Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Sam Harris actually wanted to racially profile Muslims. He's a fucking nutcase that even Rational Wiki makes fun of.
I pointed this out in the Atheism coven, but out of the four major Nu Atheists during the 2000's boom of atheism, only Dan Dennett isn't a raging anti-Islamic nutcase.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?And Hitchens justified the Iraq War as fighting "Islamo-fascism" which given that Saddam, while many things, was a secular dictator, is just insane.
Yeah, I used to hang out (well, "hang out" in a loose sense since they were just people I spoke to in a community I was part of) with a lot of these people and I honestly think that they make up a large part of the backlash towards social justice in this day and age. It's like the most common thing to run into on the internet no matter where you go. People with otherwise relatively progressive ideals in many areas, but who for one reason or another don't fully understand the situation of underprivileged groups and can't reconcile the idea that they do have real problems, but that it doesn't mean other people have those problems and some other nasty ones as well.
I get the impression that a lot of it is rooted in some kind of inferiority complex and lashing out, but instead of decrying the system that helped create those insecurities they don't even question it and in fact help propagate it. I just find it very sad since I know what that feels like, and the worst part is you don't even realize how bad it is not only for other people, but for yourself as well.
There's a whole lot of angry young white men out there who think of themselves as being really progressive, who are sure they aren't racist or sexist, and yet who cannot detach themselves from their descriptor. So when they here "whites" as a group being critiqued for racism or "men" for sexism, they declare "I'm not racist/sexist. Why are they attacking me?" You see them in the All Lives Matter nonsense, in some of the crazier Sanders fans, in some of those who are defecting to the Greens. You see it too in people who advocate voting for Trump to "get the revolution" while ignoring all the (mostly nonwhite) people who will get crushed under his administration.
Some of the more vitriolic discourse coming out of the social justice sphere, what with comments like "black people can't be racist ever", "misandry doesn't exist", frequent employment of False Dichotomy, calling this as simple as white people buying clothes made in over countries or Jews eating tacos "cultural appropriation", willingness to encourage violence or hostility towards people for having differing opinions, or identification and sometimes active demonization of "straight white cishet males" as a straw boogeyman to be explicitly opposed, probably doesn't help either and sours people off who would've been on their side otherwise. I know it had that effect on me at times, and I'm someone who belongs to most of the demographics those people claim to care about. For those groups Then Let Me Be Evil is a likely contributor.
It's a nasty feedback loop. The alt-right gets fueled by perceived (in most cases) or rarely real extremism and Political Correctness from people on the left. Meanwhile the alt-right's shitty behavior gives validation to the actual extremists of the social justice side in their rhetoric, and so on. Leading to people who would otherwise be in the middle quickly getting shunted into one of these two camps depending on who antagonized them first. It takes a lot of effort and self-awareness to come back and depolarize.
edited 14th Jul '16 10:52:39 PM by AlleyOop
On that first point, that's why "racism is only prejudice with power" always rubbed me the wrong way. I understand that's racism in the academic sense, and that certainly has it's place for talking about institutional racism and such, but that's not what most people are talking about when people mean racism.
Racism has a very commonly understood colloquial definition that existed long before "prejudice with power", and just acting as if that's the only "correct" definition and completely ignoring what you should understand people should mean always seemed like a flashing red light to me.
I've seen and been on the receiving end of some of that effect too and can empathize. I'm a bit better informed about stuff like unconscious biases now but younger me, who got bullied for being smart/nerdy/bookish for most of childhood, would get riled up at accusations of white privilege and insinuation of inherent racism. (I'm still iffy on affirmative action.)
Personally I'm still in support of affirmative action in principle if not always in its execution (i.e. it doesn't work if schools fail to retain their admitted minority students for whatever reason; the education gap is probably better solved by taking steps earlier in life), but the funny thing about it is that most of the discourse around it is centered around its impact on white Americans, when things like the changing demographics of the University of California student body suggest the people most negatively affected by it are East Asian Americans.
Like, my family members and I have actually been flat-out told by guidance counselors and the like when applying to college or academic programs to avoid mentioning our race if possible, because it was very likely that we would be passed over because of it. Not that it would make much difference because our last names are right there and they call you in for interviews, but it's still something they felt worth telling us.
edited 14th Jul '16 10:49:40 PM by AlleyOop
Short Answer: It's an 4chan Meme that became really popular with Trump supporters.
edited 14th Jul '16 11:06:15 PM by Demonic_Braeburn
Any group who acts like morons ironically will eventually find itself swamped by morons who think themselves to be in good company.In society, there's what I call a "punching up" principle: it's generally considered (not always rightly) acceptable to make fun of people who have less power than you. For example, a militant atheist can get away with being harsher towards Christians than they can towards Muslims-Christians have more power than atheists, Muslims have less. This is how "reverse discrimination" occurs-essentially, people are aware of discrimination towards one group which ironically creates bias in their favor for some people. For example, in fiction if a woman rapes a man, this is viewed less negatively than the other way around because a female rapist is viewed as breaking out of gender roles and assuming a position of power.
