"Everything is problematic" - McGill activist's story about deradicalizing

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > "Everything is problematic" - McGill activist's story about deradicalizing

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

Blue Star posted:

I don't deny that there are extremists and people who aren't constructive, like people who advocate violence or whatever. But this piece and the comments seem to be saying "Hey, stop being so demanding and angry. Watch your tone."

The piece talks about anti-intellectualism and dogmatism coming from the viewpoint of internet social media and student campus-originated protest circles. Seriously, from now on, check the comments of your social media feed for whether they are sourced. How many of them read like cathechisms you are supposed to repeat or reblog without question? Often, I'll see a good point and look for a source but find nothing or that the initial claim is factually wrong. And that can erode the trust of comments over time, especially for people who don't check sources.

And what are the end products of such actions? That kind of activism comes from a western-education-bred misconception that if you simply express displeasure and protest, those in charge will ultimately acquiesce to your demands because they'll feel bad or scared in the face of democracy. This ignores realpolitik issues like how if a group protesting is a minority group, there are less of them than there are of the majority group; any gains will probably be short-run because in the long run the majority can organize itself for a reactionary backlash (see what happened with the rolling back of the VRA, or what happened with environmentalism*). It also ignores that if the majority has a state apparatus that works through propaganda and counterinsurgency, visibility of the protest with a separatist tone will be incorporated into the state's propaganda and counterinsurgency. Those actions and protesters who appear to be most 'out there' will be singled out and broadcast to formerly apathetic people in order to scare them into reactionary action. Also, those who appear most competent of actually affecting the status quo have made themselves a target for counterinsurgency and intelligence folks.

*from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/10/naomi-klein-green-groups-climate-deniers

quote:

What we know is that the environmental movement had a series of dazzling victories in the late 60s and in the 70s where the whole legal framework for responding to pollution and to protecting wildlife came into law. It was just victory after victory after victory. And these were what came to be called "command-and-control" pieces of legislation. It was "don't do that." That substance is banned or tightly regulated. It was a top-down regulatory approach. And then it came to screeching halt when Regan was elected. And he essentially waged war on the environmental movement very openly. We started to see some of the language that is common among those deniers � to equate environmentalism with Communism and so on. As the Cold War dwindled, environmentalism became the next target, the next Communism.

Anger and exclusion is not the best way to shift the overton window if you're in a minority-power group. It only works for the majority-power groups because they have all of the soft power state infrastructure at their disposal to spin things for those who don't want to do research on their own. For minority-power groups, anger can be spun for popular narratives (or even egged along so Franco-types have less trouble by coming against a less-organized resistance).

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Dec 3, 2014

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 06:27

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 07:37

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

rudatron posted:

. The right-wing has people more obnoxious and toxic than even the worst tumblr stereotype, but can get away with it because it serves entrenched interests. The issue here is one of internal reform.

Helsing posted:

Anti-intellectualism and groupthink are serious problems amongst the contemporary left.

Now I hasten to add that I don't think they are problems unique to the left. They are common symptoms of any political movements. However, I think they are a problem for the left because the left is much weaker than the right. A right wing organization can sustain a lot more groupthink because they have access to corporate largesses and are typically welcomed into their respective movement. The right is articulating ideas that are helpful to the people in power so the right gets a level of institutional and monetary support that radical leftists are simply never going to receive. By contrast, the left has very little institutional support and very little money (which is necessary to do most things, like rent an office, print flyers, publish journals, pay people to do full time organizing, provide food and drink at gatherings, attract speakers, etc.).

So while the left and the right (and liberals for that matter) all indulge in dogmatism and groupthink, those practices are going to be a lot more damaging to a leftwing organization for the simple reason that the left is weaker and just cannot afford to waste resources or energy.

