Spez1alEd
1yr ago
I'm not a progressive but I suppose the steelman would be that in the progressive view, white people are intrinsically racist and possessed of certain unconscious biases and living in an area with a lot of white people would lead someone to encounter these instances of racism and bias more often, which isn't pleasant even if they aren't directed towards them. It may also lead white people in these areas to vote for less progressive policies and make the place less progressive as a whole. Even if true though, I suspect some other demographics may hold non-progressive sentiments at an even higher rate. I'd expect a city with a large urban black population or many devout Muslims to have more sexists and homophobes for example, although admittedly that's a guess.
Anyway, if you don't mind me asking have you ever asked your friend if they can see how this sort of rhetoric would turn people away from progressivism? It just baffles me how progressives will say things like this and then wonder why people become "anti-woke" or put it all down to them being racist and too attached to their privilege, not wanting to give it up.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Am I wrong to think there's just something fundamentally different and more sinister about euthanising someone due to mental rather than physical defects?
It might not be entirely rational - there probably are people who suffer immensely due to mental trauma who actually would be better off ending their lives - but it just feels different. I think what bothers me about it is that it's easy to separate physical disabilities from character flaws, I mean there really is no relation at all, being physically weak has nothing to do with weakness of character.* But it's a lot harder to separate a mental illness from somebody's personality and who they are as a person - if being a sociopath means you're an asshole, okay maybe it's not your fault you're a sociopath but you're still an asshole when you get down to it. I'm still going to judge you for acting like one, and likewise I'll give you credit for exhibiting positive traits associated with sociopathy like bravery. That might be an offensive way to think about mental conditions but I really don't think anyone can claim they're truly able to fully separate the disorder from the person.
So to euthanise somebody for a mental condition comes off to me like you're saying there's something fundamentally wrong with who they are to such an extent that they're better off dead. It feels like a value judgement in a way that euthanising somebody so they don't have to suffer through the final few months of cancer doesn't. It doesn't sit right with me. I mean, the Nazis described mentally ill people they considered unworthy of life as "empty shells of human beings." If you euthanise someone for say, clinical depression, even if you have their consent aren't you basically agreeing that that's what they are?
*Well there are cases in which a person might be injured and become disabled because of a character flaw, or might develop a character flaw because of a physical disability, but you know what I mean. Being in a wheelchair doesn't really say anything about who you are, whereas if you're autistic that's an integral part of your personality.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
In terms of relative severity, "Paki" in the UK is as bad as "Nigger", possibly worse. Both would result in a beatdown and/or prosecution if used to insult an identifiable member of the group referred to, and cancellation if used to insult the group generically.
Although it would definitely be thought of as offensive I don't think the word Paki is considered nearly as bad in the UK as nigger is in the US. It's anecdotal but when I was a kid my friends and relatives casually referred to the corner shop as the Paki shop and not in a manner that seemed to imply any genuine racial hostility on their part, likewise to this day Chinese people, restaurants and food can all be referred to as a chinky. I don't think you could unironically use these words on TV without causing a controversy, but at least people from around where I'm from aren't going to assume you're an unrepentant racist if they hear you using them the way I assume people would if you go around casually referring to black people as niggers in the US. It could be a class thing, my family is all very working class from a very white area.
I also can't ever recall the word Paki being censored when the media discussed racism against Asians, such as instances of "Paki-bashing" in which Asians have been physically assaulted for their race. If racist attacks against black people in the US were referred to by a term which contained the word nigger I'd be very surprised if the slur wasn't commonly censored when the media reported on it.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
It's called the Labour Party because it began as a party for workers and socialists.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Even the MP Jacob Rees Mogg, the upper middle class son of a newspaper proprietor who went to Eton and was himself descended from minor gentry (and iirc married into it) is roundly mocked for basically putting on an aristocratic LARP.
I get the sense most of the people mocking him would do so whether or not he had genuine aristocratic 'cred.' He's not mocked for acting as if he has an aristocratic background when he doesn't really have one, he's mocked for acting as though having an aristocratic background makes him superior.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
As I understand it, the principle behind “Anti-Colonialism” is that Group A is never entitled to move into Group B’s space and take it over, replacing Group B’s preferred culture and/or method of governance with Group A’s preferred culture and/or method of governance, thereby subjugating Group B as second class in their own space.
What would you define as 'taking it over?' Immigrants today do bring with them their original cultural values and practices and thereby spread them to their new country, and they do wield some power over it, but they do so while willingly becoming subjects of the native authorities and exercise their political power by voting, campaigning and being elected, just as the natives do. This strikes me as quite different from the way settlers went about colonising places in the past. As far as I'm aware, rather than become subjects of the native authorities they instead set up their own and in some cases subjugated the native authorities by force of arms, which modern day immigrants generally don't. I'm not too familiar with what modern people who call themselves anti-colonial think, but I suspect this would be the key difference they would point to between immigration and colonialism. Of course they would also probably dispute the notion that immigrants have or are in the process of subjugating natives and making them second-class citizens.
