[General Battuta]

Okay, I hear you.

We're opening a whole new can of worms about Reagan but I do think the 80s demonstrated very ably that history is not purely directional, at least not in the ~short run, and that the consequences of backlash can be socially and economically disastrous.

[Mr. Vega]

Okay, I hear you.

We're opening a whole new can of worms about Reagan but I do think the 80s demonstrated very ably that history is not purely directional, at least not in the ~short run, and that the consequences of backlash can be socially and economically disastrous.

I'm not a Marxist. Nothing is inevitable. It all depends on what institutions you can build and the ideas you can foster.

[General Battuta]

Not you specifically — the rhetoric in the air about 'the right side of history'. Yeah, the great trend is extraordinarily and hopefully liberal in both the left-wing and liberal humanist senses, but there have been disastrous reversals as well as failures of liberal ideals along the way (like microloans).

I'm just wary of the idea that this ****'s gonna keep improving on its own and we're along for the ride. The gay marriage victory was the result of very specific tactical choices by a smart group of activists. The income inequality disaster of the past few decades is the result of economic policy instituted by Reagan (if I'm remembering my macro history right). It's great to be able to say 'this decision will seem as inevitable and necessary as emancipation or giving women the vote', as long as we don't forget those victories were achieved through hard work, not invisible momentum.

[666maslo666]

Its not like the Right is alone, or even first, in framing this as a war. Marxist concept of class struggle, conflict between the opressors and the opressed, sounds like a war to me. And if you apply the same Marxist philosophy to areas outside economy (to culture), the term "culture war" fits well, just like the term "class war" fits well the economic application.

[Luis Dias]

The culture war as a concept has existed a million times throughtout history, but its modern incarnation was a creation of the Reagan-era Republican Party. After Carter was elected they realized that if you made a direct religious appeal to white evangelical voters you could pick up quite a bit of the vote right away. I think it was with Bush Sr.'s 1992 election campaign - the one where Pat Buchanan coined the term "Culture War" - that it progressed to being an explicit conflict against all liberal values. Its real purpose, of course, was that it made for an excellent distraction from economic issues - every minute you talk about the wicked liberal academia and abortion activists is one you aren't talking about tax cuts to the wealthy and deregulation. It also suited well a party that believed that the really important decisions in a society - ie, the economic ones - should be made by private elites acting according to the rules of the market, rather than the ignorant public. Let them concern themselves with social issues.

Well, that did work. Even if they lost, they won. We got gay marriage but we watched our unions be cut up.

Exactly, almost verbatim as I stated. My only fault line with this is where I disagree with the idea that it was the RR that invented the concept. Perhaps the wording? That I am open to concede, although I haven't researched its etymology. But the concept? Let's be real here, Marx himself devoted his life to bring about a revolution not merely of an economy but of a whole society. Marx is still regarded by many social scientists as one of the fathers of the field himself. To state that these ideas were not brought up as challenging the status quo, and were not fought and quarreled until at least many of them were accepted not only by law but also by society is silly; to state that there wasn't any reaction or defense against this push is silly. Call it whatever you want, to deny this war has been waged between "progressives" and "conservatives" throughout the decades is something I'm not going to bother engaging in again. Feel free to dismiss the very notion of a battle of cultural ideas as a "conservative conspiracy theory" all you want, I will just facepalm at your cognitive dissonance.

Now you guys have decided to revive a term foistered upon you by conservatives that you should never have taken very seriously, all because some once invisible people are starting to say things that are hurting your feelings. You claimed that you were all for saying women, gays, African Americans, transgender folk, and other minorities a voice in the name of equality, but now that's actually starting to happen some of them are saying things that are making you very uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that you're reaching for the same arms the right so recently threw down.

Except this is false, and there's nothing that fuels rage more than false narratives. 90% of the people doing this so-called "saying things" are actually white wealthy affluent hipsters, and even those who are not whites, they are usually way more affluent than most people reading it. In fact, all of this identity politics usually hides a real wealth barrier between those who are "saying things" and those who should just "listen and believe". Marx could look at this and recognize as something he detected in his lifetime: an economic class struggle, but I digress.

People disagree not with who says it but what is being said. And they disagree with the notion that they can't disagree based on the gender or color of the person saying it. And they disagree with the notion that they are disagreeing because they are racists, mysoginists, etc.

Now, you will dismiss everything I said as a "false narrative" itself, etc. and so on, that the "true causes" of this disagreements come from "true racism", "true mysoginy", etc. It's an unfalsifiable paradigm. I have great problems in how the discussion works, because of the very nature of how it is framed. Agree with us and you are a true progressive. Disagree and you're a racist or a mysoginist because how dare you disagree with a black woman! There is no sensible way out for a simple "I disagree". Such a person will be demanded to ask apologies for the acts of others less civil, and then proceed to be dismissed because those less civil people said similar things.

Talk about memetic strategies, this one is so malicious, so pernicious, so out of any intellectual honor, that it does indeed catch my imagination and fascination.

