Australia isn't on the verge of collapse. — ssu

You don't know the Australians I do. And as it turns out, I don't actually think the world revolves around my immediate environment.

But the usual option then is for people to go the guns. And remember who have the guns. — ssu

And yes, I realize that people like you wait for the concentration camps to be in full swing before deciding that maybe the good 'ol stern chat may not be quite enough.

But you aren't trapped in a burning building with the walls crushing down on you. Australia isn't on the verge of collapse. You're just spending your time debating issues with strangers that likely are on another continent. — ssu

This is what's really weird about debates like this. I don't think anyone disagrees that there's a time to give up talking and reach for something stronger, not a single person.

We all think certain voices should be silenced (incitement to violence being the usual line we agree on). We all think that violent assault need be met with more than just words. And none are above attending the odd protest.

Nor, on the other hand, would any say that we should settle our differences about, say, the route of the new bypass by having a shoot out.

So the crux of the conversation is, as you highlight, the fact of the matter regarding where we are on these scales, and how we decide where 'too far' is. Yet that's exactly the conversation that's avoided in lieu of one about either how all protestors are fascists-in-waiting, or how anyone questioning the use of violence is automatically some kind of Vichy-style collaborator.

I think people want to avoid discussion about where this line-in-the-sand is simply because they don't want to be ideologically tied to it if they sense a change in the wind of popular zeitgeist.

I think people want to avoid discussion about where this line-in-the-sand is simply because they don't want to be ideologically tied to it if they sense a change in the wind of popular zeitgeist. — Isaac

I think there is something to be said for simply making a positive out of incivility - which doesn't necessarily mean violence, contrary to those with limited imaginations. I mean the idea that there are those whose views do not deserve respect; that there are those whose exclusion and shunning from the public sphere is a good thing; that there are those for whom ridicule and shame is not only appropriate, but a virtuous reaction against. That there are people who should be talked-over, and down-to. And yes, punch Nazis when you get the chance, and make them feel unsafe and scared for their health and safety in public. There are cases in which all of these are good things, and should be celebrated. They should be occasions of mirth and community.

And this long before one speaks of lines in the sand.

I think it's forgotten that civility is a weapon of the powerful. It's usually only the powerful and the well-to-do that can afford to be civil: either because they hold the power anyway, or because it serves as a useful cultural cudgel to shut up the agitating hoi polloi. Just the other day, a public figure who has spoken out here about the horror of rape and her subjection to it, was spoken down to by noneother than the Prime Minister's wife for being 'rude'. Civility is more often than not, a mechanism of political silencing wielded by those who have the luxury of being comfortable. It's the same kind of comfort that leads even questioning the value of civility with fear-mongering about fascism as an immediate reaction.

I mean the idea that there are those whose views do not deserve respect; that there are those whose exclusion and shunning from the public sphere is a good thing; that there are those for whom ridicule and shame is not only appropriate, but a virtuous reaction against. That there are people who should be talked-over, and down-to. And yes, punch Nazis when you get the chance, and make them feel unsafe and scared for their health and safety in public. There are cases in which all of these are good things, and should be celebrated. They should be occasions of mirth and community. — StreetlightX

I agree, but I don't think many wouldn't. Who's not up for punching a Nazi!

...but there's not that many Nazis around any more. There's anti-abortionists, pro-police (blue lives matter, man!), anti-vaxxers, pro-military neocons... The issue is about which of these people deserve to treated like Nazis and which don't.

What worries me is that the successful use of incivility is threatened from both sides (both over and under use). I entirely sympathise with your concern that talk about 'civility' is used as a metonym for the maintenance of privilege, but look at where that talk increasingly gains its wind from. More and more it's from the uses of incivility in cases where support for it is marginal. Not so much punching Nazis as punching members of the young conservatives. Fun, but with less widespread support.