All that said I would not be surprised if many of these people would object if white people were to move to say, Benin, in large enough numbers they began to significantly change the culture and threatened to outnumber native Beninese within a couple of generations. Perhaps they would even describe such a venture as colonial. So maybe there is some hypocrisy there, but it's not possible to really prove right now as there is no mass immigration of first-worlders to the third-world as far as I know, and for the time being they can point to some fairly solid differences between old-school colonialism and modern mass immigration enabled by open borders.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Well, is it not true that women are often afforded more gentleness and kindness than men would be in many situations, due to a sense that they're physically and mentally weaker? Children are also not punished as harshly when they engage in criminal action and while it would be absurd to suggest this betrays a hatred for children on the part of adults, I think it would be uncontroversial to argue this does stem from a widespread perception that children are the social, intellectual, emotional and to an extent moral inferiors of adults (more innocent, but less able to accurately judge the moral weight of their actions).
To my mind women occupied a position in society quite similar to the one children hold today until fairly recently; considered precious and in need of protection, but also undoubtedly the social inferiors of men. And I think in spite of how socially stigmatised open sexism is against women today, traces of that old arrangement do linger and lead to things like women being treated with kid gloves. While this isn't oppression and is beneficial (a man's life is literally considered less valuable than a woman's, just as an adult's is considered less valuable than a child's) it's not hard to see why feminists would object.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
We don't love them because they are inept.
I'm not sure where I gave the impression I believed that. Maybe it sounded as if I was saying the ineptness of children was the only reason they're not punished as harshly as adults? Of course adults have instinctual feelings of love and protectiveness towards kids independent of their belief in the children's ineptness, and those are part of it too, but much of the argument against trying them as adults centres on their inability to understand the full consequences of their actions. So, you know, it's both - the "benevolent ageism" in this case stems both from love of children and knowledge of their inferior faculties.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
I did say it is beneficial and not oppression (I grant feminists would probably disagree with that assessment) but nonetheless if you are a feminist whose goal is to attain for women the same level of respect afforded to men, having men treat you with kid gloves all the time could be seen as patronising, if indeed it does stem from a lack of faith in your abilities. And a lack of faith in your abilities could lead them to be unwilling to trust you with large amounts of power or responsibility. Even just being seen to receive this treatment could reinforce the notion that you need it and couldn't succeed on your own.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
It might be petty but honestly I've always found his 'how do you do fellow zoomers' shtick kinda cringe. The thing where he pretends to be down with the kids and all their epic dank maymays, y'know? For some people maybe that's enough to tip the scales against him. Then of course there's just the fact he's the richest man on Earth, people might feel he's mishandled Twitter or some of his other ventures, that moment he called a guy who rescued a bunch of trapped kids a paedophile for no good reason, maybe other stuff I haven't heard of. Honestly I'm a bit confused by the notion that if you're anti-woke you apparently have to like Musk.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Well, speaking for myself I can say that even if I did meet a man who I felt physically attracted to but who I later found out was a transman, I would probably decline to pursue them because I have a categorical aversion to dating natal females. And I do suspect that many people feel similarly, i.e. that many straight men wouldn't date a transwoman they felt attracted to specifically because they have a categorical aversion to dating natal males, ditto for straight women not wanting to date transmen, lesbians not wanting to date transwomen, et cetera. So I think there is something to the notion that a refusal to date trans people isn't always based purely on physical attraction or lack thereof, and has something to do with not wanting to date people of certain categories/identities.
I don't think attitudes like that are transphobic though, it's not like I don't want to date natal females because I have something against them. Nor is the fact that I group transmen with natal females some kind of value judgement. Nowadays simply not validating a trans person's gender identity is considered transphobic, but I don't agree with that. I think there's a world of difference between having contempt for trans people and simply not agreeing with them about which gender category they fall under, and we should draw clear distinctions between these attitudes and describe them using different words.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
It's pretty simple really. Mocking or ridiculing them for being trans, taking it as a sign they're a potential sexual predator, suggesting violence should be visited upon them for being trans, wishing them to be disowned by their family or socially ostracised generally, celebrating high rates of suicide among them would all constitute holding trans people in contempt: basically, considering them to be bad people, expressing hatred toward them or wishing harm upon them.
Whereas not validating their gender identity, i.e. refusing to agree that trans women are women or trans men or men, whether or not one chooses to use their preferred pronouns, is obviously not in line with modern pro-trans ideology but doesn't indicate a hatred of them. Nor does believing they should not be treated the same way as cis members of their preferred gender when it comes to sports or changing rooms or prisons and other gender-segregated spaces, or believing they should not be medically transitioning at a young age or without going through a thorough screening process to verify their gender dysphoria, or that in some cases transition is not necessary. Basically it just comes down to the fact that not affirming their beliefs or identity isn't the same thing as despising them the way people on places like /pol/ tend to.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
What good moral behaviour is being maintained by avoiding the use of shaming tactics? I would be surprised if there were many people who were against the use of shaming absolutely, in all contexts.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Even if it is ostensibly only about a certain subset of white people, calling it wypipoing clearly insinuates it's behaviour that is typical of white people and therefore insults them as a whole. It's equivalent to having an article titled Top 10 Nigga Moments of 2022 and just having it be a list of times notable black people impulsively attacked people, implying it to be typical black behaviour.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
I doubt that you hold radically politically correct views.
