Comment by Consultant32452
6 years ago
The difference between left right and right wing movements is that the right has sort of agreed on an outer bound for how far right is too far. It looks something like political/national racial purity. Once people start spouting that, they tend to be removed from polite conversation. There is no similar outer bound on the left. There is nothing you can support that's so far left you will be expunged from polite society.
> The difference between left right and right wing movements is that the right has sort of agreed on an outer bound for how far right is too far.
Heh. Is that a joke?
> It looks something like political/national racial purity. Once people start spouting that, they tend to be removed from polite conversation.
Yeah, the American Right has really marginalized Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, et al.
> There is no similar outer bound on the left
Really? Which of the following statements will get you excluded from public political dialogue in the US)
“Europeans did Africans a favor by bringing them to America as slaves”
Or
“Capitalist ownership of the means of production is a root of injustice and fundamentally incompatible with democracy”
(One of these has been prominently made by prominent voices on one side of the spectrum without repercussion, while people are routinely excluded for statements for more moderate than the other. At least in the US, to the extent anything vaguely resembling your point is true, it's exactly the reverse of the split you've proposed.)
The African-American slave statement was recently made on one of the open discussion threads of SSC blog in question. I was fairly shocked by it (I didn’t know it was a common topic), first trying to see if it was meant ironically (no, it seemed to be meant seriously), then expecting the regular “rationalists” to tear the arguments apart. But none did, and the statement stood unchallenged—to be fair, the recent open threads had thousands of comments and so it may have gone unnoticed. I was actually going to see if that thread had any replies when I found the blog was deleted, and I honestly wondered if that wasn’t the reason.
The discussions on SSC were often intellectual and rationality-based, but a lot of the super-commenters were right-leaning. Left-leaning commenters were more scarce, and even benefitted from some affirmative-action less-strict moderation to encourage them to sick around. In fact, after the recent BLM protests, a new user showed up to argue and explain the social justice position, and did so respectfully and was well-received.
But I think a lot of the regulars had their blind spots. So many arguments were essentially: since A is true, B and C are the logical conclusions, but often nobody questioned A, let alone tested it—the rationality was often superficial. A popular format on the open threads (thus I’m characterizing the blog readers and commentariat, not the blog author) was impossible hypotheticals leading to un-provable speculation. Questions like what would’ve happened if Germany in WW2 had such-or-such a weapon. The format was even codified in the format of friendly aliens offering some weird bargain (take a pill to sleep 12hrs a day—or never need sleep but always be tired), then asking people what they would do or how that would change things. Fun thought problems, but so disconnected from reality or practical thought—essentially nerd-sniping (to use an admittedly uncharitable term).
Tl;DR: SSC was a mixed bag, but mostly civil and well-intentioned.
Are you sure that's all there was? I've never heard anyone argue that the slaves themselves benefited from slavery. I want to be clear I'm not making this argument myself, only describing a thing I have heard... I have heard someone argue that modern blacks have received a net benefit compared to if their ancestors had been left alone. And the context is about how to calculate reparations. What you described, slaves themselves benefiting directly, doesn't sound familiar at all.
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> Yeah, the American Right has really marginalized Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, et al.
The fact that Trump is what you think passes for an ethno-nationalist these days is all the evidence needed to demonstrate my point.
>“Europeans did Africans a favor by bringing them to America as slaves”
This is a pretty gross thing to say, but it's not ethno-nationalism. Words have meaning for a reason.
>“Capitalist ownership of the means of production is a root of injustice and fundamentally incompatible with democracy”
The most popular politician in our country a couple years ago, and perhaps still today, is the open socialist Bernie Sanders.
> has sort of agreed on an outer bound for how far right is too far
You think Stephen Miller wants to stop with border camps? This is an absolute absurd claim to make.
> There is nothing you can support that's so far left you will be expunged from polite society.
Where is the comparable person to Stephen Miller being anywhere close to public policy on the left? We have one barely socdem congressperson. Where are the NYT opeds about third worldism?
Can you give an example?I think this is probably country dependent (I'm from Europe) but in my experience calling yourself "communist" or even just agitating for democratic control over means of production is enough to be "canceled" in the sense that most large employers will be wary to higher you and our mainstream media will lump you in with Stalin. And that is in Europe, on the US I have less experience but I think until Bernie I wasn't aware of any visible socialist in the US.
Meanwhile, from my perspective, we Europeans lookt at North America and see a lot of racists, transphobes and anti-poor agitators complaining about being cancelled on national Media and while giving speeches at universities (e.g. fox news, Jordan Peterson). Which feels...off.
>Can you give an example?
Sure, one easy way of gauging this phenomenon is the social response to the swastika compared to the hammer and sickle.
Another is that the biggest ethno-nationalist gathering in decades in the US was a few years ago, tragically someone was run over by a vehicle. There were only hundreds of people there. The next year they tried to hold another rally and only dozens showed up.
>Meanwhile, from my perspective, we Europeans lookt at North America and see a lot of racists, transphobes and anti-poor agitators complaining about being cancelled on national Media and while giving speeches at universities (e.g. fox news, Jordan Peterson). Which feels...off.
The business model of the corporate press is to fill your heart with fear, so that you will watch/click/share/etc. A great example of this phenomenon is the "Fine People Hoax." You might recall there was a major news story claiming that Trump called white nationalists "fine people." Except if you read the transcript he clearly states, in the same breath as the words "fine people," and without prompting, that white nationalists should be condemned totally. These types of things happen over and over again.
Erm, are you you talking about the Charleston rally in which a Neonazi ran over counter protestors? And if yes,are you saying it's a bad thing less people showed up to sing "Jews will not replace us" the year after?
And regarding the symbolism...I can kinda see that example, maybe, but I generally don't see the hammer and sickle used in mainstream politics either. And even then, there is a line between something like the hammer and sickle which was used before and after Lenin/Stalin as a symbol vs. the swastika which was literally designed by Nazis and only ever used by them (the Buddhist one is slightly different)
If anyone directly sympathises with Stalin/Lenin and calling for dekulakhisation, I'd expect that to also remove them from polite conversation. It just seems to happen less ?
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> calling yourself "communist" or even just agitating for democratic control over means of production is enough to be "canceled" in the sense that most large employers will be wary to higher you and our mainstream media will lump you in with Stalin.
calling yourself 'nazi' will have the same consequences, so I don't see what is the problem here, communism is every step as bad as nazism (source: born in USSR)
There is a difference between communist and Stalinist/Leninist though. Calling yourself a nationalist Vs a Nazi seems to warrant that distinction in most countries
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It's simply not true that communists are canceled. The media regularly openly supports the CCP. The most popular politician in our country as of a couple years ago was open socialist Bernie Sanders. Wearing a swastika is an insta-cancel. Wearing a hammer and sickle gets you a "I wouldn't vote for that guy... maybe."
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