Random Politics 2

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linguoboy
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-10-13, 19:26

Yasna wrote:Now that we are in the midst of a woke cultural revolution

LOLWUT.

Like, I wish this were true, but as moving my institution beyond performative wokeness into actual substantive change which empowers non-dominant groups is now part of my job, I've seen up close just how limited this "cultural revolution" really is.

Also, kudos to you for reaching out to that tiny deprived minority who don't realise that YouTube or cable news or Twitter of the WSJ exist and would have no other way of finding validation for their right-wing worldview if not for your posts here. You're a true angel of mercy.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-10-13, 19:28

Lur wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:(e.g. one of said friends reacts negatively to the term "Judeo-Christian" because of people using it to deliberately exclude Islam)

Why exclude some of the trash from the trash ideology can, particularly when they're christianity and islam are so similar.

I don't think the goal is as much to exclude Islam as it is to make extremist Evangelical Christian views seem much more widely accepted than they really are. Nobody I know objects to this term as strongly as the Jews I know. (They're basically like "Own your own bullshit and don't drag us into it!")
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-10-13, 21:11

From a friend's Facebook thread on the possibility of a new civil war: nothing like straight folks longing for the blissful days before people confused "'neutral but not to my taste' and 'MORALLY WRONG'". Yes, by all means, tell me what it's like to have a mere preference treated as an absolute moral failing which makes you unfit to participate in civil society; I just can't imagine what that would be like!
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-13, 21:43

Wait, straight people have preferences being treated as moral failings? Like what?

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-10-13, 21:47

vijayjohn wrote:Wait, straight people have preferences being treated as moral failings? Like what?

I assume their "preferences" for treating LGBTQIA+ people like dirt and not taking basic precautions against infecting others with deadly diseases, but I'm open to elucidation on this point.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-13, 21:57

Ohhh :(

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Lur » 2021-10-15, 12:10

linguoboy wrote:I don't think the goal is as much to exclude Islam as it is to make extremist Evangelical Christian views seem much more widely accepted than they really are. Nobody I know objects to this term as strongly as the Jews I know. (They're basically like "Own your own bullshit and don't drag us into it!")

Oh that makes sense.

It seems, from reading about evangelical christians online, that they want to appear very powerwful so they can do what they want, but also they want to appear tiny and persecuted so they can do what they want.
Geurea dena lapurtzen uzteagatik, geure izaerari uko egiteagatik.

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Yasna » 2021-10-18, 6:09

Lur wrote:I know I haven't been posting, but some of here are on the left are not "mainstream liberal" like at all and pretty shameless about it, and being considered as such (while an understandable confusion without elaborate posting) will always be funny to me.

At least in the US, the mainstream left has become increasingly radical. Name me a radical leftist position you hold, and I can probably find someone advocating for it recently in the most influential newspaper in the world. Part of the problem is that the line between mainstream left and radical left is very blurry, a point Jordan Peterson has often brought up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tFy3mW6MxE

linguoboy wrote:
Yasna wrote:Now that we are in the midst of a woke cultural revolution

LOLWUT.

Really?? That's one hell of an information silo you inhabit. Here's a primer to get you caught up. And since I know you care about these things: the author is a lesbian Jew.

Like, I wish this were true, but as moving my institution beyond performative wokeness into actual substantive change which empowers non-dominant groups is now part of my job, I've seen up close just how limited this "cultural revolution" really is.

What exactly do you mean by "actual substantive change which empowers non-dominant groups"? More forceful reverse discrimination or something beyond that?
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-18, 11:52

Yasna wrote:At least in the US, the mainstream left has become increasingly radical. Name me a radical leftist position you hold, and I can probably find someone advocating for it recently in the most influential newspaper in the world. Part of the problem is that the line between mainstream left and radical left is very blurry, a point Jordan Peterson has often brought up.

Leaving your weird constant gay-ass boner for Jordan Peterson aside, that still gives you no reason to label this entire forum as "mainstream left" as you are effectively doing.
That's one hell of an information silo you inhabit.

You're really not in any position to be talking about information silos.
And since I know you care about these things: the author is a lesbian Jew.