"Oh, it's not the real liberals, it's those wicked academics, trying to manipulate society to fit their own twisted ideas!" "It's those goddamn feminazis!" It was bull**** when Pat Buchanan said it, and it's bull**** when you say it. It's gotten to the point where conspiracy theories worthy of a John Birch pamphlet are being repeated seriously, all because some marginalized voices trying to point out some things that you didn't want to see are finally being listened to to a very limited extent. Let their voice be heard - just not yet.

I don't think it is crazy whatsoever to postulate that academia on social science are trying to influence the culture towards their ideas and findings. It's not a "conspiracy theory" (in its craziest sense), it's just ... obvious. Of course, you can go from sensible reasonable proportionate speculations (everyone is indeed trying to change the world, after all) to full blown neo-reactionary Mencius Moldbug levels.

Too much has been learned from the religious right. You enjoyed having an enemy - and now that the RR isn't what they used to be, you decided the parts of the left saying things that hurt your feelings because they dared to point out the enormous problems with even the supposedly liberal elements of culture that are not, in fact, welcoming to them at all could be your new ones. So you've made a new culture war even more rediculous than the old one. Cause you want your ****ing enemy, dammit.

I don't think this is the case. I think it's way more of a case of the extreme left having gone from victory to victory and is now just overstretching themselves, as if they, as NGTM says, think they are some form of unstoppable Cthuluh. Taking The_E's analogy of tides, or taking another like a pendulum watch, the pendulum was just swaying way out to the left in forms and ways that many people just thought were just getting out of hand. You don't see the poison in this extreme left side, and perhaps just revel within it and just be disgusted at the reaction it got from many people even from the Left, in a way that is exactly analogous to how a Tea Party sympathizer would regard other conservatives and all their reactions to their movement in a baffled manner. "Why are they so against freedom? Why are they so against Religion?" And so on.

[Bobboau]

"SJWs" or "Anti-GG" or "Feminazis"

"regressive reactionaries" or "GG" or "MRAs"

let slip the dogs. the progressives have their own war machine, even if they don't use that exact language, because the language is part of what identifies you are part of the right or wrong tribe.

I mean do you guys honestly think you are imute to the same tactics that the right has been using this whole time? the tactics that have worked. tactics that those who oppose the right would need to either employ or find equivalents to in order to be able to survive? keep in mind you are by and large winning the 'culture war'

[Grizzly]

Ok, here's my two problems with this paragraph. First, the notion that there's no "actual unison there". Well, I'm sorry but there is. It's an "unified front" of ideas. Of memetic paradigms. Of certain attitudes and preferences. Of a, ahem, culture.

My other problem is a lack of self-awareness. Are you really going to say you never do this kind of thing? Are you really going to testify here that you don't ever label people according to a perception of similar ideas that you recognize in them? Not even in your head or something? I mean, I totally get the danger of over-labeling. People are not determined by labels one impugns at them (and many people do commit that mistake of reducing people to labels), but will you go to the far end and declare you never did this? You know, I have little patience for this kind of pretense righteous sainthood naiveté.

I am not going to say that I never do such a thing, but I do try to avoid it! My concern is to the people who know what it is, what it means, and still willingly subscribe to it.

"regressive reactionaries" or "GG" or "MRAs"

I see your issue with regressive reactonaries, but GG and MRA's are labels that those specific groups *use to identify themselves*. One of the reasons why people I've talked to stuck with GG is because they felt they needed to present themselves as an unified front. People will call themselves GG or a Men's Right Activists without any irony because those terms are supposed to indicate a group wherein the members stand for a unified direction (even if that direction is extremely muddled). You will never see someone say "I support feminazism" , you will see someone say "I support Men's Right Activism" (just as people will say "I am a feminist" - that's a self-identifying label, not a slur). Same with Gamergate and Anti-Gamergate, the only people who readily use the term "Anti-Gamergate" are gamergaters or people who want to stay away from the whole mess, yet supporters of the group will say "I support Gamergate" and use the 4chan daily dose in their avatars somehow, that sorta thing.

[Luis Dias]

Well at least you know where GGs or MRAs stand, the others seem to be sleazy about the whole thing, as if they are part of the Great Majority of Good Humans.

I want to say that I agree with the "Feminazi" thing, it's such a bad word. I do appreciate Social Justice Warrior a lot more for it is friendlier, and more precise. These will be people who are "keyboard warrioring"for their "Social Justice" beliefs. It is not an inherently bad term (it was assumed by many not a long time ago), it has become a term of ridicule, but merely because of - I will say -  the very outrageous silly things that come from these people's keyboards.

[Bobboau]

...

feminazi is based on feminist, sort of like "goobergobber" is based on "gamergater". If you would like I can try to lookup an exhaustive list of derogatory terms "progressives"/feminists use to describe their boogiemen, which the targets would never use for themselves unironically.
You are correct in that anti-gamergate does not typically self identify as "anti-gamergate" (and they make a point of it because their line is "everyone is against gamergate" despite the vast majority of people not even being aware of it), but it's less a slur and more just a sterile description of what they do. If you want GG pejoratives for aGG you would be thinking more along the lines of aGGro, Ghazi/Ghazzelle, or something less situationally specific.

