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http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2014/11/everything-problematic/quote:People who belong to oppressed groups are just people, with thoughts ultimately as fallible as anyone else’s. They aren’t oracles who dispense eternal wisdom. Ironically, this principle of infallibility, designed to combat oppression, has allowed essentialism to creep in. The trait that defines a person’s group membership is treated as a source of innate ethical knowledge. This is to say nothing about the broader problem of how you’re supposed to decide who’s a source of innate knowledge. Certainly not someone who innately “knows” that homosexuality is disgusting and wrong, but why not, if you’re simply relying on private revelation rather than public criteria? Personally, this essay afforded me a bit of peace of mind after butting heads with some very intelligent, very pissed off activist friends. I'd like to say up front that it shouldn't be taken as supporting social or any other conservatism, especially not any sort of Men's Rights perspective; the author is still a queer activist. I remember that there were quite a few talented activists on SA in the LF days. I'm curious if any of y'all might've had similar experiences to those of the author of the above piece.
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Dec 3, 2014 04:28
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My friend just posted this on his wall on facebook, I think it's a sentiment that definitely needs to come out more often. He says the McGill activist culture is really getting out of hand with trying to find enemies within it's own ranks, assuming every man is a misogynist etc. I haven't encountered that at U of T at all really but maybe I'm just not within the right circles.
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Dec 3, 2014 04:39
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Sounds like another "political correctness gone mad" opinion piece. I don't buy it. Oppressed people do not have to take the feelings of oppressors into account, nor should they. Most men are misogynist. White people are racist. Sorry if that hurts somebody's feelings.
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Dec 3, 2014 05:21
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Blue Star posted:Sounds like another "political correctness gone mad" opinion piece. I don't buy it. Oppressed people do not have to take the feelings of oppressors into account, nor should they. Most men are misogynist. White people are racist. Sorry if that hurts somebody's feelings. quote:To take a dead simple case, you don’t have to hear it from a gay person to know that homosexuality is ethically just fine. If you’re a straight person and a gay person tells you that homosexuality is wrong, you can be confident in your judgement that they are full of poo poo. In this situation, the straight person is right and the gay person is wrong about homosexuality and homophobia. Gay people have no special access to ethical knowledge, in general or about sexual orientation specifically. Gay people do tend to have better ethical knowledge about sexual orientation than straight people, but that is only because of how our life circumstances move us to reflect on it. that's not really the message
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Dec 3, 2014 05:28
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Blue Star posted:Sounds like another "political correctness gone mad" opinion piece. I don't buy it. Oppressed people do not have to take the feelings of oppressors into account, nor should they. Most men are misogynist. White people are racist. Sorry if that hurts somebody's feelings. You can never swing too wide with the sword of justice. Kill them all and let God sort them out.
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Dec 3, 2014 05:30
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Well the circular firing squads and ideological purges definitely hurt the left's ability to effect change, but I don't think you can make value judgements about it, IE activists should shut up and take what they can get. That might very well be the best option for them, but still
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Dec 3, 2014 05:30
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That specific point reminds me of a related point in media - quite frequently, putting minorities into the roles of antagonists or having negative traits is seen as problematic or embellishing stereotypes about that particular minority group. The underlying problem, which is rarely if ever addressed, is that quite frequently that's the only minority of that group in the piece of media - effectively, you're putting an entire race/nationality/group/etc into one person, and that doesn't work. The solution there, as the solution here, is to have many voices from that given group so that you don't have one person's opinion determine what an entire group of people think.
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Dec 3, 2014 05:32
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Like anything widespread or popular, people are going to jump on board but get it wrong and take things in weird directions.
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Dec 3, 2014 05:35
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katlington posted:Like anything wide spread or popular, people are going to jump on board but get it wrong and take things in weird directions. This is because assuming the facade of something with momentum is cheap, but actually balancing the line between minimum emotional capital invested and quick-burn/viral fadism takes a lot of work. This is why parties co-opt issues that have grassroots momentum rather than actually use their power for anything other than gaining and maintaining more power.
