Insults against groups of people that include posters

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1

Continuing the discussion from Intersectionality and the Oppression Pyramid:

I thought this was a good opportunity for a discussion, because it’s actually a little very ironic that Der Trihs would be the one to raise this issue (in such a heated way that he got a mod note).

Why did Der Trihs get so heated? Well, he was responding to a pretty serious accusation.

@HMS_Irruncible gave an explanation for why a phenomenon being discussed in that thread - what some might call a “pyramid of oppression” but he calls a “deference hierarchy” - not only does exist, but is actually a good thing. Alright, so far, so good.

But then HMS makes this comment:

Now, one could be generous (as the rules historically have been) and assume that @HMS_Irruncible is talking about only people who are off this board.

But I think a more honest reading is that @HMS_Irruncible is saying, “If you disagree with me on this, especially if you are a cishet white man, you only disagree with me because you are distressed at the knowledge that there’s one social hierarchy that you can’t dominate”.

And, I’m sorry, it might not be a slur, it might not have involved any bad words, it might not have been delivered with much vile or heat; but that is an insult. Telling another poster that is being a jerk. Hiding behind the fig leaf of speaking in generalities does not change that.

I said up thread that this is deeply ironic, because 9 times out of 10 when we get an ATMB thread complaining about this issue, it comes from a conservative who feels that @Der_Trihs’ characterization of conservatives as bloodthirsty, nuke happy morons is offensive. And he usually gets away with it, because as long as he keeps his insults general, it’s kosher.

Now, one part of this thread is to challenge that idea, because I think the quality of discussion here would be higher if we stopped giving people the wiggle room to basically say, “Everyone who believes X is a monster. What do you mean, Joe the X Believer? I wasn’t talking about you!”.

But another part is to point out that @HMS_Irruncible actually went quite a bit beyond that, and DID directly point his insults at Der Trihs. When Der Trihs spelled out his objections to @HMS_Irruncible’s position, he replied, summarizing Der Trihs’s stance as:

I get that he used approved scholarly words rather than cussing or whatever, but telling someone “You only disagree with me because you see the existence of a status hierarchy that you can’t dominate as a threat, you monstrous dominator you” is a very fucked up thing to say to someone.

It is not fair for such an accusation to NOT be considered “being a jerk”, but defending yourself against such an accusation to be a problem.

Either posts like HMS’s should simply not be allowed to begin with, or posters should be given more leeway in defending themselves against such nasty attacks (whether they’re directed at, or coming from, @Der_Trihs).

2

Heh. When’s the last time that one thread has sparked two ATMB threads?

Although I’m generally in agreement with HMS (I think, I’ve not closely analyzed his comments and am not prepared to defend each one), I agree that the bit about “demonization comes from” is inappropriate. It’s part of a wider problem, where people say, “You only disagree with me because of your bad character trait.”

Are there cishest whites who are distressed at the knowledge that there’s only one social hierarchy they can’t dominate? Assuming that Charlie Kirk and Chris Rufo are not board members and that I’m not violating rules by saying so: obv. But is that were all disagreement comes from? Of course not. To state the obvious, there are people of color who object to the idea as well.

If it’s important to point out that some off-board folks are motivated by dishonesty–and I think in this case it is–then be specific. But also be clear that not all opposition to an idea is dishonest.

A general practice, IMO, should be to assume good faith among folks if you’re going to engage with them in GD. There are people in GD for whom I can’t make that assumption, and I try not to engage with them there. We have the Pit for a reason.

(Edit: I also think @Der_Trihs 's reaction to it was hyperbolic, but that’s not what the thread is about)

3

Can anyone translate this thread into English for me?

4

All I can say, is I did not analyze the argument in question and just put a stop to it. That back and forth was not allowed in Great Debates or anywhere else on the board except the pit typically.

My modnote was a stop, not pointing all the blame to one poster.

5

THANK you. I was thinking I was going to have to come back to this one when I was more awake to see if the strings of polysyllabic puffery could be resolved to any intelligible communication.

6

Changing his words, mean you’re applying your interpretation.

We’ve already ruled large generic groups of the unoppressed are not protected the way oppressed minorities are. This has come up many times for White-Cis Males and for Republicans. There are probably other examples.

7

That’s totally fair, I’m not even disagreeing with that. If the best first step is to go back and report HMS’s original posts, I can do that.

I do think it’s a conversation worth having, though, because every time someone brings it up in regards to @Der_Trihs doing it about conservatives, the ATMB thread is derailed with people arguing over liberals vs conservatives and board history and a million and one other things, including snide one liners asking if this ever happens to groups other then conservatives. Well… Here it is.

