Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Ungoal
Mar 13, 2014

by XyloJW

Strategic Tea posted:

.
The SJW complaining on SA is mostly people upset that they can't use the word human being for hilarious irony anymore.

:rolleyes: Yes, that totally must be the primary drive behind complaining about SJWs on SA—when you can still do this in GBS, FYAD, BYOB, YOSPOS & PHIZ. You learn something new everyday here. :)

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy

foutre posted:

Honestly, since I don't read tumblr (tumbl? Is that a thing? hopefully no) I don't really encounter the more absurd "SJW" people. Instead, most of the time that I hear people accused of being a SJW it's because they're trying to divest from fossil fuels of Israel, or decided to protest ROTC rather than just hope that the military changed it's policy on trans people. In my experience, a lot of the time its used as an excuse to get out of engaging in dialogue -- by painting people who disagree with you as myopic fanatics it becomes a lot easier to avoid engaging with the issues that they're trying to discuss, and dismiss them.
I see it as mainly an inter-left war. The SJWers are a product of living in an internet bubble world so you won't typically encounter them unless you enter that bubble. And the biggest social justice shitstorms I've seen have been between people who would describe themselves as leftists. So the extreme manifestations of it come across as heresy hunting. The idea being that heresy is a variance of belief that goes against established orthodoxy, rather than a rejection of the faith altogether. People who completely reject the entire social justice project--and by extension the left--don't make good targets.

Did you all see this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7cwWegXCU

This is what the speaker wrote that got her the SJW treatment. I'm assuming she's a radical feminist considering the blog and that she was speaking at an anarchist conference.

http://towardfreedom.com/29-archives/activism/3455-the-politics-of-denunciation

Some choice quotes:

quote:

The weeks that followed produced an atmosphere of distrust and recrimination unlike anything I had experienced in more than twenty years of radical organizing. A few people were blamed for specific transgressions. (My friend was one: she was accused of violating the venue's "Safer Space" policy, "triggering" audience members, and employing "patriarchal mechanisms" in her statement.) Others were called out for unspecified abusive or sexist behavior. And a great many more were alleged to have supported or defended or coddled those guilty of such offenses.

The ensuing controversy destroyed at least one political organization, and an astonishing number of activists––many with more than a decade of experience––talked about quitting politics altogether. I know people who lost friends and lovers, often not because of anything they had done, but because of how they felt about the situation. Several people––mostly women, interestingly––told me they were afraid to say anything about the controversy, lest they go "off-script" and find themselves denounced as bad feminists.

quote:

In the situation I've described here, these moves are being made in the name of feminism, but there is no reason to believe the pattern will stop there. The same tactics are available to any identity politics camp, or any ideological sect seeking to rid itself of bourgeois influences, or pacifists wishing to make a total break from the culture of violence, or environmentalists looking to escape from civilization, or really anyone whose radicalism consists of decrying other people's purported shortcomings. The obsessive need for political conformity, the mutual fault-finding that animates it, and the sense of embattled isolation that results––combined with a kind of self-righteous competitiveness (on the one hand) and a masochistic guilt complex (on the other)–– practically guarantees the sort of internecine squabbling we've seen emerge, not only in Portland, but in Oakland, Minneapolis, and New York as well.

The totalitarian impulse has found its expression, and it has proven so destructive, in part because we have consistently failed to find the means for handling disagreements, for resolving disputes, for responding to violence, and (yes) for holding each other accountable. Without those tools, we rely––far too often––on ideological purity tests, friend-group tribalism, peer pressure, shaming and ostracism, as well as general poo poo-talking and internet flame wars. Such behavior has been part of our political culture for a long time.

It is unsurprising, then, that our tendency is to push people out, rather than draw them in; but when we do that, our capacity for meaningful action diminishes. A cycle of suspicion and exclusion takes hold. As we grow less able, and even less interested, in having an effect on the larger society, we become increasingly focused on the ideas and identities of those inside our own circle. We scrutinize one another mercilessly, and when we discover an offense––or merely take offense––we push out those who have lost favor. As our circle grows ever smaller, minor differences take on increasing significance, leading to further suspicion, condemnation, and exclusion––shrinking the circle further still.

