knowingly said something false? I. e. that I lied? Do you believe I’m just confused about my values? That I just think I think these are important issues, but don’t actually think so?
Are you seriously disputing that there’s, on average, more social mobility today than there used to be, at least in large parts of the world? While I’m aware I’m just encouraging your on-the-spot-ing of the debate, here’s another google hit for you to dismiss as ‘just opinion’:
[
OK, that’s a fair point. I’m not as educated as I should be about history from a non-Western centric point of view. But, for better or worse, Western societies are the major determinators of the current geopolitical climate, so it makes sense to focus on them.
Because we associate with some groups, and not others, hold some opinions and reject others. Are you claiming we’re not self-determined in that at all? That all of our opinions and associations are just effects of our environment?
Pretty much everything can, if you’re willing to gloss over the details. But that’s not gonna help.
You seem to require many words to appreciate what I’ve previously clearly enunciated in few, as in all the many, many posts trying to explain the words “this isn’t what I want to discuss” from my OP. If you just hadn’t insisted on coming back again and again to what I explicitly disavowed as a topic, then I could’ve saved myself writing lots and lots of words.
What I wrote there was an attempt to explain a sentence that you had difficulties with. I did got into grueling detail, but only because you keep trying to drag this discussion back to issues it’s not about, and hence, I’m by now somewhat desperate to make clear why they don’t matter.
I acknowledge that that’s what you think you have done. Hence, me spending all that time trying to explain how you’re actually attacking a strawman.
Again, the example was for the purpose of explanation, not intended as a cite. I wanted to use it to help clarify the distinction between arguing about goals and arguing about ways to achieve goals to you; and yes, I have proposed many other examples, from football to travel, to try and do so.
And once again, I can only point you to the OP, where I stated that Lilla’s issue isn’t what I want to discuss, hence, his being wrong or right is just incidental to my topic.
But do you actually have any cause to believe what Lilla claims isn’t happening? So far, you’ve dismissed all of my cites, without offering up anything of your own. I think I’ve conclusively demonstrated that a sizeable amount of people see an issue with infighting on the left, and consider identity politics to be at the root of this. Do you have anything to bolster your summary dismissal? All you’ve given me so far is one opinion, one perception, namely, yours.
That’s supposed to be a critique? Sorry, yes, then I indeed missed it, as usually, critiques tend to try and dismiss points raised and arguments made, not limit themselves to an ageist appeal.
The in-fighting on the left that the article describes. Things like,
[
You’ve been claiming there’s no such thing. Well, I guess after having complied with your cries of ‘cite’ for so long, it’s time for you to offer up some of your own—because otherwise, we’re having your opinion pitted against the opinions and experiences of all the people I’ve cited.
I didn’t pay enough attention to that, yes. At the time, I’d still been hoping that we could resolve this matter quickly, and return to the actual topics. Ah! The innocence of youth.
So think about somebody reading the pieces I’ve been posting so far. Do you think it’s unreasonable for that hypothetical person to form the impression that there’s infighting along issues of identity on the left? What would you point them to to remedy this, as you contend, false impression?
Because what I’m seeing is lots of people along the spectrum of left-wing issues denouncing the problems they see, and have personally experienced. I take them at their word, because I have no reason not to, and it matches my own experience (and apparently, that of others in this thread). All you’ve done, so far, is to dismiss this as opinion of people too old, or too sympathetic to the wrong causes, to have a meaningful opinion.
So there’s my evidence, what prompted me to form the beliefs. Where’s yours?
Ah, there it is, again. Either I get with the program fighting the fire, or I need to shut up, no criticism allowed. That’s exactly the sort of unhelpful ‘furthering’ of a cause I’ve been talking about.
So what you’re saying is, I explicitly got out of the way to a neutral place to let the firefighters do their thing, tried to encourage debate on whether there might be better ways for that, listed where I thought things were problematic, pointed to how other people thought these things were problematic, didn’t pretend I have all the answers—and I’m not even allowed to do that?
OK, so we’ve gone from ‘there’s no infighting going on’ to ‘some people perceive there to be infighting’ to ‘OK, there’s infighting, but that’s a good thing’. Who says we’re not making progress here?
Why would that be the case? There’s such a thing as human nature, at least in broad strokes. Why can’t that be relevant to the issue of infighting in general?
Because if we can make progress on the general issues, we can adapt that solution to each specific instance, whereas if we try and attack each issue as if it existed in a vacuum entirely removed from the general elements of discourse, human nature, and so on, we’ll just get overwhelmed and not make any progress at all.
It might be that this won’t work, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try; and beyond bald assertions, you haven’t yet made any argument to that effect.
If infighting is in general due to clashing group allegiances, finding out how to address this will aid each of those cases. Again, you haven’t provided any indication as to why that shouldn’t be possible.
Again, trying to block a discussion about the generally fastest way to go from A to B by pointing to the damage to the tracks between Berlin and Munich just isn’t the right angle of attack.
.
Yes, they are. Which is why I’ve been ad nauseam trying to point out that this isn’t about any specific goals per se, but about how to approach goals.
OK, what salient differences do you see? You’re just making bald pronouncements without any argument to actually back them up (when you can be bothered to comment beyond a ‘LOL’ at all).
