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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32176 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Should we cancel all Mormon/Catholic/Christian authors then?

Is this an acceptable conversation to be having in the mainstream culture? If and when the consensus shifts to "yes", what should happen then? We both agree that it's not camps, but it is religious discrimination being cemented as a cultural norm, right?

Twitter and Reddit seem to have an awful lot of "Hey, did you know Brandon Sanderson is a Mormon?" threads.

...How is this different than (((Triple Parentheses)))?

This conversation from back in the day seems relevant, and particularly this part:

But it is very obvious to me that for Blues this similarity is definitive, that the problem with the WBC isn't that specific Christians are acting like assholes, but that Christians in general are assholes. And the problem I have with your arguments is that on the one hand you are steadfast in your appeal to mistake theory, toleration and conciliation, and on the other hand you seem to share this understanding that the problem is the core beliefs, not particular actions by which those beliefs are expressed. It seems to me that those positions are mutually incoherent.

Is the problem that Sanderson expressed his views poorly, or that he has them at all? Pretty clearly the latter, for GFM, and for many, perhaps most of those populating that thread. As you note, the social consensus evidently isn't there to secure her tribal preferences, quite, yet. Of course, the consensus is there to allow her to make this attack without personal consequence, and it's there to protect her from any symmetrical attack from the other side, and there's no reason to think where we are now is where we'll be in five years, or ten. And it does no good to appeal to the broad consensus of public opinion, when we have Quiet Diplomacy to shape the options presented to the public such that they don't realize what the choices available actually were.

I guess my question is, why is she wrong, really? In five years, or ten, when the social consensus has ratcheted forward another few notches and she or someone like her tries again, what will the objection be? And it's not like I'm better. I personally don't have an answer to the observation that there are some practices that I am not willing to tolerate, even though they are obviously deeply significant to their adherents. I cannot actually make an argument for universal toleration that would put me in a position to condemn GFM on principles. I don't think anyone else can either. This is why values-drift inspires such despair: because it seems obvious that it can, in fact, make people mutually intolerable to each other, that it can remove the possibility of peace from our future.

As you said way back then:

All of which is a roundabout way of saying I'd like there to be more tolerance on all sides, but yeah, if your religious convictions and your need to express them are in conflict with public harmony, your religious convictions lose...

...The thing is, what does it take for her "religion" to be seen as the threat to "public harmony"? Or is that a conclusion reserved for actual religions?

Is this an acceptable conversation to be having in the mainstream culture? ...How is this different than (((Triple Parentheses)))?

The answers seem to be (1) yes, after all didn't we have for years the struggle to take religion out of schools and your rosaries off my ovaries? You are not permitted to impose your morals or your beliefs on the public square, and if the law protects minority groups and punishes hate speech, then engaging in hate speech about minority groups means you should be prosecuted; religious belief is something to do in private, not out in public where everyone can see (2) because they're Christians, silly! And Christianity is the dominant religion, so it's in the place of power and is the oppressor. Punching Christians is both punching Nazis and punching up, which gives the nice warm glow of virtue when you do it.

The thing is, what does it take for her "religion" to be seen as the threat to "public harmony"?

No, see, she is on the right side of history. Remember that? Also, remember: slopes are never slippery and all those conservative doom-mongers were just silly-billies complaining about nothing!

This helpful article from Wikipedia may explain it all to you, it certainly opened my eyes:

Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, as well as having nativist ideologies and tendencies.

Historically, "far-right politics" has been used to describe the experiences of fascism, Nazism, and Falangism. Contemporary definitions now include neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, the Third Position, the alt-right, racial supremacism, National Bolshevism and other ideologies or organizations that feature aspects of authoritarian, ultra-nationalist, chauvinist, xenophobic, theocratic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or reactionary views.

If Sanderson believes his church's teachings, and his church teaches that gay acts are sinful, then his church is homophobic. And being homophobic means you are far-right, which means you're the same thing as a Nazi. Doesn't matter if he never personally burned a gay or trans person at the stake, until and unless he denounces Mormonism and acknowledges his guilt and accepts he was wrong all along, he's a Nazi. And you don't tolerate Nazis, now do you?

This helpful article from Wikipedia may explain it all to you, it certainly opened my eyes:

Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, as well as having nativist ideologies and tendencies.

Historically, "far-right politics" has been used to describe the experiences of fascism, Nazism, and Falangism. Contemporary definitions now include neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, the Third Position, the alt-right, racial supremacism, National Bolshevism and other ideologies or organizations that feature aspects of authoritarian, ultra-nationalist, chauvinist, xenophobic, theocratic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or reactionary views.

If Sanderson believes his church's teachings, and his church teaches that gay acts are sinful, then his church is homophobic. And being homophobic means you are far-right, which means you're the same thing as a Nazi. Doesn't matter if he never personally burned a gay or trans person at the stake, until and unless he denounces Mormonism and acknowledges his guilt and accepts he was wrong all along, he's a Nazi. And you don't tolerate Nazis, now do you?

You are drawing so much conclusions from a factual wikipedia article.

  1. It is a fact that the nazis were homophobic. It is also a fact that the nazis were far right, and also a fact that homophobia is a view held by a lot of far-right people. Are you challenging any one of these facts? It does not mean that if you are homophobic you are far right or a nazi. You know, most people have two legs but birds aren't people. By the way, you should have noted the "and/or" in the list, which suggests that far right people hold several of those views, not just one.

  2. "Doesn't matter if he never personally burned a gay or trans person at the stake, [...] he's a Nazi." When you do this comment, it seems to me you are saying that anyone who did not personally burned anyone cannot be a Nazi. In this case, there have been very few nazis. Hitler, for example, did not burn anyone "personally", as far as I know. At the end, the holocaust was organized in such a way that almost no one had to kill anyone directly. Not every nazi is a war criminal. Most nazis were just people like you and me that lived their lives peacefully. They just happened to vote for some nazi guy once, and to help the regime once in a while.

  • -10

Factual does not mean true, nor accurate, nor representative or illuminating. I do not trust wikipedia and neither should you, certainly not for an article created in 2019, certainly not for anything remotely political, certainly not without searching the talk and history pages first.

Then explain me what's wrong in those lines.

They were written by propagandists with a slant. Their purpose is not to convey truth but to color perception. I thought that was obvious from my prior comment.

Is there anything false?

Yes.

Dude either answer him properly or don't answer, one word answers are annoying for everyone.

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