No one cares.
Like, I wish this were true, but as moving my institution beyond performative wokeness into actual substantive change which empowers non-dominant groups is now part of my job, I've seen up close just how limited this "cultural revolution" really is.

What exactly do you mean by "actual substantive change which empowers non-dominant groups"? More forceful reverse discrimination or something beyond that?

:doh:

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-10-19, 17:25

Yasna wrote:Really?? That's one hell of an information silo you inhabit. Here's a primer to get you caught up. And since I know you care about these things: the author is a lesbian Jew.

Who writes things like:
So the tools themselves are not just replaced but repudiated. And in so doing, persuasion—the purpose of argument—is replaced with public shaming. Moral complexity is replaced with moral certainty. Facts are replaced with feelings.
completely oblivious to how well they sum up the what conservatives have been doing my entire lifetime. None of the cultural conservatives around me wanted to "debate" me about homosexuality; they knew unequivocally that it was morally wrong (based ultimately on how thinking about it made them feel) and they wanted to publicly shame and punish those who "flaunted their sexuality" (in other words, just tried to exercise the same right to live their lives which straight people enjoyed).

Somebody who thinks these developments are (a) recent and (b) the exclusive province of the left just can't be taken seriously in the realm of political or social commentary.

Yasna wrote:
Like, I wish this were true, but as moving my institution beyond performative wokeness into actual substantive change which empowers non-dominant groups is now part of my job, I've seen up close just how limited this "cultural revolution" really is.

What exactly do you mean by "actual substantive change which empowers non-dominant groups"? More forceful reverse discrimination or something beyond that?

As hard as it is to ignore an invitation to productive dialogue made with such obvious good faith, I think I may give it a pass just this once.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Yasna » 2021-10-25, 3:36

linguoboy wrote:Who writes things like:
So the tools themselves are not just replaced but repudiated. And in so doing, persuasion—the purpose of argument—is replaced with public shaming. Moral complexity is replaced with moral certainty. Facts are replaced with feelings.
completely oblivious to how well they sum up the what conservatives have been doing my entire lifetime. None of the cultural conservatives around me wanted to "debate" me about homosexuality; they knew unequivocally that it was morally wrong (based ultimately on how thinking about it made them feel) and they wanted to publicly shame and punish those who "flaunted their sexuality" (in other words, just tried to exercise the same right to live their lives which straight people enjoyed).

Somebody who thinks these developments are (a) recent and (b) the exclusive province of the left just can't be taken seriously in the realm of political or social commentary.

She's writing about wokeness, not conservative attitudes toward homosexuality. You're going to dismiss her ideas out of hand based on whataboutism? Do you also dismiss writings on right wing violence that don't make mention of left wing violence? Writings on creationism that don't make mention of pseudoscience on the left?
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-25, 5:41

Somebody who thinks these developments are (a) recent and (b) the exclusive province of the left just can't be taken seriously in the realm of political or social commentary.

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-10-25, 14:52

Yasna wrote:She's writing about wokeness, not conservative attitudes toward homosexuality. You're going to dismiss her ideas out of hand based on whataboutism?

It's not "whataboutism" to fault someone for not properly situating their critique in the larger context. Give me concrete, well-founded examples, not histrionic generalities.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Yasna » 2021-10-26, 3:16

linguoboy wrote:It's not "whataboutism" to fault someone for not properly situating their critique in the larger context.

Please. You questioned the existence of the woke revolution, and I provided an article documenting it with specific examples. You live in the US, work at a university, and read the news. That should provide all the context you need.

Give me concrete, well-founded examples, not histrionic generalities.

In fact the article has numerous concrete examples, many based on her own reporting. Christopher Rufo has also done much of the heavy lifting in documenting the woke revolution.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-26, 4:07

"The radical left the radical left left more radicalized AHHHHHH!!!!! SEE? A LESBIAN JEW SAID SO!"
"Dude the right has been like this all the time. This is nothing new"
"WHATABOUTISM!!!!!!"
"Uh no...I'm saying this is nothing new"
"BUT THE LESBIAN JEW you LIAR :bittercry: "

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Yasna » 2021-10-26, 4:42

Can someone please give me a heads up if Vijay ever makes a coherent reply to something I've said? It's gotten to the point where my eyes just glaze over whenever I see his name.
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-26, 4:45

The day you start behaving like a decent person, you will see coherent replies.

