ContraPoints

"the number of people, whoever they are, who saw her get friendly with the likes of Shoe and decided that Shoe must therefore be worth listening to."

That is a worthy argument. Except, well, being chummy with the horrible people you debate or interview is part of the gig. Misunderstanding that as condoning is understandable, but should it really stop the discussion from happening?

Also, anarchists and communists are mostly ridiculous, and the combination thereof even more so. I spent my college years with a student council that was occupied with those stubborn out-of-touch holier-than-thou embittered fractious utopian paranoid assholes and I cannot overstateme my frustration with their sanctimonious stupidity. And sexism. And anti-Semitism. And aversion to basic hygiene. And fooling around with heroin. Heroin! How you call someone who is trying to make a revolution happen, that was planned in 1936, 1848, or 1796? Like the Zeerust of social struggle? Because "neo-reactionary" is taken by the assholes who thought 1789 was too far to the Left.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm very frustrated with this bunch, and I'm thankful for Contra mocking them, because someone has to and the Right can't be trusted to hit them where it actually hurts.

edited 22nd Mar '18 12:24:42 PM by TheHandle

It also look a lot like "you cant critize us in this way" While is trust Contra is pushing sutff, it feel that at times it come as "just do it the way we wanted it"

There, better?

edited 22nd Mar '18 1:17:25 PM by unknowing

Yeah uh, those sound like shitty people but they aren't representative of all Ancoms. I know plenty of Ancoms, they're good people who don't believe in that shit at all and would most likely mock whatever group that is. And even then, there's many people criticizing Contra who aren't Ancoms, so her lumping them in with that bunch is frankly incredibly frustrating.

Also, this has been stated in this thread repeatedly, but please quit dropping random links with not context. It's against the rules.

Dude, I can't understand what you're saying. Please rephrase.

EDIT: Better, yes. Still wrong. Nobody is saying "You can't criticize us in this way", they're saying that Contra's criticisms are wrong because she's trying to defend her hanging around shady people and engaging "politely" with them when in actuality she's just making friends with them and trying to act like she's converted them.

It's telling that in her video "The Left", she uses her character that's supposed to be a stand in for Dave Rubin as being her "friend" in a manner that's outright meant to reference the brunch incident with Shoe On Head.

edited 22nd Mar '18 1:23:14 PM by AdricDePsycho

How is that video relevant to anything here? Is it supposed to show Stephen Fry acting friendly with that homophobe as a good thing, because it'd be more likely to change his views? Last I heard of Bolsonaro, he was still an utterly repulsive bigot who wants to basically be Brazil's version of Trump, so I don't think it worked. Not to mention, Fry seemed pretty repulsed by the conversation afterwards. That's not what Contra acts like.

Stephen Fry has said plenty of, let's put it mildly, questionable things himself too, but that's another story entirely.

I don't have an issue with Contra politely debating these people. I have an issue with her acting like they're all friends and getting passive-aggressive towards her fans because they don't like that she's being chummy with the same people who make fun of them for wanting basic human rights. Mind you, she's wearing a "Triggered" t-shirt too and the whole making fun of "culture wars" thing in her tweet pushes the whole thing of both sides being silly for not getting along. Even though one side actively wants to deny the other one basic human rights, while the other side mostly just says "Stop treating us like garbage, you jerks."

Doesn't help that even after all that time of supposedly getting educated by her leftist friends, Shoe is still an utterly repulsive, bigoted asshat who is openly friendly with white supremacists and mocks people who bring up the stuff she's said in the past. I mean, look through her twitter for more than 5 seconds. Is this seriously who you want to be associated with, Contra?

Oh yeah, Fry is kind of a shithead. He was doing some debate thing where he was anti-political correctness recently, yes? He's, uh, not someone I'd say should be followed as an example.

Also Bolsonaro is the Brazilian equivalent to Donald Trump and every Brazilian I've talked to about him has said they're outright panicked about him winning because of how horrible a person he is. So, Fry and Bolsonaro? Uh...not a good example I'd recommend following. At all.

To give Contra the benefit of the doubt, I don't know what went through her mind when she did all of that. And I don't think she's lying about her motives of wanting to convert some of those idiots.

The thing that mostly bothers me is how she deals with people who are upset by what she does. The passive-aggressiveness and lumping all her critics together (which she's owned up to recently in at least one case, so I was glad to see her do that. Others wouldn't even do that much). By her lack of explanations and justifications. Usually, she wouldn't owe that to anyone, but as someone who's popular literally because she discusses these kind of politics, she has a responsibility to set a certain example and explain herself I think. She influences a lot of people with her platform after all. Not to mention, people give her money on Patreon for all that, so they're well within their rights to complain if they're dissatisfied with something as her customers.

Still, despite all that, I seriously doubt Contra is gonna get "redpilled" or whatever anytime soon.

