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  • Locked thread
Maluco Marinero
Jan 18, 2001

Damn that's a
fine elephant.
The problem with assuming conservatives will soften for ‘model minorities’ is that mostly applies only so long as they tow the line. The moment they start advocating against conservative talking points is the moment they get compacted out of the conservative movement.

The position as a minority in actively hateful company is extremely tenuous, and being a minority means it’s all too easy for the knives to come out and expel them if they go too far or step out of line.

Under those conditions how can effective advocacy take place? Civil change has by and large been encouraged on or forced by outside advocacy, not internal, they’ve merely seen the writing on the wall and capitulated to the outside pressure.

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Jimbot
Jul 22, 2008

Looks like someone wanted Shaun's (of Shaun_jen) opinion on the subject without bringing up specifics:

Link

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Stormgale posted:

^^^ Thats fair, I just mean I feel Contra is being more Naieve than anything, at least from my reading in that she believes this will help (even If for the point I made I disagree)

I've mentioned before that I get the impression Contra is generally naive about the value and use of debate/dialogue, and my impression keeps being validated. Like, she mentions some valid counterpoints to this perspective in her own videos, but I think that, despite that, she still leans in that direction.

OwlFancier posted:

It's not really clear to me, I stopped watching her videos when she started just doing protracted performance pieces in costume about political caricatures without really saying anything. Before that I would classify her as firmly middle of the road liberal.

I think there's some confusion over the definition of "leftist." From reading the comments on her twitter post, it seems like some people interpret "leftist" as sort of a synonym for "SJW" without the baggage, while others (like myself) use it to refer to left-wing politics along both an economic and social axis (so socialists, communists, left-anarchists, maybe social democrats, etc).

I haven't seen anything indicating Contra is particularly left-wing in terms of being a socialist or something similar. Her videos seem to focus on social issues. Which is totally fine (especially since they're directly relevant to her), but it's possible for someone to care a lot and do activism for social issues without being a leftist in the "social and economic" sense.

selec posted:

I agree on most of what you're saying here, but I also think that it's the wedge. Blair White is the thin edge of the wedge. But once that wedge is in, the breach cannot be sealed. Blair White in and of herself is a poo poo. But she's their poo poo, and pretty soon the argument won't be "trans=bad" the way that the argument used to be "gay=bad" it'll be more like "trans and weird" or "trans and socialist" as the bar for badness.

I'm doubtful that it's the trans conservatives (or similar figures) who are the cause of this. It seems more likely to me that the more radical LGBT rights activists (or activists for whatever issue) instead push the Overton window in such a way that conservatives start to feel like accepting and complimenting the more "tolerable" members of the minority group in question (partly to show how reasonable they are, and partly as an insult against more radical members of that group; i.e. "you must be really bad, since I'm willing to accept this other person who is a part of your minority group").

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Nov 27, 2017

Mr Interweb
Aug 25, 2004

I'm totally fine with debates as I enjoy arguing and seeing people argue (or more accurately, seeing right-wing shitheads get destroyed), but I've grown to veer away from public debates where audience members can shout down people they don't like. At that point, it's no longer a debate, and just whoever has the bigger, more vocal group that can drown out the other. Just look at the Cenk Uygur vs. Ben Shapiro debate, or the one with Sargon and that Thomas (can't think of his last name) guy from Mythcon a few weeks ago.

selec
Sep 6, 2003

Ytlaya posted:

I haven't seen anything indicating Contra is particularly left-wing in terms of being a socialist or something similar. Her videos seem to focus on social issues. Which is totally fine (especially since they're directly relevant to her), but it's possible for someone to care a lot and do activism for social issues without being a leftist in the "social and economic" sense.

I got the impression from the characters she's written (and the words she puts into their mouths) that she's pretty far left (has said she'd like to go on Chapo) but also Over It With The Tankie poo poo, as anybody who's spent more than ten minutes in online leftist spaces and yet also has a functioning life offline also feels.