We behave, in other words, not like a movement but like a scene––and a particularly cliquish, insular, and unfriendly scene at that.
Now I think it's interesting there are people--who are on the left--saying this SJW thing is a form of totalitarian extremism. And if you've studied totalitarianism you'll know it's chaotic and sort of lawless by design. The idea being there's nothing set in stone, the rules are constantly changing, and everyone is policing everyone else all the time. You can be betrayed and turned in at any moment. That's a totalitarian system.

This sorta reminds me of reading about western communist groups in the 1930s, weirdly enough. It was a lot different and those were top-down organizations, for one. But this constant sniffing out of minor differences and drumming people out for byzantine ideological reasons reads exactly like how those groups operated. And the way it worked, any party member who happened to be targeted (usually for personal reasons) could be conceivably found guilty of a transgression. Like one example would be a party member who wrote propaganda leaflets being singled out and put on a show trial because being literate enough to write propaganda showed an insufficiently proletarian spirit. This wasn't even in Stalinist Russia but the CPUSA meeting halls in Chicago! Now just replace "bourgeois" with "privilege" and you get the same vibe. I need to read up on the Spanish Inquisition.

BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 11:34 on May 13, 2014

Impatient Skype JO
Nov 26, 2011

leave a sign ... something witchy

you posted:

your text here

Dark Souls posted:

imminent beating to a pulp

Lowly posted:

So ... talk about something else? As far as I know, people are free to talk about whatever they like within a given forum as long as it's on topic, and it's the moderators who decide what's on topic, not random forum users. If it's off-topic, the mods will shut it down, in my experience. So if a moderator is letting the discussion happen, then it seems it's on topic within the forum's rules?

It's also possible to have multiple discussions happening simultaneously. If you aren't interested in one discussion, just have another alongside it. If people are interested they'll respond. If they're not, they won't. You can't force people to only talk about the topics you like best.

How is 'Don't like, don't read' a good response to me providing examples of social justice conversations being everywhere on SA? This isn't an issue of me trying to shape discussion, it's about disagreeing with the notion that 'social justice warriors are an imaginary bogeyman on SA'. And drat, do you really think that forum users shouldn't have a say in what happens on SA and that we can't criticize anything if a mod allows it?


quote:

I don't really look in the video game forums too often so maybe it's different there, but most threads I look at, the discussion moves so fast, it doesn't really stay on one topic for that long unless you're checking it every few minutes. I almost never get to respond to topics I'm interested in because I don't check the forums all that regularly. Usually when I do check, I find that four or five topics have been discussed since I last looked. If you feel like a certain discussion is taking up too much forum space, just leave and come back in like a day, the conversation will have moved on.

I really don't know how you saw this as a forums 101 issue instead of a discussion people are having.

e:^I love how in the whole five minutes of that video, not a single person articulated exactly what the speaker did to piss them off. Protests are a bit more than chanting, cursing and using buzzwords.

Impatient Skype JO fucked around with this message at 18:00 on May 13, 2014

Bip Roberts
Mar 29, 2005

Impatient Skype JO posted:

How is 'Don't like, don't read' a good response to me providing examples of social justice conversations being everywhere on SA? This isn't an issue of me trying to shape discussion, it's about disagreeing with the notion that 'social justice warriors are an imaginary bogeyman on SA'. And drat, do you really think that forum users shouldn't have a say in what happens on SA and that we can't criticize anything if a mod allows it?


I really don't know how you saw this as a forums 101 issue instead of a discussion people are having.

e:^I love how in the whole five minutes of that video, not a single person articulated exactly what the speaker did to piss them off. Protests are a bit more than chanting, cursing and using buzzwords.

Sorry about your eye-rape, duder.

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Omi-Polari posted:

I see it as mainly an inter-left war. The SJWers are a product of living in an internet bubble world so you won't typically encounter them unless you enter that bubble. And the biggest social justice shitstorms I've seen have been between people who would describe themselves as leftists. So the extreme manifestations of it come across as heresy hunting. The idea being that heresy is a variance of belief that goes against established orthodoxy, rather than a rejection of the faith altogether. People who completely reject the entire social justice project--and by extension the left--don't make good targets.