But your bigger point here seems to be that progressives don't name call against there cisscum ableist white male oppressors, or something to that effect.

Well at least you know where GGs or MRAs stand

don't be so sure, if you are heavily involved in these circles you are more likely to know what your side's totem of the other side is, than to actually know what the other side thinks.

[Luis Dias]

Oh rest assured I am well aware of the danger of bubble groupthink phenomenas, and twitter's architecture is incredibly well suited for it (for example). It is one of the reasons why I am so intellectually against tools like Randi Harper's blockbot, which assures, among many other things, that her opponents become even *more* entrenched in their own views than otherwise. Such tools enforce balkanization along these social landscapes, but even without them, twitter is inherently balkanizing. There was a great video by CGP grey about this recently:

[General Battuta]

Did you ever play that game, as a kid, where you said 'punch me in the arm, and then I will punch you back exactly as hard?' You know how that turns out.

Disagreements tend to become fights. Fighting with people is aversive. When you find something aversive, you rationalize why it cannot be true (because this is the minimum energy path, and people are cognitive misers). If it keeps being aversive, you put it away.

Persuasion is clearly possible, but I think it has to happen through very specific channels. I'm deeply curious about the best tactics.

[Luis Dias]

Perhaps that's just a short-term analysis of the conversations at hand. Personally I find that some things I've changed my mind in my life went through both shocking confrontations and longer-term study of the issue at hand. Short term reactions are never the point, they are mostly reactive and do not reflect longer term processes in your brain, they are just reflections of your current reasonings. This is why, incidently, I am never bothered that I cannot convince people of what I am saying at the moment.

The only things I crave is that I am able to posit my thoughts in a coherent, organized and clear manner (which is hard and I keep failing at), that I feel free (socially, contextually) to do so, and that I am exposed to other thoughts and feedbacks to what I formulated. True change (either in myself or in others) will come later, slowly and without warning, and it is neither my business (if it's in other people's minds) or it is (if it's in my mind). That is all.

[zookeeper]

mysoginists
[...]
mysoginy
[...]
mysoginist

The word is still misogyny.

[Grizzly]

Can we use "People who can't spell misogyny" as a mass label? (or at the very least, a smiley like we use with simple spelling mistakes?)

But your bigger point here seems to be that progressives don't name call against there cisscum ableist white male oppressors, or something to that effect.

Nah, nothing like that (although I must say that the only person I have seen use the cisscum ableist white male opressor line is Luis). More that, if you start using rhetoric like that, you are automatically unconvincing for me. It automatically assumes hostility (or, in a lot of cases, is used to justify actual hostility) whilst the goal should be to convince people.

[Bobboau]

I honestly didn't try very hard to come-up with stereotypical SJW insults, but you do agree with me then, that even though the words might be different the same tactics are being employed.

[Grizzly]

I honestly didn't try very hard to come-up with stereotypical SJW insults, but you do agree with me then, that even though the words might be different the same tactics are being employed.

Well, no. Like I said, the only time I have seen the Ciswhitemaleopressor line used was when reading something luis posted, and I don't think Luis would call himself an SJW by any stretch of the imagination.

[Bobboau]

ok, but you fully agreed that I described boogiemen of the far left.

The only thing you seemed to have an issue on was that the specific labels I chose for 2 of my examples were not insults in and of themselves so that the targets would not self-identify with those labels. I mean it's a rabithole of semantics to try and quantify the difference between what I gave as examples and what you gave. especially when things like MRA and GG are used as insults within the progresive circles I was referring to, and there do exist worse synonyms used for those groups that those groups would not use to self-identify by. I mean people who are opposed to modern day feminism DO refer to feminists as feminists, not only as feminazis. I really do not see a difference.

[Grizzly]

ok, but you fully agreed that I described boogiemen of the far left.

I... don't really see how you got from there based on what I said, sorry.

[Luis Dias]

I honestly didn't try very hard to come-up with stereotypical SJW insults, but you do agree with me then, that even though the words might be different the same tactics are being employed.

Mansplainers, white supremacists, cis-scum, ****lords, mysoginerds, ****slingers, native american-exotifying cisgender-normative ableists!

I mean, there are no limits to these people's insults. But most precisely, they usually lack imagination to come up with new terms, so they appropriate other terms and use them far beyond the scope of what they originally meant. A mysoginist is not just someone who hates women, but someone who merely disagrees with them on a marginal point. A racist ****lord is not someone who believes in racism or engages in racist acts or whatever, it's just someone who doesn't agree with identity politics.

Things start to get ugly when rape-apologists is used to describe people who might, say, have found the occurrences around the Rolling Stone rape fubar situation not credible (or the Michael Shermer case, or Ben Radford's case, or, or, or, etc.). The thought process is clear: you, by your "hyper-skepticist behavior" are enabling rape by dismissing cases as they are being presented. Listen and believe, or else you are a rape enabler, thus someone who is working with the system in order to defend the practice of rape. Therefore, you're not just some skeptical guy, you're a rape apologist.

It's even scarier when you realise these people actually went throughout this entire reasoning.

[Mr. Vega]

Accidental double post