You don't invent an oatmeal-sweatered liberal dipshit that reads like a Berke Breathed parody of liberal yuppies to debate a funny nazi because you think modern liberalism has its poo poo together.

Ytlaya posted:

I'm doubtful that it's the trans conservatives (or similar figures) who are the cause of this. It seems more likely to me that the more radical LGBT rights activists (or activists for whatever issue) instead push the Overton window in such a way that conservatives start to feel like accepting and complimenting the more "tolerable" members of the minority group in question (partly to show how reasonable they are, and partly as an insult against more radical members of that group; i.e. "you must be really bad, since I'm willing to accept this other person who is a part of your minority group").

I think it's two horses in the same yoke. You need both trans people who say the things they like to hear like "LOWER TAXES!" and "DEATH TO ISLAM" on the inside, but you also need your radical activists on the outside.

bessantj
Jul 27, 2004


Mr Interweb posted:

If being trans is a bad thing, why is Blaire White still trans then? :thunk:

There was a Blaire White video that someone posted in this thread and being intelligent I thought I'd read the comments. One thread started with someone saying how White is one of the good ones, but had several people come in and say something like "No he's not, he's mentally damaged and has mutilated his body, he is a sick joke and not conservative." Can White read stuff like this and think she's on the right side?

selec
Sep 6, 2003

bessantj posted:

Can White read stuff like this and think she's on the right side?

A few potential responses that would shield her psyche:

"Those are just trolls"

"Well, I have more work to do, it seems."

"Oh my god, if you put even ONE hundred dollar bill over each eye, it completely blocks out YouTube comments."

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

selec posted:

Over It With The Tankie poo poo, as anybody who's spent more than ten minutes in online leftist spaces and yet also has a functioning life offline also feels.

I have to wonder what this means.

Goon Danton
May 24, 2012

Don't forget to show my shitposts to the people. They're well worth seeing.

selec posted:

A few potential responses that would shield her psyche:

"Those are just trolls"

"Well, I have more work to do, it seems."

"Oh my god, if you put even ONE hundred dollar bill over each eye, it completely blocks out YouTube comments."

I'd suspect it's this one. It's easy to write off people in comments sections, because lol comments sections.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Regarding debates, I feel like one of the biggest problems with verbal debates is that it's basically impossible for the audience to verify the things the debaters are saying during the course of the debate. Like, someone can say "this study shows that what I'm saying is true" and there's no way for a listener to verify whether it's accurate without writing all this stuff down and looking it up later. Debates can work if you're arguing over something that is fundamentally a matter of logic or ethics, but if you're arguing about something that involves actual evidence they don't work so well.

Written debates are much better, because you can provide links and people have plenty of time to put together their responses.

edit: That thing by Shaun about debates is really good and basically reflects my opinion on the subject. In general Shaun is probably my favorite lefty youtube person; he's very good at explaining things.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Nov 27, 2017

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


dinesh dsouza would always hold up books (that probably no one had read but him) and say it had some proof for what he was saying. he's a really terrible debater i dunno why he thought it was a good idea to up against hitchens.

bessantj
Jul 27, 2004


selec posted:

A few potential responses that would shield her psyche:

"Those are just trolls"

"Well, I have more work to do, it seems."

"Oh my god, if you put even ONE hundred dollar bill over each eye, it completely blocks out YouTube comments."

Denial is a powerful thing and no doubt the third option helps that.

Praseodymi
Aug 26, 2010

OwlFancier posted:

I have to wonder what this means.

I wouldn't bother, they seem to think liberal=left (and that Chapo are far left) so I suspect they don't know what they're talking about.

Falstaff
Apr 27, 2008

I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

Ytlaya posted:

I think there's some confusion over the definition of "leftist." From reading the comments on her twitter post, it seems like some people interpret "leftist" as sort of a synonym for "SJW" without the baggage, while others (like myself) use it to refer to left-wing politics along both an economic and social axis (so socialists, communists, left-anarchists, maybe social democrats, etc).