Also, quite ironically sometimes a group is stereotyped as bigots. A great example would be All Germans Are Nazis-a racist stereotype calling an entire group of people racist. I'd argue this is a good reason why WAS Ps loathe being called bigots to the extent they do-they interpret themselves as being stereotyped unfairly akin All Germans Are Nazis.
Leviticus 19:34And how much of this is demonization is actually about all white straight men as opposed to a generalized one? Like it or not, white straight men run the world, and our prejudices are the ones that unduly shape society. When somebody says "white straight men have ruined the world" they aren't wrong. Sure it's #Not All Men and #Not All White People (and I guess #Not All Straight People though I've never seen that one), but anyone involving themselves in a social justice discourse should know that.
That's not to say I haven't seen some of the crazier stuff you've mentioned—I recall one discussion with a guy who thought that no white person anywhere in the world has ever been discriminated against for ethnic reasons (been to Yugoslavia), another discussion with a woman who thought burning churches was an appropriate response to Catholic opposition to abortion (and railed about how anyone who opposed her on that wasn't angry about the oppression of women; anything less than total agreement was responded to with "why aren't you angry?"). But those people really are a minority, and I've seen too many of my fellow white, straight men use those kinds of people as an excuse to hide behind when it comes to explaining why they hate "insert movement for equality here".
A Room of Our Own exists and is full of vile misandry. They hardly represent feminism. Black separatists with racist ideas exist. They don't represent Black Lives Matter. Etc, etc.
edited 14th Jul '16 10:57:09 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
The "punching up" often happens to conveniently only apply to certain groups. Mental illness is a much bigger disadvantage than gender, but using abelist stereotypes is considered fine as long as you apply them to a group you're "punching up" at. Since I on the surface look just like the groups everyone feels free to gaslight about whether they're "really" liberal/non-bigoted, no one considers how terrifying it is for me to open my mouth even when I'm being deeply hurt by collective statements. I get so afraid when I contribute to conversations like this that I hopefully won't be responding to any replies to this post for a couple hours, since I'm going to try my best not to look back at this topic for a while, to hopefully start overcoming my compulsive need to check forum posts to make sure nothing has happened that will give me an anxiety attack. Sorry that this comes off so passive aggressively, but every word of it is sincere and it has been hurting me for a very long time as I've ghosted this thread.
EDIT: Since it was already there before I posted this, I guess I'll point out that the post above mine is a great example. Mentally ill straight white men most certainly do not rule the world, but that wasn't considered important enough to get me out of the collective labeling. And mocking the idea that men should be treated as individuals (the fact that #Not All Men is a punchline) is toxic, almost literally, I've had physical pain from how much it upset me on several occasions.
edited 14th Jul '16 11:07:30 PM by SNESMaster5
Exactly which groups are "up" is highly arbitrary, generally unquantifiable, and varies from culture to culture. Any attempts to do so comes down to Misery Poker. Within a particular axis there's usually some obvious cases like "white" for race and "(cis) male" for sex/gender. But what about when an African American is making disparaging comments about continental Africans or vice versa? From Mexicans about Koreans? Vietnamese about Nigerians?
Or when it's dealing with totally different axes? Is it fair for a gay man to make disparaging comments about straight women (and oh yes, there's a lot of that out there unfortunately) because homosexuals have it harder than them in some ways? Is it culturally insensitive for a white feminist to criticize what she perceives as misogynistic elements in urban black hip hop culture? Or for a black person to mock a middle-class white girl suffering from clinical depression as whiny and entitled because of her race? All of these are based on real examples I've seen personally, and have used the punching up excuse or some variant of it to justify themselves.
edited 14th Jul '16 11:17:04 PM by AlleyOop
I understand what you mean but I just want to point out that people being defensive about hearing this is sort of inevitable, and honestly, at least kind of understandable.
This is changing now but in a lot of societies we aren't necessarily educated very well, by the education system itself or our communities, about the nuances of white privilege and race relations in general. If you're not already educated about those, statements like "white straight men are ruining the world" are likely to raise an eyebrow if you're part of that group, because it feels like a gross over-generalization about a broad group of people instead of a statement about how a small group of people belonging to a certain ethnicity and economic status have shaped society in very horrible ways. It can take a long while to swallow the "white guilt" (or whatever other hangup you have about feeling uncomfortable due to your group giving you some sort of societal benefit) and then start having a more positive relation with underprivileged groups.