Also, because the whole left-right framing is:

the left = Decisions of Production/What Gets Done Should Come from the Bottom Up* while
the right = Production Decisions Come from the Top Down,

the ideas of the common folk on the right are not actually intended to be incorporated into the system. So disorganization and rancor among the masses actually helps entrenched interests because it means less organized opposition to the policy setting of and exploitation by the elite. (I think that there should be a distinguishing between the elite of the right and the common folk of the right. The two groups do not have the same objectives.)
Meanwhile, dysfunction in the common folk on the left and inability to put together enough diverse ideas for a Whole Society's Needs will result in dysfunction in the social organism as a whole (if it's bottom-up, then lack of organization or groupthink can result in simultaneous shortages and surpluses of different things within that society)

*left examples: anarchism, communism (the economic system, not the lingo meaning 'revolutionary socialism as a way to try to get to communism with a Dictatorship of the Proletariat in the meantime), trade unionism/syndicalism
right examples: monarchism, nationalism and fascism, theocracy or any other form of society with high stratification monopolized by one high organization
liberalism is center in current worldly conditions regarding the predominant mode of production

That's my framing of Left-Right, at least. It's probably wrong in some way, but I figure as long as we're talking about leftism and rightism, we might as well define what's left and right

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Dec 4, 2014

# ¿ Dec 4, 2014 08:59

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

Kyrie eleison posted:

This is common sense conservatism.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2014 09:34

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

Main Paineframe posted:

Yeah, gently caress journalists, researchers, and anyone else who dares to share information without immediately magicking themselves into a high enough political office to singlehandedly enforce their preferred response to that information! Public discourse is meaningless, and anyone who writes an article without including a full academic-grade bibliography is a "pop" writer and a hack who blah blah blah, seriously? Okay, sarcasm time is over (for now), because I'm noticing a disturbing trend.

It's not that "public discourse is meaningless," it's that public discourse that has a purely emotional basis can produce bad results. If you are simply relying on your gut and not caring to take into account the results of your action (so you can rethink future actions based on it), you can easily be taken in by plausible-sounding bullshit.

See the whole Kony 2012 thing: Social media users campaigned against an african warlord for using child soldiers because of a slickly made propaganda video that went viral. Hilariously enough that whole charity, invisible children, indirectly or directly supported things that the average donator might otherwise advocate against. Donations to Invisible Children helped with funding the Ugandan military, which also uses child soldiers and does war rapes and all that. Since the Ugandan military is part of the Ugandan government, one must remember that the Ugandan government, around that time, was mounting its efforts for the creation of that "kill the gays" bill and efforts for anti-homosexual policing. Donations freeing up military budget for the Ugandan government would allow them to work on other things. So had a section of people that normally support QUILTBAG rights materially supporting a government that was trying to push through legislation mandating a death penalty for homosexuality - and that legislation had been lobbied by an organization that Chic Fil A donated to. Turns out defenders of chic fil a and internet activists have more in common than you'd think! And all of this support was for the Ugandan Army, when Kony wasn't even in Uganda anymore. Plus, anyone who donated or passed the video along helped to support international military interventionism, which would prove that people who nominally call themselves anti-imperialist to be, in truth, unreliable in that they are okay with imperialist force when they feel like it. These are the kind of people who will turn you in.

Or any time the US wants to bomb or invade a country; there's usually a media campaign leading up to it for popular support by billing it some kind of unique humanitarian crisis. I loved reading the "isis is at it again" threads because it was filled with people saying "well, I didn't support Iraq, but now that I am grown up and older I think the us has a duty to bomb a bunch of poo poo killing mostly civilians".

The call isn't for a Works Cited page, it's to have sources that you can point to when you talk about something that deals with multiple people.
Social issues are emotionally driven. People base them on emotions, and invest a lot of emotions in them, so you changing someone else's mind on a topic like that is not something that you can do by crashing your superior emotions into them (because your emotions are not superior). This is why you have to agree to discuss things like that on more objective terms, using unemotional appeal so as to get to the logic behind any stance. To do this, you cannot take a stance of superiority or have any tone of superiority in your voice; you must insist on your equal footing and equal treatment. This takes a lot of learned patience.

quote:

Activism leaving the halls of political philosophy and being taken up by the common people is a good thing, though. You shouldn't need to know who Foucault was or what queer theory is in order to push for equality for gay people, and I'd argue that elitism like that is far more appropriate for the "circular firing squad" than popular sentiments traveling across widely-used social communication platforms without philosophical essays attached.