Like you, I define the left largely in terms of economics, and the impression I have of Contra is that she's a leftist rather than a liberal. The reason being that, during the introduction of her Tabby character (where her leftist antifa furry gets lectured by her stock liberal character), the communist manifesto comes up. As one might expect, Tabby defends it as an important work of leftist thought; surprisingly, the liberal character agrees it's important, but that it needs an image update to become more appealing in the modern time. *cue photoshop design joke.*

You could argue I'm reading too much into a single moment in a single video, but there have been enough moments like that in her body of work to give me the impression she's well to the left of the liberal consensus on both economic and social issues, even if she doesn't subscribe to full-bore socialism.

I could be mistaken. I've been wrong before, and I'll probably be wrong again a couple times before I die, so maybe this is one of those times.

Jimbot
Jul 22, 2008

I mean, optics get brought up a lot while criticizing the Left, but it's hard to gauge if that's really a problem when all the major news channels are corporate-owned propaganda machines. Either you have center, left-of-center (barely) or far-right stations to choose from. If you think any of them will give socialist or communist ideals a fair spot in the sun during primetime when lots of people are watching, you'd be hoping in vain. The most popular leftist platform has nothing on what centrists and the right-wing have.

It's quite sad, if you think about it. The Left very well may have trouble with messaging but you simply can't know because they're not given the time of day on major news platforms.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Falstaff posted:

Like you, I define the left largely in terms of economics, and the impression I have of Contra is that she's a leftist rather than a liberal. The reason being that, during the introduction of her Tabby character (where her leftist antifa furry gets lectured by her stock liberal character), the communist manifesto comes up. As one might expect, Tabby defends it as an important work of leftist thought; surprisingly, the liberal character agrees it's important, but that it needs an image update to become more appealing in the modern time. *cue photoshop design joke.*

You could argue I'm reading too much into a single moment in a single video, but there have been enough moments like that in her body of work to give me the impression she's well to the left of the liberal consensus on both economic and social issues, even if she doesn't subscribe to full-bore socialism.

I could be mistaken. I've been wrong before, and I'll probably be wrong again a couple times before I die, so maybe this is one of those times.

She did a video chat with a British communist with some weird-rear end name and agreed with him that capitalism was unstable and would eventually collapse, and that the time of collapse could be very near. That sounds like a pretty orthodox leftist perspective to me.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Praseodymi posted:

I wouldn't bother, they seem to think liberal=left (and that Chapo are far left) so I suspect they don't know what they're talking about.

I honestly don't know (this being the internet opinion haver thread) where the hell I'd place Chapo, politically they appear to be equal parts social democrat and salty. I didn't know that salty was on the political chart but I think it has to be now.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

OwlFancier posted:

I didn't know that salty was on the political chart but I think it has to be now.
*adds 'salt' as another axis to The Unparseable Political Decaract*

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

business hammocks posted:

She did a video chat with a British communist with some weird-rear end name and agreed with him that capitalism was unstable and would eventually collapse, and that the time of collapse could be very near. That sounds like a pretty orthodox leftist perspective to me.

It's probably also a fairly othodox fascist perspective as well though they probably wouldn't articulate it that way. Disliking, or even just acknowledging the failings of the status quo doesn't make you a leftist. Hell the right wing rags write enough wanky thinkpieces about how capitalism is failing people, they just want to find a way to prop it up.

If you held me down and asked me to pin Contra to a position i would say she's a boilerplate respectability politics truth is in the middle liberal at heart, but she flirts with the left and is fascinated by the right.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Nov 27, 2017

Praseodymi
Aug 26, 2010

OwlFancier posted:

I honestly don't know (this being the internet opinion haver thread) where the hell I'd place Chapo, politically they appear to be equal parts social democrat and salty. I didn't know that salty was on the political chart but I think it has to be now.