I don't think any of us expect her to go down that particular path. But by being overly friendly with the alt-right she legitimizes them for people. She lets people who might otherwise be warned off go "Shoe can't be a bigot, they're friends with Contra."

Contra isn't going to pull a Laci Green and get redpilled. But what she is doing is a dangerous game.

It certainly doesn't help that Contra and popular leftists in general treat it as a joke whenever someone brings it up and tend to dismiss it as "purity politics". And whenever they get prodded just a little bit more than that, they awkwardly ignore it. I get that they don't have the time and energy to argue with everyone on twitter, but "Hey, why are you chummy with someone who says people like me are degenerates who should stop whining about getting oppressed?" is both a legitimate concern that deserves a lot more consideration and, well, ignoring it just plainly makes them look bad and careless.

To give some context here, in that documentary Stephen Fry was investigating homophobia in Brazil. More specifically, he was investigating the murder of a young gay teenager in the state of Rio de Janeiro, so Fry logically went to talk to a elected representative of the state's government willing to talk to him. That figure happened to be local Congressman Jair Bolsonaro and it's not remotely a "casual conversation", Fry's trying to figure out why Bolsonaro, as a representative of the state, hasn't done anything about the LGBT murder rate which is astronomical in Rio de Janeiro (and Brazil as a whole). He gets a chilling answer.

The context of the situation has absolutely nothing to do with Contra taking off her time to talk with neo-nazis. It is a complete non-sequitur.

A non-sequitur that has been told to stop because it's against the rules to randomly drop links into threads.

edited 24th Mar '18 4:32:45 AM by HottoKenai

That is very well said.

Yeah, I'm not sure I like the whole "you have the look past the fact that they openly claim white men are superior to all other people'' angle she's going for. People are taking this "why can't we be friends" crap too far. No, I'm not going to "hang out" with people who at best openly claim I'm a second-class citizen because I'm black and at worst would like to see me literally hanging out. Eat me.

Yeah, I'm also not crazy about the idea that I'm somehow being close-minded for not wanting to hang out with people who, if given the chance, would send me and mine into a gas chamber for not being white.

Distinguishing performers from true believers is tricky, and sometimes meaningless. Goebbels, for instance, always shocks me in that he knew and openly acknowledged that his propaganda was lies on top of lies, that the Jews were scapegoats blamed for everything, that he was bluntly playing the Germans for suckers. That he didn't believe a word he said doesn't detract from what he did in the least.

Likewise Hitler's demagogic madness was treated as just that, a ridiculous exaggeration of the extremely common anti-Semitism of the time, which the ruling classes had had a habit of weaponizig for scapegoating for centuries. Until 1941, it was nothing special. And then it turned out that he had been dead serious all along and totally actually wanted all the Jews dead.

There's good antecedent to be paranoid.

However, I'll take the gamble of supporting Contra here and trusting her better judgement. She's doing good in the world overall, and I won't ask her to be a bastion of virtue or even good judgment all the time.

If that's how she wants to waste spend her time, fine, but don't try and tell me I should be doing the same.

Hanging out with hatemongers isn't exactly my idea of a productive use of my limited time on Earth either.

edited 24th Mar '18 6:43:30 AM by M84

"1 most of their figureheads are obsessed with fame and 2 they lack firm commitments to any actual principles."

In my opinion, that makes them even bigger scumbags, not better people. They know it's bullshit and push for it anyways. At least true believers, while being completely wrongheaded and callous, act out of some kind of self-preservation. "Performers" are willing to make life hell for other people just for fame. They're not more worth spending your time on, they're less worth spending your time on. They won't argue in good faith because they lack faith in their cause in the first place.

edited 24th Mar '18 10:12:29 AM by Antiteilchen

This.

Bottom line: Contra is wrong about this. Hey, nobody can be right about everything.

edited 24th Mar '18 9:50:48 AM by M84

None of that is well said. People who are performing are outright worse because then they don't believe in these principles and yet still push for them anyway. And when she's talking about people who are just centrists and liberals, like who? Bigots like Shoe On Head and Jesse Stingel? Centrists who attack the left to pretend they're "balanced" like Ethan Klein and Philip DeFranco? Hanging out with these people and "understanding" them is nonsense.

Then again, what is else to do? just shut themselves and give oneself a pat on the back because we did it?

Becuase one think, contrary to the popular idea, the nazis did also have plenty of luck in order to carry out their plans rather than being all powerwull corrupting they like to portray themselves, so is the alt right more hot air and empthy bosting.

Dude, I still can't understand what you're saying.

Dude let me put it clear: so if you can consider worthy of your time knowing the other side(Not tolerating, not agreeing with them), them what else to do? just roll over and wait?.

Better?

Slightly better. Regardless, I really don't understand the argument that if we don't befriend or understand them then we're only patting ourselves on the back and doing nothing. We should not be befriending these people. We can understand their tactics but we cannot be allowed to know them personally or humanize them. You don't humanize Nazis.