Equality is great but what happens a former minority group gradually comes into a position of power and privilege? They may not think they have it, and keep their policy on an emotional basis, excluding outgroups on the rationale of "never again." (Israel instituting an apartheid comes to mind here.) Even in a position of power, the fundamental attribution fault makes people think that they deserve what they've earned and still deserve more. Minorities do not stay Forever Minorities, and there has to be some intellectual basis to verify the conditions one experiences as opposed to simply trusting your group is forever persecuted. Otherwise, you might switch and side with a rightist movement to protect the things you feel you deserve (but the new immigrants don't).

Space Whale posted:

This is stupid.

Also, if it's true, it means it's pointless to do anything, since people are the ists with the isms.

Yeah it's basically an argument for separatism, which is why it's been adopted by folks who are more economically insulated and can afford to keep up an echo chamber but backfires with folks who do have less of that luxury and must deal more directly with power structures.

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Dec 5, 2014

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 04:20

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

You said:

quote:

Oppressed people do not have to take the feelings of oppressors into account, nor should they.

How are they going to seek resolution of conflict if not through separatism?

Also your post brings to mind the "oppression binary," where there are "the oppressed" and "the non-oppressed." like it doesn't come in any degrees or anything. it's pretty useless because, like I said, people tend to see themselves as "the oppressed" due to the fundamental attribution error

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Dec 5, 2014

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 04:41

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

SedanChair posted:

So LGBT folks talked about their experiences and engaged in activism and built communities, and straight people educated themselves and became allies. That's really all checking your privilege is.

I get this idea that you all have been really soured on the word "privilege" because you've heard it from so many people you consider laughable. But there's really no other way to do it. It has to be a process of collaboration between people who are dealing with oppression and people who have benefited from it or haven't had to think about it, but are trying to learn and grow.

There's a difference between checking your privilege (passive awareness) and restorative justice or a truth and reconciliation council (active collaboration/reconstruction)

People are soured on it because the attitude around its use holds that passive awareness-raising is all the action you need (go back to my earlier post about kony 2012). Also because it holds the notion that the Oppressor Class is the one who must act and they are the only ones who can fix everything through their magnanimity with a stroke of the pen or with a loving Live Aid. That takes responsibility and agency for action away from those who are trying to bring about the change.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 08:42

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

SedanChair posted:

There's no way to get to restorative justice without first having that awareness. And some people are going to be stuck at relative uselessness, at slacktivism or tumblr (or D&D) slapfights or what have you. But that doesn't indict the theory's usefulness at all. And if you have any ideas for turning dilettante college grad Americans into real activists with a fire in their belly, I'm literally all attention.

Ideas? It depends on the type of person. If they openly show a lack of willingness to understand other groups' complaints, and subsist only on anger? Then I wouldn't want to try to turn them. I would want to get as far away from them as possible, or at least make it so you don't involve them in any politics while you're around, so they can't later turn you in.

I would rather that those who do not attempt to go out into society but only speak from a simulation of society not contribute to the process if their contributions are harmful and poison the well for others. Activists can promise security and to involve them in projects in a non-political manner in exchange for neutrality - basically guarantee that no matter what goes down, even in the case of an upturning of the social order, they will have a place in society where their abilities will be used in some way. Emphasize their importance, but also insist on the importance of a movement's presentation - its image has to be palatable to the public (compared to the alternatives) for its popular acceptance to occur.
You call those in question "stuck at relative uselessness," but I consider those who are so far removed from experience that they can only give unworkable polemics to be an active detriment to a movement. Whenever someone who actually goes out and talks to people tries to talk an undecided or opposing person, they not only have to address the substantial points of their movement, but they have to address a bunch of planted misconceptions, too. They go at it going uphill, against someone whose thoughts have already been skewed by people who have gotten to them first and associated your Good Things with a whole bunch of divisive unpleasantness.

