Rosencrantz2
4d ago
Yes, I think this is a fair criticism of the left. I don't think it's terribly surprising the left would recoil from a position that seems to excuse companies profiting by employing illegal immigrants, but punishes being an illegal migrant. It seems a bit downpunchy, and to constitute an acknowledgement that government policy is to deliberately cause people to want to come to the US, and then deliberately punish them when they do. However I think the left should be working to find a policy package that resolves these tensions in a way that it is more thoughtful than the right-wing version.
Rosencrantz2
4d ago
I think in general ICE defenders want the perception of unpredictability, even if they don't admit it. The fact that it's sometimes ICE itself posting the videos of sloppy and menacing looking raids that serve as both content for those on the right and outrage bait to ICE opponents speaks volumes. Some here will be more open about the usefulness of this perception, arguing that it's only by creating a climate of fear among immigrant communities that you can defeat the pull factor causing people to come to the country. They believe 'I am here but at the pleasure of capricious forces' is what we want going through the heads of all immigrants, legal and illegal, as well as anyone who might be somewhat 'bad guy' presenting (e.g. tattoos, ethnicity, employed in a precarious and peripatetic part of the economy). They want a sense of order that comes through establishing, with shows of force, who is in charge. I understand the motivation behind that attitude, though I disagree with it. What I find insulting is people trying to claim that what we are seeing is genuinely intended just as efficient implementation of rules, and it's the media doing all the scaremongering.
Rosencrantz2
5d ago
Yeah, this seems more than a little important to recall when accusing the Democrats of starting the civil war talk.
Rosencrantz2
6d ago
I suppose they were just hail marying their last and only hope of stopping Trump 2 though. You can easily see she wasn't regarded as a great candidate before she was anointed.
Rosencrantz2
7d ago
nothing but
Rosencrantz2
11d ago
Indeed. And if both are multi-dimensional I'm starting to question the value of the distinction!
Rosencrantz2
11d ago
Haha. Sorry you've had that experience. It's all relative though. Find people who care about soft status more and within that group there'll be nothing second best about your soft status unless you yourself don't value it.
Rosencrantz2
11d ago
I think soft status is so much more multi-dimensional than this model allows, and your model is a bit stuck in feudal times. You say Prince William is high in soft status for example, but really he is high in social standing because he's a prince, but quite low in talent and having much to say for himself. So he doesn't necessarily net out that high. Likewise, you put Michael Jackson as being low in soft status. He is the inverse of Prince William though – low in social standing due to his crimes, but also still high in influence because he's an all-time great musician.
The multi-dimensionality of soft status is in fact the saving grace of modern society because it gives us multiple paths through which to attain dignity.
Rosencrantz2
11d ago
I kind of agree with you – yes, lawyers and politicians who decide on bills of rights are playing a role akin to religious councils. I would just say that there are those who do not interpret such a role as necessarily involving any metaphysical commitment. 'Ruling Passions' by Simon Blackburn is interesting on this, as an example of someone who is advocating for a quasi-realist position wrt morality (including rights), where we continue talking as if moral proclamations are 'out there' in the world, while also acknowledging that what is going on under the surface is fundamentally to do with our attitudes and sentiments rather than something we've discovered independent of us.
Rosencrantz2
11d ago
I kind of agree that the language of rights is obfuscatory as to what is really going on, sometimes implying that a right is something metaphysical, though I suppose this is true of a pretty wide range of concepts. However, I think that rights talk does accomplish something real. I see rights as a legit expression of commitment to/hope that there are some core rules of human morality that transcend any particular legal system and that deserve to be incorporated into every legal system by one means or another. It is of course true that people then change their mind about torture being wrong, for example, and go ahead and do it. But at least rights provide a clear stake in the ground that countries, having signed up to a bill of rights, must renege on, proving that the values they once claimed are no longer/never were their true values. This should be at least embarrassing though perhaps we have entered an age where double standards and reversals of this kind no longer incur any shame.
Rosencrantz2
12d ago
How does that distinguish rights from the concept of morality itself? Right and wrong as ideas are already not transcendental and grounded (at least in many worldviews). They are just language frames used to express commitments and to systematically boo/yay different types of behaviour. And we can't do without that.
Rosencrantz2
19d ago
Nah, but trans IS bundled into LGBTQ, so if Trump is running with 'She's with them, I'm with you', it'd hit extra hard with Buttigieg as VP.
Rosencrantz2
20d ago
I pretty much agree with all your criticisms and also enjoyed the book as I read it. It really struck me as it did you how repetitive and baggy it is, something it has in common with successful books in most genres today (other recent culprits I've read – 'There are Rivers in the Sky' by Elif Shafak and 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow' by Gabrielle Zevin).
You might think that in an age of frenetic short-form content it would be the tautly written books, in terms of both plot and prose, that would break through as they make less demands on our time and pack in more beats per page, but that has not been the case. At all. My theory is that people are so used to scrolling at speed and not having to think that they read in sort of the same way, so that repetition and cosy re-confirmation is the only way they can actually take in and understand what's going on in the story. Conclusion: the faster we read and the more distracted we become, the longer and flabbier novels are going to become.