Just to be clear at this point, I think it's important to distinguish incivility as a tactic from incivility as a response. I'm a privileged academic who's never faced a moment of oppression in my life. All my incivility is either tactical (I think it will work best), or moral (I'm cross and don't care to be civil). None of it is just the natural response to being oppressed, which, let's be clear, is not something we're in the least bit morally qualified to pass judgment on, I think we'd agree. Anyone expecting an oppressed population to be civil needs to get their head out of their arse.

But for the rest of us, the use of incivility needs a higher level of general support than the use of discourse if it's not to backfire. Personally I see an increasing number of privileged wannabes jumping on the bandwagon of incivility to push the latest quasi-religious cult de jour and I don't think it does the legitimacy of (tactical) incivility any favours.

Who's not up for punching a Nazi! — Isaac

You're more optimistic than I. But I'm still not sold about the overplaying of incivility. One aspect of its normalizing is also, in a way, to deprive it of a certain power. I think of, say, liberal reactions to Trump - much of it which always struck me as simply class resentment as the crassness of a nouveau riche who dared to grace the halls of power while being so uncouth. I don't think the majority of liberals would have given a shit about Trump has he displayed all the right class markers of civility while still acting as an accelerant for fascism. I don't think the majority of liberals give a damn about the latter. Hence why Biden can get away with continuing 90% of Trump's policies with 1% of the pushback. Or else the Jan 6 riots, the reaction to which stuck me as horror that some unwashed rednecks dared set their muddy boots into the marbled halls of power more than anything else. Like, if we gave a shit about different, more important, things, we would simply be much more productive. And undoubtedly this will be put down to 'polarization' = 'not only do they have different opinions than me, they dress differently too!'.

And similarly, the cudgel of civility is still used to silence left opposition, time and time again. Bernie was 'too loud', and the left are always 'too angry' - nevermind that we have every reason to be. I still think civility is the refuge of the weak - those without any principles except not ruffling too many feathers. It's bourgeois dinner-time etiquette transplanted into the political sphere and substituting for it in the absence of actually caring about what happens to anyone. It's why I have no time with Cuthbert's pseudo-nicety for which everything which is not civil is automatically and unthinkingly fascism. It's utterly puerile. "Fascism" in such a conception is simply anti-hedonia - "things that don't make me feel warm and fuzzy". Nevermind who, or what, or why incivility is being employed. It's all just blanket 'kinda sounds fascisty to me'. So if incivility 'backfires' it's because we let it. We use fake, unnecessary standards of civility to which everything ought to measure up - no question of why - and then condemn everything else - again no question of why - that doesn't meet it.

Who's not up for punching a Nazi! — Isaac

The vast majority of people, it turns out. Anyone who's witnessed a schoolyard bully terrorize an entire playground knows this.

Aye, you may be right. I don't really have my finger on the pulse of protest movements anymore so I'm looking at all this from a distance. It seems there's two conflicting (or perhaps just contrasting) issues. Like you, I'm way more concerned about the faux aegis response to the Jan 6 debacle than I was about the out-of-control stag do itself, likewise 'Trumpism' and I'm inclined to agree about the role 'civility' is playing in that narrative. I suspect, though darn't get into it, that my list of topics on which civility is being weaponised may even be longer than yours...however...

There's barely a handful of people willing to be uncivil on the serious issues (or at least the ones I'm concerned about - poverty, disempowerment), and that's a problem as far as I see it. Can that handful ever kick, scream and shout loud enough to get done what we need to get done? My gut feeling is no. And that makes the number one problem recruitment.

If incivility presents a problem for recruitment then we need to look at places it can be reduced without harm. Off-topic here, but same goes for many of the other issues I have with the modern left. There's one issue to fight (class warfare) and one problem fighting it (garnering sufficient numbers willing to fight) everything else is windowdressing, as far as I'm concerned, and if we do have to hold our tounges in some areas to surmount that problem then so be it.

...but, I'm not exactly fully sold on the idea that we do have to hold our tounges at all, only that I'm not going to rule it out on principle.