Besides, those who are used to nice things from having a middle class functionary position and are not ready to give them up are more of a threat than an asset, because they may side with a fascist or single-party state capitalist politburo-type organization in times of a coup if it means they can stay in a bubble. Especially if they are susceptible to emotional propaganda that convinces them to put their anger to use against undesireables. (I'm thinking of Umberto Eco's Eternal Fascism when I take into mind that fascism comes from a frustrated middle class.)

Thomas Todd posted:

Yet our best trained, best educated, best equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight. As a matter of fact... it's safe to say that they would rather switch than fight.

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Dec 5, 2014

# ¿ Dec 5, 2014 10:43

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

SedanChair posted:

The issue had to be concentrated and put in really stark terms. Allies were created, mostly northern.

And as the war ground on, yankee soldiers came to resent blacks. Also refugees and contrabands were persecuted in northern towns increasingly as the war ground on. Mainly because yankees were losing friends and family members to this war for those people they didn't even know. The result was a bunch of segregation through things like sundown towns. The feelings of white superiority were still there, just it was held as more morally superior to the way the rebels were doing things because instead of actively mistreating blacks, they simply alienated them and made it so they would not have to deal with them or ever come into contact with them.

You also ignore the economic basis by stating it only had a moral one. Lincoln, going into the war, held the war was a matter of union preservation and said publicly that it would not be constitutional to deprive a person of their 'rightly owned' property. (Later on, the emancipation proclamation only referred to those rebelling states that were no longer covered by the constitution, done as a strategy to try to get rebel states to rejoin the union.)
The economic conflict was that of entrenched slaveowner elites of the Democratic party who wanted to keep onto the mode of production that thrived through local monopolies using human beings as fixed capital (something that allowed for 'small businessowners') vs emerging liberal capitalists of the Republican elite, who wanted slave labor to be abolished because it would wipe out a lot of competitors, create a large workforce surplus and allow for better national market dominance. Basically small unregulated businessowners vs consolidated large factory owners. Because the latter won, you saw the rise of huge monopolies over the next half century; and because reconstruction got Redeemered (obviously that white privilege check bounced), the south got Jim Crowe which allowed a preservation of that social dominance of whites over blacks without total economic ownership.

e: this is not a defense of slavery. slavery bad. but civil war as a moral white crusade to set free the blacks is a myth

Zeitgueist posted:

as they come from the oppressor class

Does the oppressor class get nifty uniforms and dental benefits, is it something you sign up for or are you born into it like a blood caste??

(just a little joke, no harm meant. I mentioned the idea of there being an "oppression binary" being a framing mistake before)

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Dec 6, 2014

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 07:50

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

UP AND ADAM posted:

If there are situations like the post below describes, how are they different than activists from the days of old conforming to the slogans and behaviors of their contemporary activist groups, turning off mainstream thinkers with their own unpalatable methods and extremism?

It's not different from the Olden Days, which is why it's a shame that we haven't learned from history. Though I meant more of it being a problem of not everyone having the personality and skills suited for that kind of work. Allow me to make an analogy:

A professional doctor has the proper skills for fixing up bodies. Say there is a medical crisis and you set up a movement to send a bunch of doctors to the countryside. Only the people who have developed the skill to doct should be the doctors. If you send a bunch of non-trained folks out into the countryside along with the doctors, because hey, the more hands the better, then you will have a catastrophe on your hand. You can't just send anyone: those not having a steady hand will do more harm than good. And as word gets around, actual doctors will face skepticism and resistance. (A real world example of fake doctors causing trouble for real doctors would be the news of fake CIA doctors in pakistan causing taliban attacks on real aid workers and local skepticism of measles vaccines leading to outbreaks that've killed thousands). You can have people who aren't doctors help the campaign, because every campaign requires lots of people to do perform many different functions - but have people play to their strengths and skills. This is why the Peace Corps doesn't accept just anyone: for 90% of positions, you need a 4-year degree in a trade skill or if a liberal arts degree they'll find you 3 months of tutoring for your placement.

To carry the doctor analogy to activism, my thought is that the people who go out to fix up the problems ailing society should have the proper skills for it, having at least basic social skills. Empathy and patience are a must so you can allow others to feel like it's a conversation instead of a set of rules that feels imposed on and inorganic to that community (and so, more likely to be rejected). Those not having tolerance for the people who live in the place they're seeking to affect will do more harm than good, and as word gets around, those who seek reconciliation will find people not willing to even allow the conversation to happen.