Guess it depends on your view of political leanings as well, between SocDem and DemSoc is where I'd put the liberal/left divide, and Chapo usually seem to be on the SocDem side. Their fans are even worse, just straight liberals with some edgy /leftpol/ bullshit.

Even though she might think capitalism is going to collapse, that doesn't really make Contra positively a leftist. I've never heard her express or reference any left wing literature or theory that I can remember.

(this sounds pretty horrible in my head so feel free to call me out on this) but like that tweet about new trans women trying to debate fascists, some of her stuff does feel like 'liberal/new leftist trying to tell aged communists how to organise'.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Sometimes someone does have to tell aged communists how to organize though, otherwise they just sit in the corner of the pub having pints of bitter and beards and bad opinions about minority groups and eventually their own political schism among the six of them.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Praseodymi posted:

Guess it depends on your view of political leanings as well, between SocDem and DemSoc is where I'd put the liberal/left divide, and Chapo usually seem to be on the SocDem side. Their fans are even worse, just straight liberals with some edgy /leftpol/ bullshit.

Even though she might think capitalism is going to collapse, that doesn't really make Contra positively a leftist. I've never heard her express or reference any left wing literature or theory that I can remember.

(this sounds pretty horrible in my head so feel free to call me out on this) but like that tweet about new trans women trying to debate fascists, some of her stuff does feel like 'liberal/new leftist trying to tell aged communists how to organise'.

That's basically how it looks to me as well. She seems interested in the ideas but not interested in embracing them, just interested in a "that's interesting" kind of way and possibly in a desire to seem hip kind of way.

I hope she does go full left but I'm not holding my breath.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

OwlFancier posted:

It's probably also a fairly othodox fascist perspective as well though they probably wouldn't articulate it that way. Disliking, or even just acknowledging the failings of the status quo doesn't make you a leftist. Hell the right wing rags write enough wanky thinkpieces about how capitalism is failing people, they just want to find a way to prop it up.

If you held me down and asked me to pin Contra to a position i would say she's a boilerplate respectability politics truth is in the middle liberal at heart, but she flits with the left and is fascinated by the right.

It was a conversation about socialism in which she agreed that socialism was right within the first ten minutes.

What are your criteria for determining a speaker’s political commitments?

Praseodymi
Aug 26, 2010

Guavanaut posted:

Sometimes someone does have to tell aged communists how to organize though, otherwise they just sit in the corner of the pub having pints of bitter and beards and bad opinions about minority groups and eventually their own political schism among the six of them.

Yeah bad example. 'All the new non transphobic communists but not brand new ones'

That's one of things that annoyed me about Contra's video with the Tabby character. Even though I doubt I'd have much to chat about with her since I'm not really into anime cat girls I'd be fine having Tabby as a comrade.

That and the liberal character saying leftists need to talk about cool stuff like rock and roll. I guess anarchist crust-punk is only cool to me?

Praseodymi
Aug 26, 2010

business hammocks posted:

What are your criteria for determining a speaker’s political commitments?

That they actually have a left wing framework for viewing issues rather than just vague platitudes? I don't think Contra is one of them, but plenty of people who claim to support socialism still think it means 'when the government does stuff'.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Praseodymi posted:

Guess it depends on your view of political leanings as well, between SocDem and DemSoc is where I'd put the liberal/left divide, and Chapo usually seem to be on the SocDem side. Their fans are even worse, just straight liberals with some edgy /leftpol/ bullshit.

Even though she might think capitalism is going to collapse, that doesn't really make Contra positively a leftist. I've never heard her express or reference any left wing literature or theory that I can remember.

(this sounds pretty horrible in my head so feel free to call me out on this) but like that tweet about new trans women trying to debate fascists, some of her stuff does feel like 'liberal/new leftist trying to tell aged communists how to organise'.