I'm not sure how this is relevant.
The claim to double standards also doesn't work perfectly, as the left sees no contradiction here, because they consider whites to be a large enough and powerful enough group that such generalizations do not pose a threat to anyone.
Yes, I understand their justification for the double standard, I just don't agree with it. Besides that I'm not sure how it contradicts what I said: even if negative generalisations of white people don't have the same consequences as negative generalisations of black people, it still is a negative generalisation of white people and not merely criticism of Republicans/chuds/etc.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
You could say that about a lot of things. Institutionalised rape, slavery and child brides were pretty common and accepted throughout the ancient world as well, but it would be unusual for a person to defend those things today.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
While I'm sure there are progressives who contradict themselves by making prison rape jokes, I don't think it's something sanctioned by progressive orthodoxy. They generally condemn any rape jokes, and I think they would further condemn jokes about men being raped in prison on the grounds that the jokes are misogynistic (because part of the punchline is that the man is having his masculinity undermined, which implicitly suggests that men must be masculine and it's shameful for them to be effeminate.)
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
We have had a political party actually put abolishing the concept of jail for women in their party manifesto here.
Really? Which one was that? It's the first I've heard of it. I'm not doubting you, I'm just really curious.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Well TERF does stand for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, and while to be charitable to them they don't all hate men, you will probably find more people openly identifying as misandrist among radical feminists than among any other cohort. I don't think Rowling really is a TERF though, she seems like more of a liberal rather than a radical feminist and as she does support people's right to wear whatever clothing they like, to medically transition and she uses their preferred pronouns, she doesn't really seem all that trans exclusionary either.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
Maybe it's a weird thing to hone in on but it seems a little strange they didn't bother to capitalise neither white nor European, the names of the groups they're willing to kill and die for, but did capitalise Yoruba. Not to mention the fact they even bothered to bring up her being Yoruba as though white nationalists would care in the slightest what variety of black person she is, as others have mentioned.
I mean virtually everyone in the replies just believes it's genuine without question so if it is a forgery I guess you don't have to try very hard to make it convincing to people, at least people that are already on your side and want to believe it's real, but it's still a really strange mistake to make.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
The Rasmusen opinion poll in question found that 46% half of black people say that it's not OK to be white.
How was the question worded? Was it the one on this page?
1* Do you agree or disagree with this statement: “It’s OK to be white.”
Leftists have long claimed that the statement "It's OK to be white" doesn't mean only what it appears to based on a literal reading, but is in fact a white supremacist dog-whistle. Whether that's true or not, if the people answering the poll believe it, then I think Scott was a bit hasty to take their disagreement with it as a rejection of the literal meaning of the statement, rather than the white supremacist subtext they believe it to have.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of blacks in the US bore resentment against whites, although that's based on a general feeling I get from media and pop culture rather than any hard evidence. Either way I just find it ill-advised to take "almost half of blacks disagree with a statement much of the mainstream media has continually claimed to be a coded message of support for white supremacy" to mean "almost half of blacks form a hate group against whites."
As for leftists, there is certainly a widespread acceptance of casual anti-white sentiments among the mainstream left, something that isn't mirrored on the mainstream right with anti-minority sentiments. That said, I think most far leftists do not hate white people to anywhere near the degree that many far rightists hate their disfavoured racial groups.
Spez1alEd
1yr ago
The interesting thing about Bridget is that under the logic of gender being a social construct I think you could argue he was already trans, and when he adopted a female gender identity in the latest game, that was actually him detransitioning. In the backstory, although he was always male, he had also been raised as a girl pretty much since birth. So his sex was male, but the gender he was assigned at birth was female.
The fact he identified as a man in earlier games meant that he was rejecting the gender he was assigned at birth, making him a transman. By going back on that and identifying as a woman again, he's detransitioning in order to embrace the gender he was assigned at birth. Sure he's biologically male, but if gender is purely a social construct then that shouldn't make a difference, right? He's returning to his original gender identity, so he's detransitioning. Trans people largely didn't seem to see it that way though and accepted him as mtf.
Some people who didn't like the change also pointed out that by adopting a female gender identity, rather than bravely going against the grain he was conforming to the expectations of his parents, who raised him as a girl, and society at large which frequently perceived and gendered him as female due to his name and appearance even when he was identifying as male. If it was supposed to be positive trans representation then I think perhaps it wasn't thought out all that well.
I find it strange as well, but perhaps it's because American conservatism can trace its lineage back to a liberal revolution and its adherents see themselves as carrying on the values of that revolution. The liberal/libertarian elements of the ideology have always struck me as an odd thing to pair with social conservatism, but its followers take them seriously it seems, and in that case perhaps it's no surprise they would opt for the freedom and individualism represented by a car-based society over the sense of community offered in walkable cities. America's immense cultural reach also means that these libertarian tendencies can be exported and influence other conservative movements worldwide.
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