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby Yasna » 2021-10-26, 4:57

vijayjohn wrote:The day you start behaving like a decent person, you will see coherent replies.

Quoted for posterity. Vijay admits that his own posts are incoherent. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby vijayjohn » 2021-10-26, 4:58

Yasna wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:The day you start behaving like a decent person, you will see coherent replies.

Quoted for posterity. Vijay admits that his own posts are incoherent. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Never said shit about whether my quotes are coherent, only whether you will see them as coherent.

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Re: Random Politics 2

Postby linguoboy » 2021-10-26, 16:01

Yasna wrote:
linguoboy wrote:It's not "whataboutism" to fault someone for not properly situating their critique in the larger context.

Please. You questioned the existence of the woke revolution, and I provided an article documenting it with specific examples. You live in the US, work at a university, and read the news. That should provide all the context you need.

And since I read the news, I'm already familiar with Bari Weiss and her shtik. I don't need to register on some site I've never heard of to read another of her screeds.

Here's what I think you're not getting about "context": If you're going to position something as a "revolution", as a sea change in society, you have to show that what is does is fundamentally different from what went before. That's where this piece fails. She frames ours as a frightening new era where civil discourse is replaced with shaming and facts trump feelings. But it was ever so in USAmerican politics. Read some history: there was no golden era where politicians were all unfailingly civil with one another, policies were always based on empirical truths, and persuasion by rational argument was how ordinary folks were enticed to accept them. It's always been a big shouting match.

All that's really changing is who's shouting and what their shouts accomplish. Previously, when people shouted bad things about queers and Blacks, it was the queers and Blacks (and those who supported them) who usually got cancelled as a result. Now, it's more likely to be the shouters. This is definitely a societal shift, but to call it a "revolution" is hysterical nonsense--particularly when only five years ago a man shouting these things managed to shout his way to the presidency.

Yasna wrote:
Give me concrete, well-founded examples, not histrionic generalities.

In fact the article has numerous concrete examples, many based on her own reporting. Christopher Rufo has also done much of the heavy lifting in documenting the woke revolution.

If you actually read through those old columns and look past the laundry lists of examples to the conclusions, you'll see the Weiss' collaborator Leightwood Woodhouse doesn't agree that this is a true "revolution" and says as much:
The anti-racism movement was spearheaded by academics and incubated in the upper echelons of America’s cultural hierarchy: universities, legacy media, Hollywood, Silicon Valley....It is funded by the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country. It has all the aesthetic trappings of “justice,” but race-based reforms aren’t really about that. They’re about protecting institutions that, in an age of rampant inequality and simmering populism, are rapidly losing their legitimacy. They’re meant to bring an aura of cosmetic righteousness to the American aristocracy — recasting that aristocracy as the vanquishers of the very hierarchy they preside over, and in so doing, preserving their waning moral authority. It is much easier to throw a few crumbs at social-media-savvy activists peddling anti-racism than it is to make big, structural reforms that might actually do something....It’s about propping up the old, morally bankrupt order in an effort to keep out the new. It’s about resisting real progress — a progress that does something about the hollowing out of America and doesn’t attempt to distract us with a culture war that both major political parties benefit from.
You can read pretty much the same analysis from any leftist author. The major criticism of "wokeism" as practiced by major institutions is that it's "performative"--all about grand gestures which sound good but accomplish little.

And that's exactly the problem I'm having in my home institution. It talks the talk but won't walk the walk. At its core, it's a corporate entity with corporate interests ("a hedge fund with a side business in education", as someone once described Harvard before this "Harvard model" was adopted wholesale by elite universities) doing the minimum necessary to protect its brand image, which--as an elite liberal-arts institution--means projecting the values that folks who pay thousands to attend elite liberal-arts institutions claim to care about. But--as their response to the pandemic made abundantly clear--it's all a sham.

And that's why any talk of a "woke revolution" gets a cynical guffaw from me. As Woodhouse says, it amounts to rearranging the seats around the captain's table while doing nothing to get the ship back on course.
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