Did you all see this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7cwWegXCU

This is what the speaker wrote that got her the SJW treatment. I'm assuming she's a radical feminist considering the blog and that she was speaking at an anarchist conference.

http://towardfreedom.com/29-archives/activism/3455-the-politics-of-denunciation

Some choice quotes:


Now I think it's interesting there are people--who are on the left--saying this SJW thing is a form of totalitarian extremism. And if you've studied totalitarianism you'll know it's chaotic and sort of lawless by design. The idea being there's nothing set in stone, the rules are constantly changing, and everyone is policing everyone else all the time. You can be betrayed and turned in at any moment. That's a totalitarian system.

This sorta reminds me of reading about western communist groups in the 1930s, weirdly enough. It was a lot different and those were top-down organizations, for one. But this constant sniffing out of minor differences and drumming people out for byzantine ideological reasons reads exactly like how those groups operated. And the way it worked, any party member who happened to be targeted (usually for personal reasons) could be conceivably found guilty of a transgression. Like one example would be a party member who wrote propaganda leaflets being singled out and put on a show trial because being literate enough to write propaganda showed an insufficiently proletarian spirit. This wasn't even in Stalinist Russia but the CPUSA meeting halls in Chicago! Now just replace "bourgeois" with "privilege" and you get the same vibe. I need to read up on the Spanish Inquisition.

Good god, what a bunch of idiots. "Triggers" and "Safer space" and "patriarchy" are actual things but holy gently caress almost all people using these words are loving morons and dumb enough to be the leftist equivalent of sovereign citizens.

Like, if you literally collapse every time someone reminds you of a bad thing that happened, you should maybe reconsider your choice of campaigning about that particular thing. You might also man the gently caress up (or woman the gently caress up) and accept that being negatively impacted emotionally is a thing that happens if you discuss an issue that negatively impacts people emotionally and accept that "I don't like this way of thinking about the problem" doesn't automatically mean "PATRIARCHY :byodame:". We all know that every successful movement for social change ever historically was treated with kid gloves by their opponents all the way until society at large just agreed to change because oh gosh it was terrible and then everyone profusely apologised... oh wait :rolleyes:

Oh god, I just noticed I put the woman the gently caress up thing in brackets but not the man the gently caress up thing, now I'm part of the partriarchy and literally Hitler or something.

Check out this quote from the statement of the organisers to the stuff from the blog post you quoted:

idiots besmirching the name of feminism posted:

We also feel that framing the discourse around survivor’s needs as 'political disagreements' or 'political arguments' is in of itself sexist––as it pretends that this conversation should be emptied of subjective narrative, or that there is an equal playing ground in the conversation because the conversation itself isn’t about real power, or that this conversation itself isn’t already racialized and gendered. It is also problematic, in that it suggests that there is a neutral or objective rationality in this debate, rather than the possibility that the debate itself and the content of the debate is a socially contingent result of prevailing power dynamics.
All I see is empty :words: about ~subjectivity~ and ~social constructs~ strung up in a vaguely grammatically correct way devoid of meaning. It's feminist :techno:, basically.

Newsflash: if you want to move beyond an "oh god we're oppressed" "oh yes we are" "despite my horrible privilege I would like to share in your oppression and feel really bad about myself" circle jerk and, you know, actually make society less oppressive, you'll have to debate how to take the message to people not in your little group, debate how other groups' interests may be impacted or how you are percieved, and how the dirty dirty politics will play out.

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy

blowfish posted:

It's feminist :techno:, basically.
Activate the gendered power dynamics fluctuator.

"But captain, that would be problematic!"

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy
I've been reading James Baldwin and Arthur Koestler and I was tired last night when I typed that they're like a bunch of totalitarian communists from the 1930s. Which sounds a little unhinged looking back on it. But I still see a lot of similarities reading about the KPD and CPUSA back then.

