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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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The thing is, being generally opposed to something and yet not actively fighting said thing at all opportunities is usually considered a valid position to hold... but this is not allowed when it comes to racism or fascism, for some reason.

You can say "I don't support fascism, and I am not a fascist" even if you aren't out there trying to track down fascists and beat them or otherwise exterminate their ideology. Okay, maybe it is fair to say that you are not "anti-fascist" by the definitions in play. But the antifascists themselves would say you're a fascist due to your failure to be sufficiently anti-fascist. Same with racism. Failure to be fully anti-racist makes you, by default, racist.

That's the core of the trick which basically imports the assumption that one can only be completely supportive of or aggressively antagonistic to something, rather than holding any nuanced belief on the topic.

I myself severely dislike mosquitoes. I consider myself anti-mosquito, I kill mosquitoes at any opportunity and I take some measures to remove mosquitoes from my immediate environment. I don't spend every waking hour trying to eradicate them or donate all my spare resources to anti-mosquito efforts.

Yet, to use the logic on display by the left, my stated and demonstrable opposition to mosquitoes is insufficient to be anti-mosquito. And if I am not anti-mosquito, I must be pro-mosquito.