Who's not up for punching a Nazi! — Isaac


The vast majority of people, it turns out. Anyone who's witnessed a schoolyard bully terrorize an entire playground knows this. — Aaron R

Ah yes, but we're in the comfort of our virtual lounge talking about it. If we can't even muster a virtual cheer for the virtual punching of a virtual Nazi then we've no hope...

Ah yes, but we're in the comfort of our virtual lounge talking about it. If we can't even muster a virtual cheer for the virtual punching of a virtual Nazi then we've no hope.... — Isaac

You can find lots of people who will say anything and don't mean what they say almost anywhere else on the internet. If you've found an exception here, then you're just unlucky.

You can find lots of people who will say anything and don't mean what they say almost anywhere else on the internet. — Cuthbert

Well yes, that's kind of the point. From the comfort of a 'say anything' environment without any physical commitment being acceded we should expect nothing but a resounding cheer for the prospect. Anything short is more suspicious here than it would be in real life where mere cowardice might be a diagnosis for the hesitation.

But to be honest it was a throwaway comment. Of all the things I've said, I wasn't expecting that to be the part to receive such a thoroughgoing exegesis.

Our upholders of democracy and freedom. :snicker:

Next you’ll tell us about The End of History and the Last Man.

Perhaps we could put it this way (although I'm not sure if this isn't more suited to the Cancel Culture thread...

In terms of harm done to the poor, the seriously disempowered, I'd happily throw my support behind a plan to petrol bomb Jeff Bezos's new yacht, or the Goldman Sachs offices; whereas JK Rowling...well, I'd probably try to avoid being seated next to her at a dinner party....but that's about it.

Yet what we find is a hue and cry barely stopping short of calls to petrol bomb JK Rowling's yacht (should she have one), yet those same people consider buying from Amazon to be nothing more than a bit of guilty pleasure, of little consequence, and would probably see nothing more than a selfie opportunity at being seated next to David Solomon at a dinner party if they even knew who he was.

Does this not make you even a little queasy about the integrity with which incivility is being used these days? Or am I falsely seeing two groups as one, too out of touch to understand the movements?

Basically, the power of incivility is only because of it's contrast with civility. Its power is the severity of the label thereby applied to its target because its reserved for a high threshold of unacceptable behaviour. The moment it becomes nothing more than the standard response to disagreement, then it becomes de rigueur. Why would David Solomon baulk at being be treated with incivility if he and his colleagues, friends, staff, pizza-chefs and dog-walkers are subjected to it daily in any case for each minor transgression?

JK Rowling...well, I'd probably try to avoid being seated next to her at a dinner party....but that's about it. — Isaac

Because you believe she’s transphobic or don’t want to be associated with someone who’s been accused of transphobia? Not sure which is worse. Or perhaps you are inclined to express something like tribal solidarity?

I think people want to avoid discussion about where this line-in-the-sand is simply because they don't want to be ideologically tied to it if they sense a change in the wind of popular zeitgeist. — Isaac

Lines in the sand don't work as every event or incident is in the end unique, if it's not the typical marital fight that ends up in the police coming because of the noise complaints. I guess here the underlying assumption is that we are talking about political discourse and political influencing.

But do notice the emotional response on the topic from some about polarization and the hostility towards the idea of working through the normal routes of political participation, which does actually include the importance of demonstrations. For some, outer-parliamentary actions are the only hope. Now in Burma or similar places this actually is the case (as there is no actual democratic process), but it isn't reality for us. Not yet.

And yes, I realize that people like you wait for the concentration camps to be in full swing before deciding that maybe the good 'ol stern chat may not be quite enough. — StreetlightX

You just keep those red see-nazi glasses on and everybody will seem as a supporter of Hitler to you.

They protested time and again that they had never done anything out of their own initiative, that they had no intentions whatsoever, good or bad, and that they only obeyed orders. — Dermot Griffin

Selflessness defined.

