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I don’t know what to do, you guys

fredrikdeboer.com

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Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#71

Post by refurb »

vacri wrote: post #49
yummyfajitas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an odd view. Right wing politics in the US claims to lean toward reducing/dismantling SS and the welfare state, radically changing immigration and education policy. (In reality they are prevented from doing this, of course.) In contrast, left wing politicians just want to throw more money at the same things.

"radically changing immigration and education policy." => "making it so that the current demographic makeup doesn't change that much". Right-wing reforms of this kind aren't about the legislative change, but about keeping society itself relatively unchanged. Rate of reform isn't calculated in number of laws passed, but in the societal effects of those laws.

Since when is mainstream right wing immigration policy directed towards "maintaining the current demographic make-up"?

Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#72

Post by TrevorJ »

smacktoward wrote: post #16

I don't think it's an accident that all three of his examples involve college students. I saw plenty of examples of this type of aggressive ideological policing in various political groups I was involved in when I was college. I have seen exactly zero in nearly twenty years of being involved with and working in left-wing politics after graduation. (Which isn't to say it never happens, I'm sure it does, just that it's…

I think it's human nature to more vigorously defend your viewpoint if A: You feel would be strongly effected if it turned out to be false and B: You are somewhat unsure of the validity of your claim.

To me, this explains at least partially why the college age is one where you see this sort of strong rejection of anyone who disagrees. Many college students will have only recently laid any real claim to their own fully formed world view, and they don't have very much personal experience to back it up. Their world view also tends to be very wrapped up in self identity.

All in all, I think this leads to a more vigorous rejection of differing opinions in some cases.

Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#73

Post by solipsism »

solipsism wrote: post #59
javajosh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel ya. I'm a staunch gay rights advocate, even fought prop 8, but I still thought Eich was treated unfairly. A man shouldn't lose his job because of his political views, just like he shouldn't lose it for being, say, transgendered. Needless to say, this is a nuanced position, and some people simply don't have the capacity for nuance, sadly.

It sounds like you're saying yours is the nuanced position and anyone disagreeing with you does so out of inability to grasp the nuance. Is that how you really feel?

Down voters, try to understand that I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the position in Eich, so calm your itchy down-voting fingers. I'm asking for a clarification.

Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#74

Post by sparkzilla »

Animats wrote: post #35
smacktoward wrote: post #16

I don't think it's an accident that all three of his examples involve college students. I saw plenty of examples of this type of aggressive ideological policing in various political groups I was involved in when I was college. I have seen exactly zero in nearly twenty years of being involved with and working in left-wing politics after graduation. (Which isn't to say it never happens, I'm sure it does, just that it's…

"Academic politics is so vicious because the stakes are so low." - Henry Kissinger. He'd both been on the Harvard faculty and was Secretary of State, so he knew. The real trouble with the political correctness thing about sex is that it's a distraction from the real political issues - money, and who gets how much. Most of what government does and can do is about money. The US right has its own problems with sex, but…

>Occupy leaves behind one lasting achievement - the identification of "the 1%" as a problem.

As long as the 1% doesn't include Steve Jobs.

Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#75

Post by hagan_das »

Many of the "social justice" crowd get off on the moral superiority they feel from engaging in rabid political correctness.

Unfortunately for them, moral superiority is by definition a positional good, a good whose value rapidly diminishes as PC concepts become increasingly mainstream. Thus they seek increasingly extreme levels of political correctness to signal their status as being above the common rabble.

Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#76

Post by stormbrew »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #37
vacri wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth remembering that one advantage right-side politics have is that they are passionate for the status quo. Left-side politics are passionate for change. And it's when people are passionate that they get into disagreement; it's much easier for lefties to disagree about what kind of change they want, than for righties to disagree about how they want things to stay the same...

This is an odd view. Right wing politics in the US claims to lean toward reducing/dismantling SS and the welfare state, radically changing immigration and education policy. (In reality they are prevented from doing this, of course.) In contrast, left wing politicians just want to throw more money at the same things.

I agree that it's incorrect to say that right wing politics are specifically about maintaining the status quo, but that does tend to be the effect of their policies, regardless of how much they change the law "lines of code" style, as pointed out by a sibling post.

But what right wing politics are about is maintaining the social order. Ensuring that wealth stays with the wealthy, power remains with the powerful, and making people content with both their own place in society and the places of others (particularly their 'betters'). Dismantling SS, keeping illegal immigrants illegal, cheap, and vulnerable as well as avoiding a flood of legal immigrants who will take 'native' jobs, and controlling education policy all achieve these goals. As does advocating for less progressive taxes to avoid distribution of wealth away from top earners.

Making right wing politics all about shrinking government is putting the cart before the horse. Shrinking government is not in itself a useful goal, it's the outcomes of that shrinkage, and what you shrink, that are the goal. Starving the beast is just how you get there.

Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#77

Post by yottah »

powera wrote: post #55
vijayboyapati wrote: post #20

This post, which definitely resonates with me and my experience in Silicon Valley and in Seattle, surrounded by very leftist politics, reminds me a lot of Mencius Moldbug's brilliant piece "Technology, communism and the Brown Scare": http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2013/09/technol...

I know I'm going to get downvoted for this comment, but: what the literal fuck? That article seems to only be a borderline incoherent mix of various claims of racism, anti-communism, pro-communism, and anti-semitism directed at nobody in particular. If anybody can make any actual sense of the point of the article, please say so?

It requires a high IQ to comprehend.

Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#78

Post by mrxd »

zerocrates wrote: post #8

The author spends a lot of time decrying Chait, his article, and his views, but seems to end up in a pretty similar place. Other than the fact that deBoer has scrupulously chosen to only call out white authors, this article seems to "scold" its subjects for their tactics just the same as Chait's did. What's the basis for the great distinction between the two that's the basis for the first and last paragraphs? That Ch…

> What's the basis for the great distinction between the two

Chait thinks that traditional liberal values of free speech and free thought are threatened by political correctness. DeBoer thinks that anti-oppression movements are undermining themselves by alienating their own members.

They both see political correctness as harmful, but are very different in every other way.

Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#79

Post by WillNotDownvote »

deciplex wrote: post #31
vacri wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth remembering that one advantage right-side politics have is that they are passionate for the status quo. Left-side politics are passionate for change. And it's when people are passionate that they get into disagreement; it's much easier for lefties to disagree about what kind of change they want, than for righties to disagree about how they want things to stay the same...

I wonder if this is a reaction to Republican party politics of the last 20 years or so? They seem to speak with a single voice, even if that voice is usually saying stupid, hateful, regressive things. That they march in such lockstep is probably their greatest asset as a party, and I really don't know if it's something to be emulated or not (leaning toward 'not', though).

"They seem to speak with a single voice"

This is something that even casual observation of the real world as opposed to rhetoric will show you that it's not true.

Re: I don’t know what to do, you guys

#80

Post by asgard1024 »

There is nothing inherently leftist about feelings of moral superiority. It comes with various ideologies and is poisonous all the same. I can only recommend Altemey's excellent book on the topic. (By the way, my short definition is that if want to reduce social injustice and inequality, then you are a leftist.)

In fact, yesterday I just had a debate with my Czech coworkers (we work for an American company). In Europe, the ideology of "political correctness" is not so followed (and in fact many from minorities would find it plainly annoying), and in Czech Republic specifically is mostly ignored. Yet in many respects Europe could be considered more "leftist" (take employment law, for instance).

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