Her video about why she dropped out of graduate school talks about the influence John Berger had on her thinking.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

I am admittedly going off older material as I haven't seen that one. I just don't understand why someone who understands and agrees with a literal communist would then go on to post "all I can say to the left is tone policing"

Like, how do you get from "communism is good and strong and my friend" to "well yeah but don't be so loud about it"

The two seem incongruous. So I'm inclined to weight the self expressed stuff higher. The choices made about who and what to engage, the subjects started in tweets and videos and that.

Those to me show someone who seems very taken still with the idea of a middle ground and civil debate and respectability politics. None of which are what I would expect from someone who believes pretty basic stuff like "material inequality is unconscionably abhorrent and must be eradicated at the earliest opportunity".

I can wholly grant that she has interest in those ideas but I don't at all think she actually internalizes and embraces them outside of debating with people who express them.

One can concede a point in a debate without actually believing the other person is correct. There is a gulf between that and realigning one's views. Everything I've seen from here seems to come from the position of a socially progressive liberal. A pro welfare democrat. Maybe one who really does care, but one which regardless is bounded by that ideological box and doesn't embrace true alternatives to that.

The difference, I guess, as above, between a socdem, and a demsoc. The difference between someone who supports polices which might be on the table now because their politics inform in them a sense of empathy and a belief in the ability of government to be a force for good, but whose political goals are wildly removed from those policies and even the current political system, and person whose ideal is actually just those policies.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Nov 28, 2017

Falstaff
Apr 27, 2008

I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

In other words, her praxis is severely lacking, I agree.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Praseodymi posted:

That they actually have a left wing framework for viewing issues rather than just vague platitudes? I don't think Contra is one of them, but plenty of people who claim to support socialism still think it means 'when the government does stuff'.

I agree that her videos don’t approach their subjects from a Marxist perspective, but I don’t know that they’re necessarily incompatible with a Marxist perspective either.

selec
Sep 6, 2003

OwlFancier posted:

Like, how do you get from "communism is good and strong and my friend" to "well yeah but don't be so loud about it"

What she's probably talking about is "You know, they threw gay people and transfolk into those gulags you like to 'joke' about too?"

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

OwlFancier posted:

I am admittedly going off older material as I haven't seen that one. I just don't understand why someone who understands and agrees with a literal communist would then go on to post "all I can say to the left is tone policing"

Like, how do you get from "communism is good and strong and my friend" to "well yeah but don't be so loud about it"

The two seem incongruous. So I'm inclined to weight the self expressed stuff higher. The choices made about who and what to engage, the subjects started in tweets and videos and that.

Those to me show someone who seems very taken still with the idea of a middle ground and civil debate and respectability politics. None of which are what I would expect from someone who believes pretty basic stuff like "material inequality is unconscionably abhorrent and must be eradicated at the earliest opportunity".

I can wholly grant that she has interest in those ideas but I don't at all think she actually internalizes and embraces them outside of debating with people who express them.

One can concede a point in a debate without actually believing the other person is correct. There is a gulf between that and realigning one's views.

I don’t believe we can have reliable access to the person herself or know her inner truth or whatever. To me these videos are essays articulating arguments, and I have to evaluate them like that. The person herself is outside the bounds of what I can know reliably, which is part of why I think twitter is weird and bad for projects like Contra’s.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

business hammocks posted:

I don’t believe we can have reliable access to the person herself or know her inner truth or whatever. To me these videos are essays articulating arguments, and I have to evaluate them like that. The person herself is outside the bounds of what I can know reliably, which is part of why I think twitter is weird and bad for projects like Contra’s.

I agree, this is all best guess. As I said I hope that I am wrong and that she turns out to be the best dressed anarcho syndicalist ever. But I would be lying if I said that was my honest impression at present.

selec posted:

What she's probably talking about is "You know, they threw gay people and transfolk into those gulags you like to 'joke' about too?"