Are we here in the United States more polarized now then we were in the 1960’s? Are other countries in the world just as polarized? I try not to identify as a progressive or conservative and am not registered as a Democrat or Republican; I’m unenrolled. The old school way would be calling oneself independent. My beliefs are staunchly libertarian, however. — Dermot Griffin

Oh, I think you and I will get along quite fine. We're polarized because the ethical philosophies dominating the minds of the vast majority of people is utterly immoral, plain and simple. You see, if you're not a Christian, the Christians regard you as either prospects, or enemies. What you'll notice there is that, what you actually are is a conscious human, and not their property to be influenced as they wish for their own emotional reasons. The liberals are the same way, the Muslims are the same way, the conservatives are the same way, the Marxists are the same way, etc... What is important to understand is that Christians, liberals, and conservatves and so on, don't exist. What these people are, in fact, are those who desire power over the consciousness of other humans. That's why we're polarized. How do we fix that? Actual ethics, which begins in no other place than the Human Consciousness, and the respect of its existence. If this isn't your ethical starting point, then your philosophy is inconsistent, and incoherent; and I would be more than thrilled to explain why if you need me to. However, being libertarian in persuasion, I'm sure what I've said to you pretty well clicks in your mind prima facie. But, I could be wrong. Thoughts?

I was just rhetoric, I don't even know her. The point I was making was that given some arbitrary recipient of modern 'incivility' (here I just randomly chose Rowling), I'd might find myself in disagreement with them, but to the minor extent that I'd not want them in my social group, wouldn't want to spend time with them, not to the extent that I'd want to petrol bomb their yacht.

It may well be that I agree with everything JK Rowling has to say and we'd have a delightful evening, I don't know. That wasn't really the point. I used her name only as a stand-in for someone with whom I might disagree but whose 'harms' I don't really care about.

The point is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I agree or disagree with JK Rowling on trans issues. It doesn't matter if her comments are causing great distress among the trans population. First-world neuroses are of near zero import compared to child labour, debt slavery, millions dying from hunger, abject poverty in all its disgusting reality; and (from my limited perspective) I'm not seeing the same rage directed against those actions as I am against the minor transgressions of a few slow to adapt conservatives.

It's like if you have a friend who goes ballistic every time you put a cup down without a coaster, you just become immune to it; you're going to take little notice next time he explodes even if, this time, its over something really important.

Lines in the sand don't work as every event or incident is in the end unique — ssu

Maybe, but one has to have some guiding principles, it's not just arbitrary is all I'm saying.

For some, outer-parliamentary actions are the only hope. Now in Burma or similar places this actually is the case (as there is no actual democratic process), but it isn't reality for us. Not yet. — ssu

I don't agree. I don't think a population needs to be under the yoke of an authoritarian police state to be left with no democratic option on any given matter. It's a simple structural matter. If, for example, both major parties have the same policy on an issue and your local population clearly don't care, you can tell that for all practical purposes, you've no democratic methods left to you to counter that policy. It needn't be so dramatic.

For me, there's three types of incivility...

Incivility resulting from being severely oppressed - here, we've no place commenting.

Incivility as a tool to get done what is right in an unjust environment - refusing to obey unjust laws, threatening violence if certain demands for justice are not met.

Incivility as a tool of persuasion. Here it's used to label the behaviour as so unacceptable that a civil response is no longer appropriate. It's aim is to shock and it works entirely because it's rare. The moment it becomes commonplace for minor transgressions it loses it's power. It's this third use I worry is being de-fanged by overuse.

Does this not make you even a little queasy about the integrity with which incivility is being used these days? Or am I falsely seeing two groups as one, too out of touch to understand the movements? — Isaac

Maybe there's an issue with incivility's 'integrity' (hah), maybe there isn't. But I'm not sure that we're even ('we' being contemporary society) at the level where we can pose this question in good faith yet. I still think there's plenty of formalist objection to incivility and even polarization on the (tautological) ground that 'incivility is uncivil' and that 'polarization is polarizing'. They are effectively apolitical responses, which each yank both out of any possible context, or, what is the same, absolutize all contexts so that they are always a priori 'bad things', regardless of reasons for their use or occurrence. Maybe I'm wrong, but responses to the effect of 'smells like fascism to me' and 'we don't need to do anything until the fascists have already taken power' suggest otherwise.