This is f'd up. We should be taking the same time as it takes to plough through epics to read miniaturists and elegant stylists with care. (Kazuo Ishiguro, Patrick DeWitt, Yoko Ogawa, Percival Everett could all be worth a try in this regard.)
Rosencrantz2
20d ago
Hmm. The Cambridge dictionary definition:
"someone who says they have particular moral beliefs but behaves in way that shows these are not sincere"
Your example does not seem to show the heroin addict is insincere in their belief, but rather that they suffer weakness of the will.
Rosencrantz2
20d ago
Railing against heroin while taking it isn't a very good example of hypocrisy. A more clearcut example would be criticising others for being morally weak enough to take it, while you claim the moral high ground and secretly take it yourself.
Rosencrantz2
25d ago
Kimmel disparaged the MAGA base and made a factual error (and there's a possibility he believed it at the time). In no way did he dance on anyone's grave.
Rosencrantz2
25d ago
Why would it play a role, other that the decision appears partly government influenced? What it does is throw the stark difference into relief.
Rosencrantz2
26d ago
Yeah, and I think it's dishonest to pretend the former is worse than the latter.
This is where we part ways. Biased but true speech is interpretable and informational for smart people, even if it misleads others. Lying is simply pollution.
Rosencrantz2
26d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements_by_Donald_Trump
I read a few reports quantifying his untruths vs Biden and Obama, and he came off much worse.
Whether there's an actually solid study comparing all politicians, journalists, academics and their lies I don't know, but it seems baldly apparent that he is up there with the best of them.
Anyway, don't many of his supporters acknowledge that he lies a lot, but say his lies are good car salesman style lies, whereas other politicians may not lie but they are selective with what they include and what they omit?
Rosencrantz2
26d ago
He shouldn't have said it, especially as it turns out to have been wrong, but to take him off the air for it in a country presided over by one of the most prolific liars in history seems absolutely risible.
Rosencrantz2
26d ago
If there's an asymmetry with views on death, it's a difference between right and left wing attitudes to groups vs individuals. The left is interested in systems and groups of people, so things like Studio Ghiblifying a crying immigrant or whatever read as incredibly callous to them. Such a post is read by them as 'I'm totally unaffected by migrant pain, even if hundreds of millions of them are suffering I don't care even slightly'. However when it's an individual they don't like or an individual member of a group they don't feel well disposed to, they are way less empathetic. The right conversely are sometimes quite proud of showing good manners in person but will say absolutely awful things about groups apparently without even having the inkling that another person might be upset on behalf of their group.
Do we want each other dead?
True, I may not want your idea or voice in the world.
I might be happy if it just went away.
If all those like you went away, think what my side could achieve unopposed!
But I would not support what would be needed for you to 'just go away'.
Moreover I know that there are countless other aspects to you (hypothetical asshole) that I might not find as tiresome as your online persona.
No doubt if I met you we could find something to bond over.
If I watched you with people you love, I might warm to you.
Even if I saw you, a stranger, being hurt, I would doubtless hate to see that (let's assume there is no slapstick element; admittedly that might change the equation).
But I can't see any of these things.
All I can see are the asshole-ish parts of you that peek at me through the distancing device that is my laptop.
And if those parts vanished, I might be able to convince myself to forget about all the other putative parts.
And perhaps depending on how my day and life were going, I might be glad of whatever must have happened to make your asshole-ish online parts disappear.
I perceive all this more or less symmetrically.
You'd be happy if my ideas and voice went away too. Be honest.
Your contempt for that which I share with you through our screens is evident.
Or maybe you're a supporter of someone who expresses contempt for me.
Someone who views everything as combat.
If I just went away, he'd be good with it.
You'd be good with it.
Hell, maybe people like me are an obstacle to your goals, and if we all went away, all your dreams would come true.
But still. You're like me.
You wouldn't want anything done to me really.
Actually, if you met me, you'd probably like and respect me.
It's true – even if you say you're done with the concept of empathy.
We'd probably disagree on a lot of things, but we'd make it work.
You'd probably even wince if you happened to see me fall over, unless it was an especially hilarious fall.
Nonetheless, in your weaker moments, you might be glad if something happened and the news reached you that my voice was to be no more.
So I don't think we're so different.
There's nothing more to solve than our respective asshole-ish parts clashing over distant, linked screens.
Sort that little issue out and we can be friends.
The only problem is, it's not just the two of us here.
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
I understand the issue, I'm not sure how significant it is though. I feel that using preferred gender pronouns can be compatible with being upfront about a person's transness, so any misdirection would be just for a brief moment (for example, a news report can use 'she' while also mentioning someone's trans status right away). So your threat monitoring can resume as normal after just a beat.
To understand your approach better, may I ask how you decide when to 'award' preferred gender pronouns? You mentioned you do it with people who are well integrated. Do you use their assigned-at-birth pronouns at first, and then only after getting to know them and trust them switch over?
Rosencrantz2
1mo ago
That's your prerogative but to me your argument is identical to someone saying, 'I use regular pronouns as honorifics. 'He' is no longer worthy to be called a man, so I use the term 'it'. It should be hanged'. You can do that if you want, yes, but you assume too much if you think others must be using the terms the way you do.
Large pizzas are usually a good deal for the same reason as 16" vs 12" sounds like only a third more pizza.
More options
Context Copy link