I think someone who feels compelled to do that probably hasn't spent enough time around actual tankies. There's a difference, I promise.

Praseodymi
Aug 26, 2010

business hammocks posted:

I agree that her videos don’t approach their subjects from a Marxist perspective, but I don’t know that they’re necessarily incompatible with a Marxist perspective either.

I'd agree, and I think that's the sort of content she should be making (if this aligns with her views) is pro-lgbt material from a Marxist perspective, something that seems fairly lacking, and something that seems necessary to stem the tide of brocialists and manarchists that I suspect are former Bernie Bros that have moved further to the left.

The worst submarine
Apr 26, 2010

Jimbot posted:

Looks like someone wanted Shaun's (of Shaun_jen) opinion on the subject without bringing up specifics:

Link

This is how I feel. The thought that the correct position will win in a debate is an extension of the free marketplace of ideas.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Falstaff posted:

Like you, I define the left largely in terms of economics, and the impression I have of Contra is that she's a leftist rather than a liberal. The reason being that, during the introduction of her Tabby character (where her leftist antifa furry gets lectured by her stock liberal character), the communist manifesto comes up. As one might expect, Tabby defends it as an important work of leftist thought; surprisingly, the liberal character agrees it's important, but that it needs an image update to become more appealing in the modern time. *cue photoshop design joke.*

You could argue I'm reading too much into a single moment in a single video, but there have been enough moments like that in her body of work to give me the impression she's well to the left of the liberal consensus on both economic and social issues, even if she doesn't subscribe to full-bore socialism.

I could be mistaken. I've been wrong before, and I'll probably be wrong again a couple times before I die, so maybe this is one of those times.

I don't necessarily disagree (when I said "I haven't seen anything implying she's a leftist" that doesn't necessarily mean I'm sure she isn't; just that I haven't seen anything indicating she is), but I don't think this example really indicates much. A lot of more left-leaning mainstream liberals would be totally fine saying the communist manifesto is an "important work."

I find that there's some overlap between a subset of leftists and liberals in terms of their goals, though their approach towards achieving those goals differs. Like, there are a number of people who identify as leftists who aren't actually any strand of socialist and just advocate for stuff like an expanded welfare state, and you see the same goals among some liberals (the type who talk about the New Deal and stuff). The difference seems to mainly be in how aggressively they feel these goals should be pursued, and the urgency with which they believe those goals need to be achieved (the latter is the big thing in my opinion). The liberal is more likely to think Democratic politicians are acting in good faith and that these goals can be achieved within our current political environment, while the self-identified non-socialist leftist likely feels these goals are incompatible with the current state of the Democratic Party. The liberal fundamentally assumes good faith on the behalf of Democrats, while the leftist is usually skeptical.

I mention this because, if I had to guess, I'd probably say that Contra is what would normally be described as a left-liberal. Someone who is in favor of stuff like expanding the welfare state, but who isn't as deeply concerned with the compatibility of status quo liberal politicians with achieving significant progressive towards economic left-wing goals. I don't believe she's any sort of actual socialist. She might describe herself as a social democrat, but I don't see the same sort of sense of urgency applied to those issues that I tend to see from people who identify as "leftists." And, just to be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with this. It makes sense for Contra to focus primarily on social issues, since they're of deep relevance to her personally (and unlike many other liberals, she doesn't seem to have any problem with economic leftists).

But again, all of this is based around what I perceive to be the working definition for "leftist," which is a term that only began to pop up frequently in a certain context fairly recently.

Deified Data
Nov 3, 2015


Fun Shoe
Contra is wrong that political violence stops being effective and tactical when it becomes fun. She also said that we are the better people in a way that implied she did not believe it, which I also disagree with.

Contra is wrong on both of those things but a sappy liberal she is not.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Deified Data posted:

Contra is wrong that political violence stops being effective and tactical when it becomes fun. She also said that we are the better people in a way that implied she did not believe it, which I also disagree with.

