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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38844 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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The difference matters a great deal.

Firstly, it keeps our worst impulses in check. It is too easy for people to assume the worst of others and also generalize off of that assumption. So "some progressives hate white people" becomes "progressives hate white people".

If we're here to culture war, by all means, go ahead and engage in this kind of generalization. If we're not, then it's actively harmful to the effort.

For a close to home example, I don't think anyone at The Schism "hates" white people in the way, say, Hannah Nikole-Jones or Tema Okun does, but I think many of them would engage in a lot of hemming, hawing, and sanewashing why those attitudes make sense in context, or why they should be tolerated (but the opposite equivalent wouldn't be, a la the fiasco last month with Impassionata- I strongly doubt the mods would've tolerated a right-wing rant half as long), etc etc. Or why slurs are so much worse at certain targets, but basically don't matter towards others.

Do you have any evidence to support these claims? I find that the mods there are very hesitant to give out bans at all or even warnings for that matter, and as @drmanhattan16 notes, there's been plenty of right-wing or at least anti-progressive ranting in the sub over its lifetime. I vaguely recall @gemmaem discussing this hesitancy in a comment early on, though I'm having trouble finding a link to it with the reddit api fiasco making searching for old comments a bit troublesome at the moment.

I agree TheSchism is a place with a viewpoint and that that viewpoint leans to the left. I think it's the culture of the sub that enforces that far more than the moderation though. The only bans I can recall for things other than personal attacks were given to left-leaning posters, which makes me wonder if I'm just overlooking instances where right-leaning posters actually got less leniency or if it is the culture of the sub biasing the expectation of how right-leaning posters would be modded.

a mod whose name I don't remember and is no longer on the mod team list

I'd guess mcjunker, since I don't recall any of the other early mods having been particularly active.

or crossed the "no violence" line

The rules prohibit "glorifying violence", which isn't the same as "no violence". TW clarified that pretty early on.

This is probably a distinction without a difference, as it is impossible to be a Right Wing poster without choosing one of terminally depressed, cryptic and mysterious, or occasionally advocating positions that will require violence to implement. The first is antithetical to Right-ism, it is against the Coalition of the Comfortable elements of Conservatism and completely abhorrent to anything like Fascism. The second violates the rules of TheMotte, and presumably theSchism as well. The third is the only real choice.

I don't think you can advocate for anything much to the right of Mitt Romney without advocating violence. There is no non-violent path forward for the far right in today's world.

But attributing it to ignorance gives it too much credit and is pretty uncharitable in its own right.

Ignorance isn't exactly the word I'd use either, I think you're right that it paints too rosy a picture. I think progressives, like all groups, are guilty of having Crystalized Metaphysical Heuristics, and they aren't completely unaware of what they do, but they are only as good as any other human group at updating beliefs. It's made worse by the fact that they don't optimize for truth for its own sake.

"Some progressive hate white people" -> "other progressives provide cover for, tolerance for, ignore, and generally let such bigotry spread; their beliefs cause them to be indifferent to such complaints" -> "to an outsider, there is little discernable difference between progressives that do or do not hate white people because the results are likely similar."

I concur! But I think it can and should inform the response when engaging in intertribal dialogue. "Progressives hate white people" gets no traction, "progressives are indifferent to white people, and indifference is an insidious thing" has a chance to go somewhere.

(but the opposite equivalent wouldn't be, a la the fiasco last month with Impassionata- I strongly doubt the mods would've tolerated a right-wing rant half as long), etc etc.

There was a rant only a few months ago in which the poster effectively called the concept of privilege, but more importantly its public practictioners, idiots. It's not particularly "right-wing", but it's far more hostilely-written than one would except for a forum characterized as "for lefties who may have some issues with social justice". That person is not banned and the discussion went on for a while.

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