But if we are going to talk about the integrity or incivility - I guess my usual rule to is follow the power: the more powerful and monied the other person is, the more I'm happy to let them eat shit. This includes Rowling no less than Bezos.

Of all the things I've said, I wasn't expecting that to be the part to receive such a thoroughgoing exegesis. — Isaac

I apologise. I appreciated everything else you said and agree with much of it. I was throwing away a riposte to a throwaway comment.

So the crux of the conversation is, as you highlight, the fact of the matter regarding where we are on these scales, and how we decide where 'too far' is. — Isaac

Especially that. Thank you.

But I think I have been working to a different understanding of 'civil discourse' from other posters. I do not mean 'polite conversation'. I mean 'civil' as distinct from 'lawlessly violent'. So, for example, I would count (hypothetical) comments on these forums that I am stupid, ignorant, a fascist etc as part of civil discourse, however contemptuous, unfair or provocative such comments might be. I would count a plausible threat to bomb my house as not part of civil discourse. By 'shaming, hounding and making lives permanently miserable' I imagine not unfair and discourteous comments on the internet but stalking, death threats and similar.

Do I lack imagination? Perhaps mine is a little too active. When I read the expression 'eat shit' I think of some things that some people have made some other people do in reality and and with real faeces and not hyperbolicaly and metaphorically. And I know that the comment is hyperbolical and metaphorical. But I remember that such metaphors have been, are and could be unpacked into an horrific reality.

Refusing to sit next to J K Rowling reminds me of Harry Enfield's refusal to let Whitney Houston touch his garden railings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqPAuotjkM4

By 'shaming, hounding and making lives permanently miserable' I imagine not unfair and discourteous comments on the internet but stalking, death threats and similar. — Cuthbert

In other words, as soon as politics becomes anything other than a game without stakes, as soon as it actually bears on the lives of people in any way, then it's all 'horrific reality' and its threat. As soon as politics beaches the bourgeois boundries of spirited dinner-time conversation, it must be put to a stop on pain of being a fascist 'threat'.

In other words, — StreetlightX

Not quite. I used exactly the words I needed to say what I meant. So it's an 'OK, I can take it' to being called 'bourgeois' (qui, moi?) but a 'no' to any hypothetical stalking, raping, and other lawless violence. 'Fascist' or not, it makes no difference.

'Fascist' or not, it makes no difference. — Cuthbert

Mm, I didn't think so. We'll see how that goes when the next totally legal holocaust happens, which of course, it was.

When the fascist comes he comes by way of law and parliamentary order. One day liberals will understand this, hopefully before they get stuffed into the train.

I'm not sure that we're even ('we' being contemporary society) at the level where we can pose this question in good faith yet. I still think there's plenty of formalist objection to incivility and even polarization on the (tautological) ground that 'incivility is uncivil' and that 'polarization is polarizing'. They are effectively apolitical responses, which each yank both out of any possible context, or, what is the same, absolutize all contexts so that they are always a priori 'bad things', regardless of reasons for their use or occurrence. — StreetlightX

I agree with you about the way these responses suck the guts out of political debate, but I'm not sure I'm ready to be quite so charitable about their ingenuousness. I'm more inclined to think them a post hoc distraction for a political position that's already being held. So like, the political choice to, say, reform the police, has already been rejected and formalist complaints about 'incivility' are really just strategic laying of a long-game justification for later being able to say the BLM protests are inappropriate. Like they're going to one day say "oh...and here's an example of that purely academic notion I was talking about earlier...what luck one just happened to crop up" when really, the example came first, followed by a frantic fishing about for some academic notion from which to build a rejection.

