All-Purpose Smartypants Thread

can you not

What I like about the Auerbach article is how it frames the reductive and mechanical state of mind of the identity-politickers / oppression activists by quoting Audre Lorde: 

  Quote

 

"Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees."

 

Lorde’s view suggests that such routinized practice, which posits guilt and shaming concerning one’s privilege as a central, motivating force, is in fact a way of avoiding the sheer magnitude of the problems in question, preferring to operationalize the world in a schoolbook chart rather than engaging with the realities of the oppressed.

And the paranoid inefficacy of it all:

  Quote

 

The importance of Ethical agency is not specific to the Moralist Cluster. Nietzsche’s finding of ressentiment in the general population of Christians, liberals, and moralists—claiming moral superiority as a compensatory mechanism for a lack of power and control over one’s self and one’s environment—haunts the foundations of left-liberalism as well. The smug moral superiority of everyone from organic shoppers to cyclists to recyclers represents the Ethical pillar at work. The Moralist Cluster is distinguished, rather, by its use of Suspicion mechanisms: the tendency to assign authentic, positive agency only to themselves while distrusting the proclaimed motives of others. Activists must presuppose their exemption from any substantive false consciousness in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and self-abnegation.

And I think what needs to be further said is that this paranoid cycle of accusing and being accused, especially when it is over superficial aspects of language and pop culture, is completely compatible with capitalism, as evidenced by the huge growth of media industry around "SJW-lite" topics, or "pop-justice". I think this is because of the spread of a reductive interpretation of intersectionality.

Intersectionality could be described as the view that many different modes of oppression (race, gender, class, etc.) intersect on a subject and they can't be analyzed apart from each other. This is slightly different from why I'd like to think intersectionality would mean...analyzing things at the point where different structures of power (class, race, gender, nationality, etc.) intersect is a good thing, as it simultaneously broadens the scope and allows for more nuanced appraisal. Yet that aforementioned mechanization of those categories has become so automatic as to become entirely deluded and the structural or economic side is gone.

Another way of imagining intersectionality is to imagine a bunch of people pissing off of a series of ledges on the inside of an inverted cone. With that in mind, now imagine that each one is only able to criticize the people pissing on them, and they spent all their time doing that, yet they never ask why it is that they are pissing on each other to begin with.

  On 5/23/2018 at 1:26 PM, MIXL2 said:

Jesus I don't see this going well... but anyway:

 

I got a real problem with the intersectionality idea and it is that you can fragment oppression groups all the way down to each individual person.. and then what? we come to the conclusion that everyone pisses on each other? ok

aww welp 

I was the one who brought up the pissing actually

It’s trump all the way down!

  On 5/23/2018 at 1:26 PM, MIXL2 said:

 

the other point that always seemed to be lost in the other thread ^tm is this: how do we mark out when the ideas of anti-opression etc go too far (since they clearly can?)

my reason for posting the original article was to show how they do go too far, so far as to completely neuter their arguments. But more specifically, it is that cognitive dissonance that comes from "assign authentic, positive agency only to themselves while distrusting the proclaimed motives of others" (as in the call-outs and the check yo selfs and stuff) causes a kind of circular reasoning that spirals out into ridiculousness.

So how do we mark out when the ideas of anti-oppression go too far? I think that relies on consensus. Yet, consensus by definition isn't really allowed in the rigid upside-down heirarchies of identity politics.

thanks, I will read the article 

I remember you mentioning on the other thread at some point that there are redeemable elements of identity politics (which I have been led to believe there are not).. is that also adressed on the article?

so if left wing is where you're like "abortions are cool and don't do wars guys!" and then right wing is like "immigrants are scary, we should blow something up!" like I can at least get that, they're people who are arguing for something.  but is there a term for this thing where you take a serious neutral voice and talk about politics as though you exist outside of it.  "here's what the left is doing wrong" but not coming from the place of being on the other side necessarily, not really taking a side.  is there a term for that?  radical neutrality?  well whatever it is, I gotta say you guys are really killing it and accomplishing a lot politically and you should keep it up!  this is not masturbation!