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Dec 3, 2014 05:38
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I don't deny that there are extremists and people who aren't constructive, like people who advocate violence or whatever. But this piece and the comments seem to be saying "Hey, stop being so demanding and angry. Watch your tone."
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Dec 3, 2014 05:42
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Blue Star posted:I don't deny that there are extremists and people who aren't constructive, like people who advocate violence or whatever. But this piece and the comments seem to be saying "Hey, stop being so demanding and angry. Watch your tone." It seems quite clearly aimed at people who are white/straight/not being oppressed, personally.
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Dec 3, 2014 05:47
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Yeah, the fact that the author says "some of my friends even spent a night in jail" as an example of how far they were willing to carry their beliefs is telling.
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Dec 3, 2014 05:52
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quote:Important disclaimer: I passionately support anti-oppressive politics in general and have only good things to say about it. My current political worldview falls under the umbrella of leftism, although not radical leftism. I’m basically a social democrat who likes co-ops and believes in universal basic income, the so-called ‘capitalist road to communism.’ I agree with a lot of what the radical left has to say, but I disagree with a lot of what it has to say. I’m deeply against Marxism-Leninism and social anarchism, but I’m sympathetic to market socialism and direct democracy. I don’t have any criticism for radical leftism in general, at least not here, not today. What I feel compelled to criticize is only one very specific political phenomenon, one particular incarnation of radical leftist, anti-oppressive politics. No, that's not important actually. quote:If I said the same thing about another context that isn’t so simple — when the correct opinion isn’t so obvious — I would be roundly condemned. But the example’s simplicity isn’t what makes it valid. People who belong to oppressed groups are just people, with thoughts ultimately as fallible as anyone else’s. They aren’t oracles who dispense eternal wisdom. Ironically, this principle of infallibility, designed to combat oppression, has allowed essentialism to creep in. The trait that defines a person’s group membership is treated as a source of innate ethical knowledge. This is to say nothing about the broader problem of how you’re supposed to decide who’s a source of innate knowledge. Certainly not someone who innately “knows” that homosexuality is disgusting and wrong, but why not, if you’re simply relying on private revelation rather than public criteria? No, I won't.
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Dec 3, 2014 05:58
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Blue Star posted:I don't deny that there are extremists and people who aren't constructive, like people who advocate violence or whatever. But this piece and the comments seem to be saying "Hey, stop being so demanding and angry. Watch your tone." The piece talks about anti-intellectualism and dogmatism coming from the viewpoint of internet social media and student campus-originated protest circles. Seriously, from now on, check the comments of your social media feed for whether they are sourced. How many of them read like cathechisms you are supposed to repeat or reblog without question? Often, I'll see a good point and look for a source but find nothing or that the initial claim is factually wrong. And that can erode the trust of comments over time, especially for people who don't check sources. And what are the end products of such actions? That kind of activism comes from a western-education-bred misconception that if you simply express displeasure and protest, those in charge will ultimately acquiesce to your demands because they'll feel bad or scared in the face of democracy. This ignores realpolitik issues like how if a group protesting is a minority group, there are less of them than there are of the majority group; any gains will probably be short-run because in the long run the majority can organize itself for a reactionary backlash (see what happened with the rolling back of the VRA, or what happened with environmentalism*). It also ignores that if the majority has a state apparatus that works through propaganda and counterinsurgency, visibility of the protest with a separatist tone will be incorporated into the state's propaganda and counterinsurgency. Those actions and protesters who appear to be most 'out there' will be singled out and broadcast to formerly apathetic people in order to scare them into reactionary action. Also, those who appear most competent of actually affecting the status quo have made themselves a target for counterinsurgency and intelligence folks. *from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/10/naomi-klein-green-groups-climate-deniers quote:What we know is that the environmental movement had a series of dazzling victories in the late 60s and in the 70s where the whole legal framework for responding to pollution and to protecting wildlife came into law. It was just victory after victory after victory. And these were what came to be called "command-and-control" pieces of legislation. It was "don't do that." That substance is banned or tightly regulated. It was a top-down regulatory approach. And then it came to screeching halt when Regan was elected. And he essentially waged war on the environmental movement very openly. We started to see some of the language that is common among those deniers – to equate environmentalism with Communism and so on. As the Cold War dwindled, environmentalism became the next target, the next Communism. Anger and exclusion is not the best way to shift the overton window if you're in a minority-power group. It only works for the majority-power groups because they have all of the soft power state infrastructure at their disposal to spin things for those who don't want to do research on their own. For minority-power groups, anger can be spun for popular narratives (or even egged along so Franco-types have less trouble by coming against a less-organized resistance). Rodatose fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Dec 3, 2014 |