In my eyes it goes - threat to the status quo > decision to resist that threat by any means possible > some post hoc academic idea that can be used to hastily build a argument on. That post hoc idea could be anything as its purpose is solely to give a good, objective-looking foundation to the inevitable opposition.

if we are going to talk about the integrity or incivility - I guess my usual rule to is follow the power: the more powerful and monied the other person is, the more I'm happy to let them eat shit. This includes Rowling no less than Bezos. — StreetlightX

Yes, that's a point. I suppose what I'd missed was the fact that, almost by definition, the majority of the recipients of the sort of incivility I'm taking aim at are in that position because they have wealth and power. Their very involvement in the 'debate' is a farce by the same standards I judged the involvement of their detractors to be. Let them all have at each other, perhaps, in their air castles such that I could unmoor the whole edifice and hopefully watch it float away.

But then that leaves us no better off. Still without a solution to the problem of being either not numerous enough or not threatening enough to bring about any real change, and when the enemy has F-16s I don't have much hope in the latter.

I was involved with the anti-Poll Tax protests decades ago in England and we had no trouble mobilising people from quite a diverse range of background (some I'd certainly not want to sit next to at a dinner party), and it worked - to a point, of course. I look back, perhaps overly nostalgic, and think - if we can muster a gang of egg-throwing students to hound Kathleen Stock out of her job (something I really do care about and find disgraceful), then why are we having so much trouble with something as simple as getting those same students to order a book from their local bookstore instead of propping up a genuine fascist because it's 'a bit easier'?

Something's seriously fucked up about willingness to protest if we can't even boycott a fucking tyrant like Bezos. I mean he actually has a measurable death-rate in his warehouses, it's a thing. We boycotted South-Africa, boycotted Nestle, what the fuck is wrong with people?

Is it just a coincidence that the causes people are prepared to rally around are all causes that don't really impact the plight of the working class at all, or at best do so tangentially? How did BLM turn from a genuine threat to the status quo in America's slums to a Twitter spat about which fucking sports personalities are kneeling down before their fucking corporate-sponsored shit-show of an event?

Edit - Sorry, realised this reads back as a massive rant. It's not aimed at you.

I apologise. I appreciated everything else you said and agree with much of it. I was throwing away a riposte to a throwaway comment. — Cuthbert

No problem.

I think I have been working to a different understanding of 'civil discourse' from other posters. I do not mean 'polite conversation'. I mean 'civil' as distinct from 'lawlessly violent'. So, for example, I would count (hypothetical) comments on these forums that I am stupid, ignorant, a fascist etc as part of civil discourse, however contemptuous, unfair or provocative such comments might be. I would count a plausible threat to bomb my house as not part of civil discourse. By 'shaming, hounding and making lives permanently miserable' I imagine not unfair and discourteous comments on the internet but stalking, death threats and similar. — Cuthbert

That's fair enough, I separated out some different sense of 'incivility' myself above, but I still agree with @StreetlightX, even within your definition. Threats to stalk, immiserate and even kill are legitimate parts of the reality of politics. Sometimes they're a genuine response to being oppressed, sometimes a necessary tactic to obtain justice when other options are too slow, too ineffective, or just not morally called for.

In the case of the former, I don't think there's any academic work to be done. Remove the oppression and you remove the incivility. Simple.

In the case of the latter, I'm all for it. More if possible. It's not like the stakes are being raised on my end, they're already threats, immiseration and death.

So like, the political choice to, say, reform the police, has already been rejected and formalist complaints about 'incivility' are really just strategic laying of a long-game justification for later being able to say the BLM protests are inappropriate. — Isaac

Ha. I tend to think this varies - as usual - by power. I'm quite inclined to believe this post-hoc rationalization for those who in fact have a stake in keeping up a police state, say, but by and large by the time it - why not? - trickles down to the Cuthberts of the world, they really do just think that violence and incivility is a bad in itself, "fascist or not". Again, these people take pride in being utterly insensitive to context. Lacking, or not seeing the need for any strategic or tactical understanding of the world, they fall back on - let's call it - lowest common denominator politics. Never mind that this feeds right into the hands of those who who do in fact weaponize civility as a conscious tool of silencing.