8

It’s really telling that nobody seems willing or able to dispute what I’m saying without adding text, omitting text, or inferring subtext that’s not there. Disagree if you like, but if you can’t do it without layering it with your own misinterpretation, that’s kind of a tell.

I’ll highlight a couple of clarifying points:

  1. I directed my comments toward the “demonization” of intersectionality as a concept. Not mere disagreement, disputation, or concern, but specifically “demonization”.
  2. I accurately described the source of demonization. It is indisputably cishet whites, and mainly men. If you find some other people demonizing the concept of intersectionality, I’ll be glad to reconsider, but everyone knows this is accurate. As to why they do this, that’s of course a subjective judgement, but it’s not at all a stretch theory to suggest it’s about loss of dominance. That’s what all racial grievance is about.
  3. While I wasn’t targeting anyone on-board, because I don’t see any outright demonization in that thread, the fragility I alluded to definitely showed itself and is continuing to show itself. Everything’s got to come to a screeching halt and spawn an ATMB thread in order to be absolutely certain that no white feelings were microaggressed. People have to insist they knew what I really meant, and that it targeted them personally, rather than grapple with the obvious fact that this kind of over-the-top fragile behavior is one reason why the topic exists in the first place.

I’ve also got to mention that some of the rationales here are disturbingly MAGA-like. “When you challenge me, you are calling me an evil inhuman monster.” It’s inevitable that there will be some inferring of intent because that’s part of human conversation, but come on, that’s not what this is.

To be clear this is an attempt to soothe any injured feelings and clarify that no insult was made or intended. It’s not an admission of error or apology, because there’s no error nor anything that requires an apology.

9

Ever hear of Cadance Owens?

Doubling down is an interesting way to “attempt to soothe feelings”.

If you directed this paragraph, especially the bolded but, at any other group, you’d be mod noted for it.

10

Just a reminder, this is About This Message Board and not Great Debates.

This is for discussing the message board and not a place to debate other subjects.

11

Some times, an idea needs to be discussed in an elaborate manner. Because in the subject matter of the referenced thread, it’s very often the simplified rendering of the discourse into “common plain language” that causes the very problems the debaters were going over leading to a heated exchange.

Now, it is one thing to casually make broad-brush accusations where another poster may be accidentally caught in the dragnet and it’s another to bring it up during a specific argument with a specific person. You have to be careful because you run the risk of stepping over the “…your kind…” line even if you never actually say “…your kind…”

Part of the issue there BTW was also that the participants were just flat out refusing to just shake their head and walk away. The Moderation Stop came about because it was getting specifically personal as the parties had gone into calling each other out.

(ETA: Content regarding the original argument/misunderstanding redacted after Note)

12

An important point is that conservatives, Republicans and so forth are political groupings people choose to be part of; not something unchangeable they are born as. That makes criticizing them as a group quite different; the difference between condemning “Nazis” and condemning “Germans”.

There’s also the issue that political criticism becomes impossible if you can’t treat groups of millions of people as a group, and demanding people only speak of groups as individuals is a method of shutting down political criticism I’ve seen on multiple message boards. And a position almost invariably practiced with hypocrisy, when the person making the demand turns right around and praises their own side and condemns the other without trying to treat every member as an individual.

13

This might be the disconnect. It’s unclear what you consider to be demonization vs. disagreement, and I read what you wrote as responsive to the thread, hyperbolically calling disagreement “demonization.” It might be helpful to be more specific by providing examples, and distinguishing between legitimate disagreement and the sort of demonization you’re talking about.

14

Yeah, as a old white guy, I’m not offended by generic attacks on old white guys.

Shrug.

15

Same here.
Or as the last line of that poem should have said:
“…And they came for the old white guys, and I…
Oh, who am I kidding? There was nobody left to go after the old white guys.”

16

Fair enough, I could’ve taken more care with that.

17

ISTM the whole bone of contention is about statements of the form “If you are a member of [group] then you must believe in [whatever] / behave like [whatever].”

It’s the “must” where reasoned debate is thrown out the window and run over by the rear wheels.

18

Thirded.

19

Since the OP is, in fact, in English, maybe you could ask for clarification on the parts you don’t understand rather than taking passive aggressive swipes at the post as a whole? I’m not sure what you aren’t clear on.

20

Republicans maybe, but people don’t choose their political beliefs any more than they choose whether to believe in God or not.

Yes. Continuing the atheism analogy, it’s like saying “atheists are just angry at God”, or “atheists only oppose religion because they want to be able to sin freely”. Assuming that you know someone else’s motives is not conducive to a good debate, and if everyone knows the other person is an atheist, it’s little different to directing the comments at them personally.