I'm not going to blame social justice groups for not wording themselves in the absolute most diplomatic and unoffensive way possible every single time they talk about stuff like this, but I'm just saying that I understand the reactionary behavior of a lot of people have when they first come into contact with these ideas. You aren't going to change your entire way of perceiving the world and your racial identity relative to other people in a day.
edited 14th Jul '16 11:24:39 PM by wehrmacht
![]()
![]()
![]()
#NotAllMen is considered a joke because those using it are unrepentant misogynists using every other man as a shield. It's not about generalizing men, it's about how transparent it is as an attempt at deflecting the issue.
edited 14th Jul '16 11:19:40 PM by Krieger22
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
this concept of punching up and pushing down have become flanderized a little bit, becoming pretty much "laught about the bad guy who are not us but dont DARE to said anything against me"
If I have to suspect a reason is that: it have becoming more and more dificult to talk about values of Islam and their efect without sounding like the typical white ignorant about it but right now it feel the left is just shouting down all the posibilities about it.
"There's a whole lot of angry young white men out there who think of themselves as being really progressive, who are sure they aren't racist or sexist, and yet who cannot detach themselves from their descriptor."
I dont know, in my case I take a full year learing about social justice because the way they talk their point feel....off to me, not in small part some point sound they sound like preaching at times.
"Behold here Im going to talk about privilige/Holy spirit, you cant see , you cant understand it but it afect your every action as result of the awfull things/original sin your ancester did some time ago, but now im here to tell you what you did wrong and check your privilige/repent!"
Ok, I know im exagerating and maybe strawmaing a little bit, but for a LONG time that is how I feel by close enviorment and one side conversation I saw in social justice cirlces, it was actually in this forum I start to get better by the fact we actually discuss things(even if it get a little tiring at times) it help a lot in refeing opinions about stuff.
edited 14th Jul '16 11:34:28 PM by unknowing
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"![]()
![]()
No, the people using it are almost always people mocking the hashtag or dismissing it as an argument, I honestly can't remember ever seeing someone use it seriously, anyone who did was eclipsed long, long ago. The post right above mine used it in the second way I mentioned. It is most often used to silence men who feel offended by collective statements against their gender.
Obviously didn't make it as long as I wanted to, going to try to at least increase the gap before I check again.
edited 14th Jul '16 11:36:33 PM by SNESMaster5
The thing about something like #notallmen is that it's sort of missing the point. While some people may not express their critiques in the most diplomatic or thoughtful way and there are some legit cases of actual malice, the actual reasonable critiques of men's behavior are always about the messages and the way society as a whole fosters very negative attitudes on men that end up affecting other groups in bad ways, it's not about holding men as a group as inherently bad. Of course women know that not all men are awful, that's not the point feminists are trying to make when they critique men's behavior.
It's understandable that said point was missed to some degree, mind you, but it was still missed.
It's not dissimilar from stuff like #All Lives Matter; it goes without saying that they do, but Black Lives Matter is a movement specifically geared towards the mistreatment of the black community (black men especially) by law enforcement due to either outright malice or fear. It is not about holding black lives as more important than others, but some people just don't see to have received this memo.
A lot of this comes from the way we are educated about race and gender issues. We are fed a lot of lip service about equality from our media, our communities, our politicians (sometimes, that doesn't seem to be the case so much anymore), and how we should treat people impartially, but we're NOT educated about how unfair things still are for a lot of people. This gives the impression that things are much more equal than they actually are, which causes people to react negatively to stuff that's just trying to correct the balance.
edited 14th Jul '16 11:49:17 PM by wehrmacht
Local example of signals from well meaning people getting crossed that seems relevant
. Restaurant owner put up an All Lives Matter sign with fully benevolent intention. Apparently he's talked to people since and knows why it's iffy in context and has changed the sign, so a lot more level headed than your average internet commenter.
![]()
![]()
It's very hypocritical to tell people hurt by generalizations they "understood it wrong" when "intent isn't magic" is used if someone who deserves to be "punched up at" says something that offends other groups. And dismissing men's feeling isn't correcting the balance, misandrous attitudes can be extremely dangerous in the wrong circumstances. I suffer from anxiety and depression, cultural attitudes that men should be shamed for expressing fear or sadness are devastating for me and if the circumstances of my life were different could very well have been life threatening. I'm also autistic, and being told that society caters towards me by default when I have so many issues with social alienation and functioning is extremely insulting, but "straight white male" being used as a synonym for max privilege means I'm constantly told that it does. Yes, making "straight white neurotypical male" the default could theoretically fix some of my problems, but after being hurt so much by the insistence that gender privilege is unidirectional and narrowing down the "important" privileges to a few categories, I can't in good conscience say that's enough. The dismissive and patronizing attitude towards people who become angered because the areas where they aren't privileged are ignored needs to stop, it isn't justice.

I've always thought of myself as Apatheist.