Their very involvement in the 'debate' is a farce by the same standards I judged the involvement of their detractors to be. Let them all have at each other, perhaps, in their air castles such that I could unmoor the whole edifice and hopefully watch it float away. — Isaac

Yes. It's why the whole 'cancel culture' is so ridiculous. Every time it comes up, just ask: who is being cancelled, and by what agency? Some of us are still waiting for NYT to mention the fact that Amnesty correctly called Israel the apartheid state it is. Others are probably worryingly looking on at the slate of recent book bannings going on in various US States. But lo and behold, the cry is over some stupid shit someone said on Twitter. Cancel culture is a problem and it is real - but it's taking place everywhere power is, and people aren't.

Is it just a coincidence that the causes people are prepared to rally around are all causes that don't really impact the plight of the working class at all, or at best do so tangentially? How did BLM turn from a genuine threat to the status quo in America's slums to a Twitter spat about which fucking sports personalities are kneeling down before their fucking corporate-sponsored shit-show of an event? — Isaac

I think this thread has all the answers you need. Twitter spats belong in the realm of 'civil discourse'. Genuine threats to the status quo do not. By definition. I get the feeling of left-failure, but I'm not inclined to blame the left for it. The avenues of action have been deliberately dried up one by one, until all that is left are the Twitter spats, and not much else. Everything else - as is apparent - 'risks fascism'. Never mind the real development of actual fascism in the real world. No risks allowed. At lest not for you. Only power is allowed that privilege, after which will we write a strongly worded Op Ed, assuming you are not cancelled by people who actually gatekeep the discourse.

Ha. I tend to think this varies - as usual - by power. I'm quite inclined to believe this post-hoc rationalization for those who in fact have a stake in keeping up a police state, say, but by and large by the time it - why not? - trickles down to the Cuthberts of the world, they really do just think that violence and incivility is a bad in itself, — StreetlightX

Fair enough, I think that's probably about as far as our armchair psychologising goes. I'm acutely aware of your low opinion of psychological research, so this will be meaningless to you, but in my 20 plus years researching the social construction of beliefs I've basically become inured to the notion that no-one believes anything bar post hoc rationalisations.

It's why the whole 'cancel culture' is so ridiculous. Every time it comes up, just ask: who is being cancelled, and by what agency? — StreetlightX

True, but this cuts both ways. I'm all in favour of not giving air to, for example, a few middle class journalists who find their services no longer required because of a refusal to toe the line on gender issues, but, I'm in favour of that dismissal entirely because there are more important things to fill the front page with. Children being used as slaves in developing countries, US warmongering about to kill thousands, Israeli apartheid immiserating an entire people... So when that same front page is filled with a story from the 'new left' about women being paid less in the entertainment industry, or Dave Chappelle making an inappropriate joke (two random articles plucked from recent memory) I'm no less inclined to tell them to get their head out of their arses and find something properly important to write about.

Which is why I disagree when you say...

I get the feeling of left-failure, but I'm not inclined to blame the left for it. The avenues ofpoverty have been deliberately dried up — StreetlightX

They still have column-inches, they still have Twitter accounts, the still have the streets open to them. I don't see a way of getting around the fact that these are left-wing pundits of their own free will ignoring poverty, ignoring debt, ignoring militarism, and choosing instead to whinge about such minor first-world neuroses.

I don't see the knee of the corporate elite on their throats as they simper on about 'identity' whilst thousands have theirs snuffed out forever. I see the lure of liberal back-patting at the next dinner party.