If the activist does not have capacity to respect the person they're working with as a fellow human being, it'll be like sending a bunch of marines who have been taught that the arab is fundamentally a dirty rat by nature into iraq and expecting to win hearts and souls. You're more likely to cause a popular backlash and insurgency. Or a bunch of europeans going into the Congo Free State in the great Civilizing Mission, going under the pretense that the people whose souls you are going to save are that of a lower species.

If you aren't going with the idea that you are talking to equals who are subject to the same faults as you are, why are you going? If you show an adversarial character and blame social faults on individuals (instead of a cooperative one, cooperating to fix the flawed systems that produce individual faults), should you be surprised that you are taken as an imperialist outsider by the locals?

UP AND ADAM posted:

The bad faith needling from people who definitely are MRAs or whatever abhorrent thing is what rankles me. The lack of background depth and rigorous study and low aspirations of my peer group on the left is ultimately more depressing, but I have become accustomed to that ever since facebook started. It's fine to advocate for honest self-reflection and shaming self-aggrandizement, if that's what OP's piece is doing.

It's good you mention MRAs, because I think (and I might be wrong) MRAs arose as a reaction to third wave feminism ss third wave feminism got further and further away from pursuing materialistic goals and tunneled more idealistic individualism. Of course, one's idealized image of the self is a phantom that can only be chased without fulfillment, by definition of it being The Ideal. If something a person has tried for has proven unobtainable, then one must either come to terms with their course of action being faulty and change, or must reason to themselves that someone or something along the way sabotaged things for them. People reasoning the ladder led to third wave feminism picking up an exclusionary character.
So third wave feminism became divisive instead of emphasizing how the gender construct hoodwinks everybody, just in different ways and to different degrees. Men being told not to speak said "oh, but bad things happen to men too!" and out of spite or indignation that they are not supposed to speak went and made their own club. Or rather, they gave a name and supposed moral backing to the activities that had before been de facto boys' clubs.

It's a good example of how going at activism purely theoretically and without taking note of your environment can lead to backlash that makes things worse for everybody.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 08:40

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

SedanChair posted:

What on earth? I was talking about abolitionism, there's no need for you to get into the particulars of the Civil War. Jesus, internet.

You used the example of abolitionism to try to say "checking your privilege is useful. this is a movement that happened because whites checked their privilege" so I decided to take that to its conclusion to show how useful it was.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 08:48

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

Sharkie posted:

You are absolutely wrong. Third wave feminism did not create MRAs; hell, they started popping up in Europe as soon as women achieved the right to do things like get divorced and receive child support. Hatred of women and bitterness at increasing women's visibility and rights created MRAs.

MRAs as in the men's rights activist movement? Like, under that name? Not just anti-feminist groups but people refering to themselves by an MRA label?

SedanChair posted:

It was super useful, tons of slavery defenders were killed by musket and cannon fire.

measure a movement's use by the material gains it produces, not the body count of the bad dudes' infantry (WWI: good war or the best war??). Besides it's too bad the slavery defenders who had propped up the confederacy and led to secession weren't the ones killed because they got to stay in power and institute jim crowe. any sensible movement would have Nuremberg'd them

SedanChair posted:

It doesn't make things worse, it gives people like you an excuse to talk forever about your serious concerns. Not that you need an excuse.

"There you go again" -roald dahl

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Dec 6, 2014

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 08:53

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

Sharkie posted:

Yes. Here is an article about it in the NYT from 1926.

Though if you want to get really technical, the term "activist" wasn't in their names because, I suspect, it wasn't in common parlance then. I don't have access to the OED online, but it would probably confirm that.

I really wouldn't call two small flash-in-the-pan organizations a movement₁ popping up in europe. Some article₂ said the leader "expected 2000 men to show up to a meeting." The split of the two happened because one wanted to address both men's and women's issues and the other wanted to go Full Angrydude.