Contra is wrong on both of those things but a sappy liberal she is not.

There’s an element of personal psychology at play that she didn’t notice as well, in that I don’t think everyone would find violence pleasurable. I don’t think I’d find it anything but extremely stressful unless there was zero risk to my safety. I imagine I’d suffer some kind of trauma as well, even if it were only nazis.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

OwlFancier posted:

Those to me show someone who seems very taken still with the idea of a middle ground and civil debate and respectability politics. None of which are what I would expect from someone who believes pretty basic stuff like "material inequality is unconscionably abhorrent and must be eradicated at the earliest opportunity".

This gets to the heart of what I perceive to be the biggest dividing factor among the left - a sense of urgency. Many liberals and leftists might agree about general goals, but liberals usually don't quite comprehend the level of injustice at play and approach it accordingly. The best illustration of this is the gap between the way most left-leaning liberals discuss issues like bigotry and the way they discuss material inequality. They'll frequently (correctly) acknowledge that bigotry is completely unacceptable and must be condemned and stopped at the soonest opportunity, but when it comes to material inequality they're fine with waiting 50 years and endlessly compromising.

edit: Like, to use the recent Franken thing as an example, some liberal posts correctly reacted with "this is unacceptable, he should resign immediately." But you'd never see them react the same way to a politician acting in ways that either further inequality or hamper progress towards fighting inequality. Suddenly it's okay to compromise and be pragmatic when those issues are at play. (And of course you also have liberals who are even worse than that and are willing to compromise on social issues as well as economic ones.)

To be completely honest, in an ideal world possessing huge wealth would be treated the same way as being guilty of sexual assault. Both are grossly immoral. I realize we're not nearly there yet, but the least we can do is condemn people who act against lessening inequality.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Nov 28, 2017

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Ytlaya posted:

This gets to the heart of what I perceive to be the biggest dividing factor among the left - a sense of urgency. Many liberals and leftists might agree about general goals, but liberals usually don't quite comprehend the level of injustice at play and approach it accordingly. The best illustration of this is the gap between the way most left-leaning liberals discuss issues like bigotry and the way they discuss material inequality. They'll frequently (correctly) acknowledge that bigotry is completely unacceptable and must be condemned and stopped at the soonest opportunity, but when it comes to material inequality they're fine with waiting 50 years and endlessly compromising.

edit: Like, to use the recent Franken thing as an example, some liberal posts correctly reacted with "this is unacceptable, he should resign immediately." But you'd never see them react the same way to a politician acting in ways that either further inequality or hamper progress towards fighting inequality. Suddenly it's okay to compromise and be pragmatic when those issues are at play. (And of course you also have liberals who are even worse than that and are willing to compromise on social issues as well as economic ones.)

To be completely honest, in an ideal world possessing huge wealth would be treated the same way as being guilty of sexual assault. Both are grossly immoral. I realize we're not nearly there yet, but the least we can do is condemn people who act against lessening inequality.

And I can't help but think that the reason for that disconnect is rooted in the underpinnings of leftist thought. I think that is the difference between someone who truly believes that ownership of the means of production is a tool to facilitate the extraction of the earned labour of others for oneself, and stems purely from inertia with no ethical underpinning. As opposed to someone who doesn't believe that, either believing something contrary or not thinking about it.

When you believe that you cannot help but see detestable injustice being actively perpetrated against every human being you meet every moment of their lives. It is automatically radicalizing. Which is why I don't trust people who identify as leftist but lack that conviction. Something doesn't add up. All strands of the economic left I know of, recognize that fundamental truth, that the status quo is not just passively suboptimal, it is actively taking from people. It is not a thing to be improved when convenient, it is a crime to be stopped.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Nov 28, 2017

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Rugoberta Munchu
Jun 5, 2003

Do you want a hupyrolysege slcorpselong?
Meanwhile on YouTube they are eating their own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGL8paeCBxc

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