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Dec 3, 2014 06:27
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Blue Star posted:Sounds like another "political correctness gone mad" opinion piece. I don't buy it. Oppressed people do not have to take the feelings of oppressors into account, nor should they. Most men are misogynist. White people are racist. Sorry if that hurts somebody's feelings. Cliff Racer fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Dec 3, 2014 |
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Dec 3, 2014 06:46
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quote:by Aurora Dagny 
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Dec 3, 2014 06:47
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You don't need to be de-radicalized to be tolerant. That's a fallacy.
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Dec 3, 2014 07:16
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Blue Star posted:Sounds like another "political correctness gone mad" opinion piece. I don't buy it. Oppressed people do not have to take the feelings of oppressors into account, nor should they. Most men are misogynist. White people are racist. Sorry if that hurts somebody's feelings. Don't worry I'm not offended
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Dec 3, 2014 07:26
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Where's your proof for essentialism?
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Dec 3, 2014 07:30
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Can you elaborate?
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Dec 3, 2014 07:56
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Smudgie Buggler posted:Can you elaborate? i think he just pointing out its an atlas shrugged character's name? it's sedanchair
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Dec 3, 2014 07:59
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Of course, you've got your usual gamergate supporters, "anti-sjw" and neoreactionary advocates giving the author a standing ovation in the comments. I disagree with the author's general arguments (otherkin? Really?) but I think the advice is sound. Honest self-reflection, especially within ideological groups, is a good thing.
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Dec 3, 2014 08:09
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quote:This particular brand of politics begins with good intentions and noble causes, but metastasizes into a nightmare. quote:High on their own supply, activists in these organizing circles end up developing a crusader mentality: an extreme self-righteousness based on the conviction that they are doing the secular equivalent of God’s work. It isn’t about ego or elevating oneself. In fact, the activists I knew and I tended to denigrate ourselves more than anything. It wasn’t about us, it was about the desperately needed work we were doing, it was about the people we were trying to help. The danger of the crusader mentality is that it turns the world in a battle between good and evil. Actions that would otherwise seem extreme and crazy become natural and expected. I didn’t think twice about doing a lot of things I would never do today. http://gawker.com/psycho-frames-ex-with-fake-racist-facebook-posts-1665418226 Nutshell is that there's a Tumblr focused on outing racists on social media, and encouraging online crowd-shaming to get them fired from their jobs. Then a vindictive man creates a fake Facebook profile of his ex-girlfriend and submits it to the activists. They harass her employers. A lot of people stopped after learning it was a set-up, but of course, not everyone got the message. And the original mistake means that those faked images are going to show up on Google whenever anyone searches her name, from now on. That's what the crusader mentality produces. This stuff also happens because no one in these spaces are really accountable to anyone else except the panicky mob, and the mob isn't trustworthy and it certainly isn't accountable to itself. If it was this easy to unleash a witchhunt based on easily fabricated images, then you can imagine political opponents of the left using similar tactics as a weapon in the future; like right-wing activists igniting left-wing mobs as a means to discredit them and attack their own. But they really don't even need to because the Tumblr activists discredit themselves. icantfindaname posted:Well the circular firing squads and ideological purges definitely hurt the left's ability to effect change, but I don't think you can make value judgements about it, IE activists should shut up and take what they can get. That might very well be the best option for them, but still Anyways, I think it's an excellent piece and has a lot in common with cult deradicalization. But slippier than a lot of cults. BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Dec 3, 2014 |
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Dec 3, 2014 09:33
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Rodatose posted:The piece talks about anti-intellectualism and dogmatism coming from the viewpoint of internet social media and student campus-originated protest circles. Seriously, from now on, check the comments of your social media feed for whether they are sourced. How many of them read like cathechisms you are supposed to repeat or reblog without question? Often, I'll see a good point and look for a source but find nothing or that the initial claim is factually wrong. And that can erode the trust of comments over time, especially for people who don't check sources.anized resistance). Reminds me a little of this piece I read a while back https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/bro-bash/ quote:I’m sympathetic to the reasoning behind it. There does exist a culture of (mostly male) quants who perceive themselves as scientific and rational, but who ham-fistedly misuse data, or worse, reverse-engineer it to support whatever ideology they espouse.
