Australia isn't on the verge of collapse. — ssu
But the usual option then is for people to go the guns. And remember who have the guns. — ssu
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
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 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
Who's not up for punching a Nazi! — Isaac
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.... — Isaac
You can find lots of people who will say anything and don't mean what they say almost anywhere else on the internet. — Cuthbert
JK Rowling...well, I'd probably try to avoid being seated next to her at a dinner party....but that's about it. — 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.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
You just keep those red see-nazi glasses on and everybody will seem as a supporter of Hitler to you.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
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
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
Lines in the sand don't work as every event or incident is in the end unique — ssu
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
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
Of all the things I've said, I wasn't expecting that to be the part to receive such a thoroughgoing exegesis. — Isaac
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
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, — StreetlightX
'Fascist' or not, it makes no difference. — Cuthbert
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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. — 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? — StreetlightX
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
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
And if you don't have money and power, you get a pass from me - mostly. — StreetlightX
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
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