_{1 That bit you quoted is under the heading 'forerunners' on wiki. 'Movement' is the next paragraph. from there you could debate the separation of 'men's liberation' and when it became modern 'mens rights activists' as the charming thing we know today

2lol misandry dot blogspot i skipped anything that was written by whoever runs that circus and looked at the direct sources. it was the first search result.}

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Dec 6, 2014

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 09:16

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

Sharkie posted:

lol, I showed you that men's right's movements existed in the early 20th century and your response is to say "Wellllll they don't count because..." And wikipedia headings are not convincing arguments.

The answer to your question:

quote:
Not just anti-feminist groups?"
is yes.

the wikipedia headings being "you should probably read the whole thing or not take it out of context." besides, I said "Not just anti-feminist groups" and you didn't really show that two groups isolated to one country without any sort of historical impact was any kind of movement. All you did was you said a thing and copypasted something from wikipedia. Like I had even looked at wikipedia about Men's Rights Movement before I made the original post so I said it fully knowing the thing you said and not thinking it to be important

Does the time when I was a kid that I started a turtle club and there were 3 members mean that I was part of a Turtle Movement

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Dec 6, 2014

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 09:33

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

Sharkie posted:

The Men's Right's League lasted until 1938 until the Nazis shut it down. As far as "historical impact," you can go straight to the vile horse's mouth and see the continuing impact these early groups had. Your argument that third wave feminism is responsible for the men's rights movements is wrong.

Can you point out the 'continuing impact' for me? It looks more like some bloggers tying together any historical justice issues involving crimes perpetrated by women, and coupling it next to 2) "Men's Rights Organizations" to give their own movement the illusion of historical legitimacy. In that article, there's still only the two organizations (though mentioned as being championed by charlie chaplain, still no mention of any sizeable audience) mentioned before under that 2) Men's Rights Organizations. All the rest listed there are specifically alimony fraud advocacy groups lumped in to make it look more numerous.

I would characterize the way Men's Rights Activism is now with red pills and "going your own way" by its identity politics, which goes against the things in that article besides those two proto-groups. Of course, those two groups aren't cited as having influenced modern mra folks, more of being historical outliers than anything else found after the fact. If you wanted to talk about the Men's Rights movement, then go back to what I had in an earlier post (I edited it right after you responded):

quote:

That bit you quoted is under the heading 'forerunners' on wiki. 'Movement' is the next paragraph. From there you could debate the separation of 'men's liberation' and when it became modern 'mens rights activists' as the charming thing we know today

Even if you would take those few isolated things as being part of some organized Men's Rights Movement (which I don't, just disorganized reaction to defend the status quo), would you consider it to be the same thing as today's men's rights movement? Or would you perhaps consider it to be an earlier wave?

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 10:19

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

Sharkie posted:

So you're saying white privilege doesn't exist or what exactly? Do you seriously believe that black people or gay people or women should set aside the issues that concern exclusively them in order to recognize that really, it's about class, and concerns about racism/homophobia are atomizing? I hope you don't, but that's what this post seems to be suggesting.

For any communitarian movement, everyone should set aside the self. Everyone, not specific to any group, should set aside the personal problems upon walking in the door to tackle the root that causes those problems, demanding equal access to means of production pay. This does not mean "selling out" allies (as some majority person bringing it up would not be setting aside their own majority identity); equality in these things should be insisted upon with identity emphasized as being irrelevant. In this way it does tackle those group problems as it tackles the problem of "why should one group be rewarded less for the same actions as all other human beings who were born different."