From yesterday:



See, I don't think these people should feel safe when they leave their houses. I want them to fear for their safety. It would be a net plus if they all dropped dead, and if someone made that happen, I think we should celebrate that. I am OK with being polarized from these people. I positively encourage it.

They still have column-inches, they still have Twitter accounts, the still have the streets open to them. — Isaac

I'm not sure about the column-inches when the entire media is corporate owned and sponsored, Twitter means nothing, and the streets - the streets are where you have to preregister your protest through approved routes and at the slightest hint of violence the entire conversation will become ooohh won't someone think of the private property? Look, I'm not (just) making excuses, but the entire environment - and let's be clear I'm talking about money and funding - doesn't go toward anti-capitalist causes. Minor first world neuroses get airtime because they are the closest thing to being acceptable to a mass audience - or rather, to those who make decisions about what mass audiences get access to. It's money. It's just fucking money. That's it, and there's no money in not talking about gender pay disparity and kneeling superstars. There's not even money in wishing grievous bodily harm upon actual Nazis :(

And if you don't have money and power, you get a pass from me - mostly. Wherever power and money isn't - that's where to be, that's who to forgive. And you know as well as I that neither of these things are with the left.

I'm not sure about the column-inches when the entire media is corporate owned and sponsored, Twitter means nothing, and the streets - the streets are where you have to preregister your protest through approved routes and at the slightest hint of violence the entire conversation will become ooohh won't someone think of the private property? — StreetlightX

Well, they should think of the private property, but to simply be sure to not include that concept in their assessment with corporate, and by necessity, state property, which is the institution creating and perpetuation this entire domain of bullshit we here now discuss.

Look, I'm not (just) making excuses, but the entire environment - and let's be clear I'm talking about money and funding - doesn't go toward anti-capitalist causes. — StreetlightX

That is precisely where it goes, to anti-capitalist causes. Money in the modern Dirigisme, is a artificial creation of the state, that is regulated by the state, appropriated by the state, manipulated by the state, redistributedvia robbery by the state, and loaned to economic institutions that benefit the state enormously, in return for protections against competition - that's your corporations. There's not a single element of the current economic system that is Capitalistic in any conceivable regard, which is precisely the source of the issues in question.

Minor first world neuroses get airtime because they are the closest thing to being acceptable to a mass audience - or rather, to those who make decisions about what mass audiences get access to. — StreetlightX

No, it's because the controllers benefit from you regarding things that aren't serious, meaningful, or important as points of extreme homeostatic disruption. Which they can elicit out of you through the highly selective material they wish to relay to you. And while they're off planning the next global conflict that they'll need to ignite to fool the world population into believing they need the states involved to protect them from, because they see that people are becoming more acutely aware of the contradictory nature of their existence, the majority of us are afflicted with cognitive dissonance beyond reckoning, thereby making us even more susceptible to disregarding what is really important, in favor of minor first world neuroses that keep us in perpetual homeostatic disruption. Thus, the endless feedback loop of ignorant hatred, and Realpolitik continues.

And if you don't have money and power, you get a pass from me - mostly. — StreetlightX

Power and money are not related, anymore than power and religion is related. Power does not care what methods it has to employ, or exploit to perpetuate itself. And it's tools are not at fault. Linking money and power in equal blame, is logically equivalent to linking power and slavery because power used that method for thousands of years to uphold itself. It's completely irrational.

Wherever power and money isn't - that's where to be, that's who to forgive. And you know as well as I that neither of these things are with the left. — StreetlightX

Au contraire, mon frere. But, aee you've made the very mistake they wanted you to make. Don't you see that "left," or "right," or "center" are terms with no meaning, ambiguous meaning, or differing meaning between peoples? That's intentional. They want you to cognitively differentiate yourself along arbitrary, emotionally valenced lines. It's how they manipulate your anger. And wealth is pretty evenly distributed along these fake political lines: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/10/24/10-financial-well-being-personal-characteristics-and-lifestyles-of-the-political-typology/