  On 5/23/2018 at 3:00 PM, taphead said:

but is there a term for this thing where you take a serious neutral voice and talk about politics as though you exist outside of it.

It's called being a pussy.

Worst thread I've seen in a while.

"Radical centrist"

  On 5/23/2018 at 3:25 PM, roasty said:

"Radical centrist"

I feel like that often. Pragmatically anyway, not core beliefs. I'm always hesitant to classify my ideology because it varies on the context. 

Who knew post-2016 would be the era where being reasonable and compromise-oriented made you the vilified pariah of right-wingers. Saying you have faith in the FBI and distrust the Kremlin incites more hatred from the right than being a flaming liberal. Strange times. 

Would ideas of going too far in anti-oppression include things like making lists of people who talk about/teach ideas that you don't agree with and then making that list publicly available?

no, banning the tech/ideas in said list would be going too far tho imho

  On 5/23/2018 at 4:01 PM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 5/23/2018 at 3:25 PM, roasty said:

"Radical centrist"

 

I feel like that often. Pragmatically anyway, not core beliefs. I'm always hesitant to classify my ideology because it varies on the context. 

not only does it vary.. to claim that you hold an ideology seems analoguous to saying "this ideology has all the correct answers, every other idea outside it is wrong".. and that's simply not true for anything.. i think

based on anecdotal evidence, "centrist" means "refuses to identify as right wing/conservative"

So you're ok with call-outs then?

hmm

  On 5/23/2018 at 1:58 PM, mcbpete said:

  On 5/23/2018 at 4:06 PM, chenGOD said:

Would ideas of going too far in anti-oppression include things like making lists of people who talk about/teach ideas that you don't agree with and then making that list publicly available?

Yes, I struggle between being very pro-freedom of speech to wrestling with the paradox of tolerance, which is more relevant than ever. I mean bigoted religious groups still manage to get legislation drafted in the name of "religious freedom."

I refuse to throw myself in any camp that is militantly anti-PC or pro-SJW. I really try to be objective. Intelligent, earnest discussion and debate is being decimated of late and it's a fucking mess right now. A lot of it comes down to online shaming culture. Here's a perfect example of that misplaced ire. Girl is called out for being cultural insensitive by someone on twitter who himself has said culturally insensitive stuff. See, the narrative the media and political camps follow is to pick a side. Personally I feel no one is really in the right and the whole issue is misguided and destructive. It transcends a left/right thing which is why you just as much nastiness from the left as right, even if the former's ultimate goals are less harmful than the latter.

I assume that's what you speak of?

^ Casting my shitposting aside, I'd have to agree that both sides of the political spectrum are flawed as of late. America is struggling with the grasp of a happy middle ground. Obviously I disdain outright bigotry, but at the same time I don't want to have be walking on eggshells to appease the uber-PC types.

and then you could just be a normal natural amount of PC vs. not PC and let actions speak louder than words (didn't like bousugie (lol sp) old money white dude Immaunel Kant or someone say that about actions and words. re: ok ideas and art from horrible people thread)

but that's the thing, I was trolling pretty hard in a chat before but like, you don't have to like save orphans from a burning building but you cannot accurately assess the words vs. action ratio on the internet

I really know nothing about that Kant dude for all I know he made his way up from lowly dirt farmer, was more a general example. He probably didn't even say that either lol

Edit: supposedly Lincoln said it

@josh (can't quote your post cause my work PC is a fucking piece of trash)

I was actually trolling a little, cause good ol boy JP wanted to create a public list of profs who taught Marxist/post-modern theory to essentially censure them.

It is very similar to the idea of call-outs though, and that article that salvy posted at the start of this thread touched on a few ideas that are definitely problematic in identity politics (I had my own issues with the article, but no time to go into them).

that girl  with the Chinese dress probably wasn't consciously appropriating Chinese culture, but she sure as hell wasn't "showing love and deep appreciation". She should have just said, "I think the dress is beautiful, that's why I chose it." Same time, the reaction was way over the top from those claiming "cultural appropriation" - most probably don't know the history of the dress itself (a subject of academic debate).