Once a person has sustainable material independence from the larger oppressive superstructure, it becomes easier to escape oppression. You won't have to stay trapped in a controlling relationship or in a backwards place if you have somewhere else to go, if you have a couch to crash on, if you can move out and build somewhere new. This could be why countries with a high per capita gdp and low gini coefficient have more tolerant attitudes on gender and homosexuality.

quote:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00352.x/abstract
1:"tolerance tends to decline as national income inequality rises. For professionals and managers, the results also support the postmaterialist argument that economic development leads to more tolerant attitudes. On the other hand, attitudes of the working class are generally less tolerant, and contrary to expectations of the postmaterialist thesis, are seemingly unaffected by economic development. In other words, economic development influences attitudes only for those who benefit most. "

From https://www.iwu.edu/economics/PPE14/Haas.pdf
2:"general wage inequality within a country is positively related to gender wage inequality. One way in which a government could take action to reduce the disparity in incomes between genders would be to work to lower the overall income gap, or at a minimum keep it from growing."
3:"as economic development increases, the size of the gender wage gap increases, but only at high levels of per capita income does the difference in pay decreases."

http://www.vawnet.org/applied-research-papers/print-document.php?doc_id=2187
4�Various types of research show a strong relationship between financial status and a woman�s risk for domestic violence victimization. Although it is certainly the case that middle class and affluent families do experience domestic violence, studies consistently indicate that as the financial status of a family increases, the likelihood of domestic violence decreases.�

5.Plus there is a i.) correlation between education and how egalitarian one�s gender attitudes are, and ii.) both a correlation between the income one has had growing up and their educational achievement and iii.) a correlation between education level and current income

If, say, I had been abused a lot when I was younger and that left me a shattered person, is bringing that up every five seconds in response to everyone else's conversation going to help the conversation and make any change? No, because I know it's not about me. Without them telling you, you can be sure that everyone is going through problems of their own. There is no "fix all" cure for them. All we can do is that which eases the pain for everybody and gives them control over their problems. To work on the social, you have to leave the personal at the door.

(also if I have problems, I leave that to professionals, not internet people who are not professionals and who prescribe an ideology as a holistic cure. I can talk to internet people about it but it is not a substitute. there are free clinics to go to and resources you can utilize for low income folks)

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Dec 8, 2014

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 23:24

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 07:37

Rodatose: Jul 8, 2008; corn, corn, corn

Effectronica posted:

I'm not saying that they're arguing in bad faith, or deluded about their real interests. I'm saying that someone who holds views like the person you described, or along a continuum towards him, that such a person is ignorant. They have minimal-to-limited understanding of leftism both as theory and as a historical perspective, and their politics are solely based upon an existential despair. Consider the fatuousness necessary to insist that things have only gotten worse than slavery with even a basic understanding of how slavery operated.

I did not say things got worse. I said things were not fixed. Especially in regard to racial attitudes, which is what was fronted. White people supposedly 'checking their privilege' to free the Downtrodden Race did not result in whites thinking they were racially equal to blacks. Scientific racism and the nadir of race relations followed abolition, not preceeded it. It took more than a century for whites to finally start acknowledging white superiority and this was done out of fear of revolution and economic pressure thanks to efforts organized at the top.
But with abolitionists and the civil war, people went after effects, not causes. Ultimately, deference to the rights of the property-owning class was paid in consolation for their loss of (immorally owned) property. They were not expropriated or disenfranchised from high political office. The common reaction is joy over the burning of atlanta or all the dead soldiers. What good do those low-level deaths bring?

Along those lines, how many times have you heard someone say "we should nuke Iran/Iraq?" The reason someone says this is to relieve political frustrations caused by the ruling elite of another country. Yet such an action is aimed at the populace. Would you say the people of Nagasaki or Hiroshima deserved their deaths for supporting the Japanese Empire? Did their deaths avenge all of the koreans and chinese killed or made into sex-slaves?

Helsing posted:

If you've run into people who use their leftism or their identity politics as an excuse to be bad people then you should shun them. But also please try to recognize that this anger and bitterness comes in a historical context: identity politics didn't cause the left to drive into a ditch, rather the left was defeated and identity politics went from being a useful idea to a full fledged ideology that was plugged into the Marx shaped hole at the centre of the leftist conceptual universe.

This makes more sense, so I'd agree with that and disown my previous statement. I was probably mistaking changes in how rightist masculinist backlash manifests itself nowadays with causes.

I would like to know more about how it came about in the 70s and how it turned into what it is today if anyone would like to offer. It's helpful to understand that sort of thing

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Dec 8, 2014

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 23:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > "Everything is problematic" - McGill activist's story about deradicalizing