"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

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

I'd agree with the author that the subjectivizing of truth is much, much less useful to radical politics then the more standard universalizing. The goal of radical politics shouldn't be to pat people on the head and tell them they're special, nor simply seriously argue that only certain people's perspectives are valid and beyond question. Everything is at risk, nothing is sacred, and the owl of minerva only flies at dusk. All we have is impersonal data. The only valid path to truth is to deny any personal experience: you go off what you can prove.

rudatron fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Dec 3, 2014

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 13:12

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 12:23

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Umm....how are exactly are you 'forcibly labelled'? How does that even work? Actually, forget it, because I want to talk about this bit:

SparkPeople posted:

My personal experiences about being educated about how 'oppressed' I am have always come from some white girl or boy. Any rebuttal is a symptom of 'internalized racism' or ignorance on my part.

The use of 'internalization' in this context is , I think, a tacit admission that the standard way of subjectivizing truth is internally inconsistent.

The unfortunate circumstance of life is that you have a limited perspective, that you are incapable of seeing the reality of something even when looking at it. Looking at the nice weather tells you nothing about global warming. Simply looking at people shopping tells you nothing about capitalism as a system. Oppression of any kind is no different, you cannot rely on any one person's perspective, or even the usefulness of that perspective.

But if you do take that standard activist assumption the author in the op rails against, you're then forced to commit another one: that an oppressed subject can 'internalize' oppression. But if that is the case, then of what use is treating experience as truth? If you have to create a little 'demon', a little devil that hoodwinks the minority from really seeing The Truth, aren't you admitting that you have to introduce an entirely new metric to determine truth? Because the issue is now how do you distinguish between the little 'demon' and the actual True Opinion. Whatever metric you use, you by your actions have admitted that it's more useful than your original idea, of the subjectivizing truth of oppression.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 17:12

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Don't turn this thread into one about kyrie, it's not. 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.

Honestly I feel that even the subject of this thread is just symptom of a deeper problem, there being no 'center' of leftism with which to orient around. OWS is a good example, it tried to be all things to all people failed. It had a phobia of any kind of bureaucratic procedures or organization and as a result ended up being a joke. I'm not even sure united fronts can really work in such an environment, without some kind of core to build on. Like this right here:

Helsing posted:

So in conclusion I'd say that the biographical details given by the author actually support her thesis: her leftism was based more on emotion than reason, and as such once she left campus she quickly abandoned her commitment to any kind of radicalism.

is I think totally accurate but has insufficient explanatory power: it's not as if there is a lack of intellectual theories or pet utopias that can be conujured. If anything the problem is the opposite: that nothing has managed to attain hegemony or majority influence (or more technically, the thing that has attained majority - postmodernist privilege theory - is useless as a constructive tool).

# ¿ Dec 4, 2014 08:20

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Man, this thread was way better before it was used by right wingers to take pot shots. That's I guess the problem with honest criticism, the platform for reform eventually gets hijacked a way for opponents to unfairly tarnish. Maybe the reflexive defensiveness is a result of this? I don't know, but it's bad either way, I think there are issues that still need to be solved.

Blue Star posted:

The thing is, in my experience, it doesn't seem to matter how nice and accommodating we are. Even the statement of simple truths is enough to rile people up. Try to talk about the poo poo that women face, or non-white people face, or LGBT people face, and you open yourself to harassment and abuse. It doesn't seem to matter if you qualify your statements with "Now, only a minority of men are like this...", or "Now obviously not all white people do this...", you'll still get a massive response from pissed off dudes and white people going "Well what about MEN being raped by WOMEN, huh? HUH?!", or "What about when BLACK PEOPLE kill WHITE PEOPLE, huh?! HUH?!" It just doesn't seem to matter. The only thing that will NOT piss these people off is if you say "Women harass and rape men just as much as vice-verse; black people are just as racist as white people and black cops murder unarmed white men just as much", despite all evidence to the contrary.

Yes I agree that many leftist activists wrongfully condemn entire groups of people and can be very prejudiced in their own right, and that many leftists are pretty privileged themselves. There are lots of things to criticize left activists for, and maybe the author of the essay has some good points. I'm just tired of hearing "Whoa, we need to be nicer so as to not drive people away", because to my eyes, people are driven away simply by stating facts.

Yes and no. If simply quoting statistics gets people angry, then there's nothing you can do about that, But that's rarely the problem. So a common refrain is something like "only white people can be racist". That itself is a misinterpretation of systemic or institutional racism, which is true and real, but as stated in the refrain is just incorrect. It's only true if you redefine it as 'favored by systemic racism', in the normal sense it doesn't work. Without the understanding of that redefinition, or of the theory already, you've unnecessarily insulted people, for no gain.