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Dec 3, 2014 09:53
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Blue Star posted:Sounds like another "political correctness gone mad" opinion piece. I don't buy it. Oppressed people do not have to take the feelings of oppressors into account, nor should they. Most men are misogynist. White people are racist. Sorry if that hurts somebody's feelings. No but being oppressed or having another vantage point on an issue doesn't make that vantage point inherently correct. There's a whole bunch of grad students out there just using concepts like hegemony and cultural imperialism in critiques without really backing them up or providing a real link or harm. This is a bad thing, since it undermines legitimate arguments and stances. Explain why a view is bad and how it links to an argument instead of just saying "Pfft, that's coming from a straight white man."
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Dec 3, 2014 10:16
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This article is a useful insight into how people from oppressed groups can believe in FYGM. The author, a white (they only learnt about racism when they started university) gay person has felt oppression but an oppression that, for their generation, has had one of the most relatively painless paths to acceptance. So now their sexual orientation is broadly accepted and they're about to graduate (perhaps into a nice job) other groups need to quiet down, the author got what they want so it is clear the world is just. While the whole article is catnip for bigots this paragraph is perhaps the most interesting: quote:Let me give an example. A gay person is typically much better acquainted with homophobia than a straight person. Moreover, a gay person has a much greater stake in what society does about homophobia, so their view on the matter is more important. However, there is nothing about the experience of being gay in itself that enlightens a gay person about the ethics of sexual orientation. For MRAs this is a clear indication that Mansplaining is a-ok. Women's experience of sexism doesn't really mean their opinions are more valid than a man's apparently. The self evident truth MRAs clearly know is men really have it worst and women's experiences of being women are irrelevant. Simultaneously however, on issues where women may appear to have a point MRAs will still happily defer to the small number of prominent antifeminist women who will offer pat dismissals of those issues. These women will be the only one's with valid experiences. The author claims to oppose anti-intellectualism but their arguments just so happen to enable blanket dismissal of any evidence or opinion that is not considered "common sense" by the majority.