Except as the cite shows, it’s not actually the difference in opinion on the issues, but the group allegiances themselves that create the split. That is, it’s not that these people don’t want to have their children marry one another because one side supports an abhorrent White Supremacist, but because they’re Democrats, and the others are Republicans.
Why do you think that’s relevant? Unless you want to claim that all of these ‘opinions’ (many of which explicitly cite academic research) are all just deluded by Russian trolls on facebook, whether there’s Russian meddling doesn’t seem to have any great importance on the topic.
Agreed. But that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. What are the causes? How could an ostensibly mature democracy such as America fail to the extent of allowing somebody like Trump to be elected? How could, in Germany, the AfD, many of whose members espouse openly fascist and racist positions, become the second strongest party in some states?
I think the problem is just that there’s a cookie that has the ‘secure’ flag missing, which causes it to be transmitted over and unsecure (http instead of https) channel. The website comes back as ‘clean’ on Google’s VirusTotal.com.
It’s an encyclopedia article, the purpose of which is to review the current state of identity politics and its reception in academia/philosophy (as it’s from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Hence, I think that its contention that for some critics, identity politics is both ‘factionalizing and depoliticizing’ is highly significant.
In what way is that supposed to be relevant?
Well, I’m shocked of course, but you didn’t exactly offer much in the way of rebuttal; so pardon me if I take the pontification of a bunch of academics over yours.
If I see an elephant in the room, and you claim there isn’t one, well, I may be mistaken. If I see one, and Alice sees one, and Bob sees one, and Charlie sees one, then well, your insistence that that’s ‘all just opinion’ kinda starts loosing persuasive force.
And do you have any reason for why it’s not, or am I just to take your opinion?
My cites included several experts making this claim, but they were just ‘some academics pontificating’. Apparently, either there’s a vast conspiracy, promulgated by deeply embedded plants on the left, to make it seem like people on the left perceive the left to be hampered by in-fighting, or those people are all just subject to the same collective delusion, or they’re just writing about this because—well, there were some more inches to fill?
Seriously, why do you think these people wrote the articles I linked to? Intentional deception? Are they all themselves deceived? Is it just the Russian trolls? At some point, if enough people are crying ‘fire’, it becomes reasonable to suppose that there’s actually something burning.
And it’s important to engage them, and to rebut them. You’re doing neither, however: you’re just insisting I take your opinion for fact, while simultaneously disallowing everything I bring forth.
…I’ve made it clear that I think that statements like this
“** This is a threat to you, because you perceive me, rightly or wrongly, as critical.** Hence, your immediate reaction is to try to push me out of your in-group, into the role of other. Because then what I have to say becomes much easier to handle: I’m just one of 'them’, not one of ‘us’ failing to get with, and hence endangering, the program”
are absolutely ridiculous: especially in regards to me. I’ve defended people like Starving Artist and Clothalump on these boards, people who are “not in my in-group”. I didn’t cast them into the role of “other.” And I haven’t done that in this thread either. I mean a threat? I’ve been on these boards since 2002. This isn’t exactly my first debate.
If those issues were really important to Half Man Half Wit then they wouldn’t have been waved away in the manner they were. The bit you didn’t bold:
You can’t claim that you think arbitrary distinctions of who genders correctly, or who is opposed to cultural appropriation are important, and then in the very same breath say “but you should strive to unify along them rather than use them just as a convenient yardstick to tell ally from other.” That’s insulting, thats hurtful, it shows lack of compassion, it shows zero understanding of the communities where these issues are important. There is nothing at all convenient about taking an unpopular position on something. When I talk about cultural appropriation on these boards I get attacked from both “the left” and “the right.” I don’t speak out about it expecting to find ally. That isn’t how it works. Just mention the word “cultural appropriation” and its a dog-whistle.
Expecting marginalised peoples to “unify”, to conform, to compromise, for the sake of the “greater good” does nothing to protect or defend those marginalised people. Don’t ask us to do that. Don’t pretend you know better than us what needs to be done to protect ourselves. This entire premise, “that infighting hurts the left”, is designed to shut our voices down. There is no objective evidence that this is true. Its all projection, conjecture, and yes, pontification from academics.
What sort of word game are you trying to play? OP identifies problems which causes people to vote against their own interests and the interests of the general welfare. Or not to vote at all. Surely little imagination is needed to understand that important recent electoral outcomes, for whatever reasons — voter apathy, disinformation, mistaken prejudices, etc. — do not match what citizens want.
And you wrote:
Neither OP nor I implied that the U.S. had compulsory voting. But people who might improve electoral outcomes do not vote at all. You ask “What’s the problem with that?” The problem with that is that the wrong people get elected.
I can only guess what your point is. I’ll guess that, in your view, the outcome of a “free” election is, by definition, optimal — it is what the electorate (assisted by those not voting at all) votes for. If Daffy Duck wins the election, then the people want Daffy Duck, so democracy has been properly served. Is that your point?
I would have thought my point was pretty crystal clear.
That wasn’t my point at all. But if Daffy Duck wins the election, then the people want Daffy Duck, so democracy has been properly served, yes? I mean, that’s kinda how democracy works?
I’ve emphasized a key mistake in Mr. Bear’s post. If good guys don’t vote, the bad guys may win again. Rocket science to understand this much?