Now I agree that it's not about 'being nice'. 'Being nice' doesn't get you allies, but you cannot afford to just randomly insult people and drive them away. You grab allies wherever you can find them. You obviously don't debase yourself to get them, because it's hard to be an ally with someone you don't respect (and most calls by reactionaries for the left to 'be nicer' are usually this: a call to debase, to lose potency). But you can't afford to simply yell at them and hope they'll change, that's wishful thinking.

rudatron fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Dec 6, 2014

# ¿ Dec 6, 2014 04:20

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

goatse.cx posted:

Good ideas should be able to survive vulgarization,

This is true, but not complete, I'm going to take it one further and say that privilege theory simply is not itself useful for changing society. As a post-modern mode of thought, it has a phobia and disgust towards a kind of thought that has an overarching narrative. Rather, it simply attempts to deconstruct something. So take the talk about intersectionality in the feminist movement. The claim is that white women were marginalizing queer women or women of color. Under the intersectionality lens, the other modes of oppression need to be taken into account. But intersectionaliy does not itself claim how this should be done. What does take into account mean, and how do you know if you've taken it into account enough?

It's why you get these absurd rituals, to fill that gap. Make sure you 'check your privilege'! Don't 'mansplain'! Those aren't just vulgarizations, they're attempts to actually make privilege theory useful. And they're complete jokes.

That doesn't mean minorities weren't being marginalized, but the post-modern way of looking at it just wasn't good enough to actually be useful. Compare that to modernist thinking, where you have a narrative that not only projects backwards, but forwards as well. It gives you an overall goal, and subgoals that should help satisfy that goal. Right or wrong, you can actually try do something it. At least something more than status-signalling.

For a theory to be useful, it has to place the subject at a point in history yet to be written. It has to reveal the mechanics of something, so as to control it. It cannot just be empty self-pitying bullshit, nor simply a way to shut down already existing discussions or work.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 04:12

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Presumably everyone doesn't challenge their own ideology, otherwise they wouldn't believe it. It's not like it's possible to live without ideology, even those who think they're above it just don't understand the assumptions behind their own thinking.

Regardless Space Whale, I'm sorry that happened to you.

But to talk to everyone else: I think what his story demonstrates is that it's impossible to really understand where anyone else is coming from, in their own thinking. Presupposing not only can be disastrous when its wrong, but it's insulting whether or not its right or wrong. They don't understand what they do, but they do it anyway. This kind of pseudo-religious 'look deep inside yourself, to check your own privilege' takes what should be a systemic approach and individualizes it into these weird interpersonal rituals. The fault moves from the system as projected into the individual, to the 'privileged' individual too sinful to give up what they maliciously stole or whatever. It's the same useless liberal garbage behind ideas like 'what if, like, people just stop going to war?', it presupposes that everyone is already in control, and not the subject of something outside them.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 07:53

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

blackguy32 posted:

I hardly ever take part in these conversations because they are so drat painful for me. I get infuriated with all this poo poo about Social Justice Warrior and Tumblr as if it is some kind of boogeyman. There is a thread in Games about GTA V where the conversation started heading in the direction of maybe having a female protagonist and you pretty much got expected results even though 15 percent of the fanbase is female.

Then I remember a thread where a lot of goons lost their poo poo, over the notion that White opinions can be worth less than minority opinions on racial matters. The funny thing about that is that minority opinions are often seen as worthless in almost all matters. But there was this one aspect of society where people just lost their poo poo at not being seen as equals in the conversation.

You're half correct - all opinions are worthless. The opinions of the most intersectional person is still complete garbage. It's all about evidence.

That is, if your goal is understanding the world as it exists. If you're goal is self-righteous indignation, then of course they're useful to you.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2014 05:43

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

SedanChair posted:

I think it's telling that you think you can be more or less "intersectional." You are what you are, there is no ranking, despite every moron in the world talking about "oppression olympics" and trying to put together the grand list of rankings with a black lesbian in a wheelchair at the bottom.

In any case if you are talking about evidence relating to issues of privilege, there is mountains of it. Housing data, job data, you name it. Certain people just won't look at it, even if we cut their eyelids off they wouldn't look.

That's my point: you don't need opinions. If people are ignoring evidence, in what loving universe are they automatically going to accept opinions from random people? They're not, they'll just shut you out and use their own token minorities to discredit. Subjectivizing truth is not a winning strategy.

And intersectional hierarchies are not my creation, a lot of people honestly believe that poo poo. It's a genuine vulgarization that exists. But it's still wrong, even in your won interpretation, which is on an issue by issue basis.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2014 06:45

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 12:23

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Foma posted:

I don't think D&D is the best place for advertising, mock threads are no more offensive than...mock threads in other forums I guess.

Nor do I think that D&D is The Left's Clubhouse or anything like that.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2014 07:02

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