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Dec 3, 2014 10:52
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ReV VAdAUL, How on earth did you use that quote and make that analogy? She writes that gay views on homophobia "more important"; you write that that equates to "women's experiences of being women are irrelevant." Yes, some poorly educated and hateful people will misread her, but that's always the case with any public rhetoric. I also see absolutely nothing wrong with the argument about otherkin, which no one responded to substantively. Are you responding to the fact that otherkin are just obviously wacky and no one needs to take them seriously? If so, that makes me question your viewpoints on the mentally ill. Her point is that if you don't take every group who claims oppression seriously ("they're denying me my right to be a little fox, the human-bodied-privileged scum!"), why would you automatically take other groups' claims of oppression as fact? Automatically, meaning, without engaging your own judgement (which you more than likely do with regard to otherkin). Regardless, I appreciate y'all's comments on both sides of the argument. I'd like to add a personal example about not being able to trust the viewpoints of oppressed peoples. The example of the homophobic gay person, while rhetorically sound, was pretty hypothetical. Anyway, I worked in immigration advocacy for a couple of years. Some of the most virulently anti-amnesty people (amnesty meaning, providing a path to citizenship or at least decriminalization of being unauthorized/undocumented) were those immigrants who had arrived to the US in the last 5-7 years and who had successfully obtained documentation and authorization. They had to pass through a poo poo system with widespread, clearly evident racism, and they wanted them illegals to get the same lovely treatment. Just because those documented immigrants were linguistically (most of them were Spanish-dominant), racially, and otherwise oppressed, didn't mean that I was going to become anti-amnesty just to adhere to the viewpoints of oppressed people. To throw in a language-based example, many speakers of indigenous languages in Latin America, even monolinguals, believe their native languages to be worthless and that their children should learn Spanish or English. They're oppressed, but I don't agree that the source of their oppression is their mother tongue itself (rather than society's widespread discriminatory attitudes toward it), which should be discarded. Am I failing as a leftist? Mortley fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Dec 3, 2014 |
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Dec 3, 2014 12:20
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I'd agree with the author that the subjectivizing of truth is much, much less useful to radical politics then the more standard universalizing. The goal of radical politics shouldn't be to pat people on the head and tell them they're special, nor simply seriously argue that only certain people's perspectives are valid and beyond question. Everything is at risk, nothing is sacred, and the owl of minerva only flies at dusk. All we have is impersonal data. The only valid path to truth is to deny any personal experience: you go off what you can prove.
rudatron fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Dec 3, 2014 |
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Dec 3, 2014 13:12
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Mortley posted:ReV VAdAUL, How on earth did you use that quote and make that analogy? She writes that gay views on homophobia "more important"; you write that that equates to "women's experiences of being women are irrelevant." Yes, some poorly educated and hateful people will misread her, but that's always the case with any public rhetoric. The context of the rest of the article lays out a further list of reasonable behaviour towards the majority a good activist must take. If one fails at one of the criteria one becomes one of the bad ones. Thus if one is too uppity one's personal experience can be discounted. "Just because you're a person of colour doesn't mean your experiences contradict Cosby's call to pull up your pants and get a job. He is so polite and calm whereas you are so crusading and unwilling to meet us halfway, we're people too you know." The Gay/Female/Black people whose opinions are important are those who the majority anoints as such because they've been "reasonable" as defined by the article.
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Dec 3, 2014 14:04
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ReV VAdAUL posted:
Ironically, this article is about just that, except that the majority is the leftist activist population.
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Dec 3, 2014 14:09
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ReV VAdAUL posted:....If one fails at one of the criteria one becomes one of the bad ones. ... This is precisely the attitude that the article is arguing against. You're reading a strictness into the piece that's simply not there. They're literally suggestions for avoiding depression as a result of your political views; they're supposed to help activists keep on fighting the good fight. She's arguing against the "if you're not with us, you're against us!" mindset, and you're saying "she's not with me, so she's against me!"
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Dec 3, 2014 14:19
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Nice whitewashing of the whole piece.
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Dec 3, 2014 14:21
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croc suit posted:Nice whitewashing of the whole piece. The inability to understand humor will forever be the bane of the radical left.
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Dec 3, 2014 14:40
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ReV VAdAUL posted:Thus if one is too uppity one's personal experience can be discounted. "Just because you're a person of colour doesn't mean your experiences contradict Cosby's call to pull up your pants and get a job. He is so polite and calm whereas you are so crusading and unwilling to meet us halfway, we're people too you know." I got the exact opposite from the piece. The author would say that Cosby shouldn't be considered correct just because he's experienced racism, so I'm not sure why you're using Cosby in this example.
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Dec 3, 2014 14:47
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To stand for nothing is truly radical.
