Comment by mthoms
5 years ago
Maybe right leaning users have a higher propensity to say offensive/harmful things?
I'm not being facetious. Isn't this something the right is actually proud of? I mean, they actually boast about not being "politically correct" (something the rest of the western world calls "common decency").
Offense and harm are not the same thing so IMHO you can't really make a sweeping statement about a group of people like that.
Also isn't political correctness subjective too? Or is there a canonical definition of what is and is not politically correct that I'm unaware of.
>Offense and harm are not the same thing
Correct, but it's disingenuous to suggest they're not strongly correlated at the group level.
You base that on what exactly?
>You base that on what exactly?
Just about every other editorial on right leaning outlets that complain and moan about political correctness?
Oh, and actual self-identified right leaning HN/Redit users. Just ask, many of them will be quick to tell you (some version of) "political correctness is BS".
(To be clear, I know not all right-leaning people think this way, but a very large proportion do).
Just so I'm clear, are you arguing that avoiding political correctness is not a core tenet of a large part of the conservative base? I thought it was a badge of honor for many?
Also going around calling everyone snowflakes for being offended by whatever heinous thing they come out with that day.
i am arguing that who is politically correct depends on time and context. There was a time when the left was politically incorrect conpared to the mainstream. It has nothing to do with political observation.
"Political correctness" is complete garbage. This is an opinion shared by a wide variety of people across the political spectrum (as well as by the majority of people who eschew politics all together). Belief in free speech and free expression is not a "conservative" position - quite the opposite. Ironically (and unfortunately) the authoritarian identitarians who currently control the Democratic party and large portions of legacy media have pushed many people who believe in free speech towards Trump (or just out of the political system all together) with their toxic demands for adherence to "political correctness".
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Almost the entire American right wing media is continually hate- and fearmongering about their perceived political opponents, actively and/or knowingly spreading disinformation, and has been for my entire adult life, at least as long as I've been paying attention, which is going on several decades. That's their only move, give people enemies so they don't actually have to propose solutions to anything. It's easy to give people enemies, much harder to actually solve complicated problems that require getting everyone on board. There used to be a more intellectual, reality-focused American right wing (and still is, but to a vastly smaller degree than just a few years ago). But now Alex Jones has replaced William F. Buckley and modern Republicans are much more likely to know about Rush Limbaugh than Edmund Burke. Buckley and Burke would get tarred and feathered as RINOs nowadays and that's really saying something.
That's not an opinion or a judgement, that's just reality, as much as 1+1=2 or the sky being blue. It doesn't require interpreting anything or contextualizing anything. It's obvious and plain as day, and eyes and ears and integrity and maturity are all that are required to perceive it. I absolutely believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that any reasonable application of any reasonable rules of moderation concerning threats, abuse, and misinformation would have much more impact on a typical Trump supporter in 2020 than anyone else (still faithful in 2020 folks, that's the type of person we're talking about here), and that that would be almost certainly the fault of the individual, and not biased moderation. The only way moderation would affect both sides equally would be if both sides were the same, or composed of the same sort of people.
But both sides have never been the same, and that's more true now than at any time since the Civil War. Except that now Republicans identify with Confederates instead of Lincoln and his ideals, and somehow Democrats flipped from representing Evangelical rural Southerners to representing the industrialized, urban, and successful parts of America, that were represented by Republicans in Lincoln's day.
FWIW I agree with George Washington that political parties themselves are the poison pill that repeatedly divides and screws up America, and that our current system is fatally flawed because it naturally leads to a two-party system, and that two-party systems by definition lead to more corruption and shittier governance. Just because one party is clearly criminally corrupt doesn't make the other party the goodguys, but until (if ever) we get rid of FPTP voting, it's a "pick the lesser evil" situation, and hoo boy is one evil obviously lesser than the other one.
>But both sides have never been the same,
Both are owned by the same oligarchs, it's a pretend lesser of evils game that just pendulum swings back and forth every few election cycles and it amazes me people still fall for this kind of rhetoric. Then again, most people fell for Russiagate hook line and sinker too... and when we increasingly get the evidence about how false it was, crickets... The entire democratic party fell for disinformation just as easily as the republicans did. Stop kidding yourself.
i love it when political opinion pieces gets presented by the author as just reality. Its certainly not my reality you are explaining.
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The Quillette article posted as evidence above says exactly that:
"Perhaps conservatives are simply more likely to violate neutral rules regarding harassment and hate speech. In such case, the observed data would not serve to impugn Twitter, but rather conservatives themselves."
Offensive to whom? By definition, a conservative has a bias towards keeping things as they have been. As such, we should expect a conservative's sensibilities to be more along the lines of our parent's or grandparent's (or maybe even great-grandparent's) generation.
So look at it this way: are the things that conservatives say outside the bounds of common decency of the 1980s? 1950s? 1930s? Then ask if the kind of things that left-leaning users say are outside the bounds of common decency of the 1980s, 1950s, 1930s.
You say that political correctness is just common decency. Your grandparents probably had a different standard for common decency in their day.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
The overall trend is that justice and respect for human dignity has steadily, undeniably, increased over the last several hundred years. Therefore, generally speaking, I would say that yes, a modern 30-something has more "decency" than one of 50, 75 or 100 years ago.
To be totally clear, I don't fault my grandparents or other people that are products of these eras. They aren't necessarily bad people. And certainly, the measure of "common decency" would, of course, be different then.
I just can't wrap my head around longing for a time when society was more constrained/repressive/intolerant. Yes, there are things I think were better in the past, but they are the exception.
(side note: this is not to say I don't think political correctness can go too far, it certainly can. There are exceptions to everything).
To say that respect for human dignity has increased over time is very subjective. While I think many would agree with you a large portion of society would not.
An example: Traditional values would say that modern men have less respect for human dignity given the rise in single motherhood. Out of respect men were expected to stick around and help raise a child.
No everyone is going to agree that we are moving in the right direction. It's important to remember that when engaging in political discussions. That people are not often acting out an evil agenda. They are just going with what they think is right.
Discussions on what is the best way forward for society are far more fruitful than the way politics are generally discussed online. Where the other side is evil and it should be obvious to everyone that they just want to see the world burn.
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I really don't understand the intuition behind using a prescription on American conservatism. It's like if I wanted to explain the Tories or the Whigs to you, I began with some lofty statement about intellectual principles.