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Dec 3, 2014 14:49
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I'm about as left as they come, but I'm finding it funny that people are criticizing an article about the dangers of dogmatism, group think, and witch-hunts/purges within leftist circles as not being ideologically pure enough, it really isn't a 'PC gone mad' article and writing it off as such is really selling it short. That's all for now.
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Dec 3, 2014 15:01
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Can women or eunuchs circle-jerk?
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Dec 3, 2014 15:09
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croc suit posted:Nice whitewashing of the whole piece.
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Dec 3, 2014 15:28
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Mortley posted:To throw in a language-based example, many speakers of indigenous languages in Latin America, even monolinguals, believe their native languages to be worthless and that their children should learn Spanish or English. They're oppressed, but I don't agree that the source of their oppression is their mother tongue itself (rather than society's widespread discriminatory attitudes toward it), which should be discarded. I think this type of sentiment is something the author didn't quite touch on, and it's quite frustrating to see as someone who's forcibly labelled a 'Person of Colour.' There's this bizarre lack of empathy when it comes to social movement adherents, particularly when dealing with people who are not their own race. Unilaterally labelling people as 'oppressed' through vague definitions, and stating that any non-positive change = oppression. I'm going to use your linguistic example. Why do the speakers of the native languages want to teach their children spanish or english? To allow them a better chance in their futures of work, advancement, travel etc. Learning spanish or english provides endless benefits over sticking to a native language in the context you describe. This is the choice a lot of immigrants make when they move across the world for work or safety. It's lovely, but it's not oppression. Having to learn another language, particularly one that is spoken by a significant majority of the population is not oppression, it's reality. Take the example of the French in canada. The country is officially bilingual, and as a french person you can find representation in all levels of government, even if it takes a bit longer. But what happens when you stray out of the confines of francophone communities and government buildings? Things become significantly harder as few english speakers also speak French. This trend continues on as you go out further west. Is it oppression that the majority of Canadians don't speak french? Of course not. That's simply reality. The word oppression has been abused to describe any minor inconvenience, any uncomfortable reality by connecting them to a systemic nature. My personal experiences about being educated about how 'oppressed' I am have always come from some white girl or boy. Any rebuttal is a symptom of 'internalized racism' or ignorance on my part. Edit: This funny. Blue Star posted:I don't deny that there are extremists and people who aren't constructive, like people who advocate violence or whatever. But this piece and the comments seem to be saying "Hey, stop being so demanding and angry. Watch your tone." This is funny, because you just deemed 'most men' as misogynist, and all white people as racist. But you're not extremist at all. Blue Star posted:Sounds like another "political correctness gone mad" opinion piece. I don't buy it. Oppressed people do not have to take the feelings of oppressors into account, nor should they. Most men are misogynist. White people are racist. Sorry if that hurts somebody's feelings. SparkPeople fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Dec 3, 2014 |
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Dec 3, 2014 16:27
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Umm....how are exactly are you 'forcibly labelled'? How does that even work? Actually, forget it, because I want to talk about this bit:SparkPeople posted:My personal experiences about being educated about how 'oppressed' I am have always come from some white girl or boy. Any rebuttal is a symptom of 'internalized racism' or ignorance on my part. The unfortunate circumstance of life is that you have a limited perspective, that you are incapable of seeing the reality of something even when looking at it. Looking at the nice weather tells you nothing about global warming. Simply looking at people shopping tells you nothing about capitalism as a system. Oppression of any kind is no different, you cannot rely on any one person's perspective, or even the usefulness of that perspective. But if you do take that standard activist assumption the author in the op rails against, you're then forced to commit another one: that an oppressed subject can 'internalize' oppression. But if that is the case, then of what use is treating experience as truth? If you have to create a little 'demon', a little devil that hoodwinks the minority from really seeing The Truth, aren't you admitting that you have to introduce an entirely new metric to determine truth? Because the issue is now how do you distinguish between the little 'demon' and the actual True Opinion. Whatever metric you use, you by your actions have admitted that it's more useful than your original idea, of the subjectivizing truth of oppression.
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Dec 3, 2014 17:12
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