The constantly shifting and insulated rhetoric, the pervasive hunt for dissidents within the group, and the focus on identity as a reflection of "revolutionary consciousness" or whatever. Like these parties would consider a stoic and broad-shouldered proletarian named Ivan Ivanovich who worked at the Orel Collective Farm as the ideal person to emulate, who they've only seen represented in party newspapers, and anyone in the party who didn't measure up to Comrade Ivanovich's example was considered automatically suspect (which was everyone in the party). You wear glasses? That's a hint of a bourgeois upbringing! It wouldn't affect you at first, but over time these little things would blow up into a shitstorm.

The language was a lot different, but it sort of rhymes with SJW language. After the KPD went underground, and the Gestapo started hunting for communists to send to the concentration camps, the secret police could spot them just by striking up conversations, as (for example) words like "concrete" and "sectarian" were only used by communists. Instead of saying "can you clarify that?" you'd say "can you put that in more concrete terms?" So it set you apart from everyone else. And inside the party, if you were unable to speak the language exactly right, then you were also automatically suspect. The trap here is that no one can speak the language exactly right, because it's incredibly vague and constantly shifting around. So everyone is paranoid all the time and fearing they'll be the next ones to get found out.

--

Edit:

But go back and read that statement. They say there's really no ground at all for debate or argument of any kind. Their opponents' may have the best intentions, they may also be objectively wrong, but there's not going to be any debate to determine this because your positions are the result of distortions caused by a patriarchal and white supremacist society.

And how they're all standing and chanting in unison? I've got a hunch that the real purpose to that is to check the other members of the group. If you don't stand up and say the exact same words as everyone else, then why is that? Are you not committed to this? Why are you not showing solidarity with us? Actually we're not asking you. We're telling you. Because you're hosed up. You're not standing because it's a reflection of your privilege. We have to stand because we don't have the privilege not to, etc. etc. etc.

If anyone in the group can be drummed out at any moment for having the wrong opinions, then you're going to get a small core of hardcore conformists.

--

Edit:

Thanks for the info!

BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 22:11 on May 13, 2014

Qu Appelle
Nov 3, 2005

"If a COVID-19 pandemic occurs, public health officials may have additional instructions, such as avoiding close contact with others as much as possible, and staying home if someone in your household is sick." - Official insights from Public Health: Seattle & King County staff

Omi-Polari posted:

I see it as mainly an inter-left war. The SJWers are a product of living in an internet bubble world so you won't typically encounter them unless you enter that bubble. And the biggest social justice shitstorms I've seen have been between people who would describe themselves as leftists. So the extreme manifestations of it come across as heresy hunting. The idea being that heresy is a variance of belief that goes against established orthodoxy, rather than a rejection of the faith altogether. People who completely reject the entire social justice project--and by extension the left--don't make good targets.

Did you all see this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7cwWegXCU

This is what the speaker wrote that got her the SJW treatment. I'm assuming she's a radical feminist considering the blog and that she was speaking at an anarchist conference.

http://towardfreedom.com/29-archives/activism/3455-the-politics-of-denunciation


I have information from the other side of the 'action'/'disruption', as posted by one of the anarchists that disrupted the speech in question.

(Caveat: Ian Awesome is a friend of mine. However, I wasn't at the conference, I wasn't at the 'action', I didn't know about it until afterwards, and I'm remaining mute on the actual discussions surrounding the controversy that led up to this, because there's background info here that I haven't read/researched. However, I can bring you one of their viewpoints. Nor am I commenting on the validity of their actions.)

https://www.facebook.com/events/693277077405590/permalink/699135776819720/. This is a public post.

Ian Awesome posted:

A reportback on the action at L&D:
Let me be really plain about yesterday's events to people within the anarchist community; no matter what culpability Kristian tries to absolve himself of, he is complicit in the threat of police violence against feminists and their fellow political dissidents.
Here's how yesterday went:
A few minutes before Kristian's appearance was to take place, blue-vested peacekeeper-type people gathered outside the room at PSU where he was supposed to speak. All of us planning on attending the talk filed past these people and sat down.
Kristian Williams was seated at the front with Jenny Esquivel and Scott Crow. Kristian was seemingly unconcerned about the disposition of the people who filed in and took their seats; keep in mind that conference organizers had been challenged since the announcement of his engagement. He knew he was a controversial figure, and he knew his presence was safeguarded by organizer statements in the weeks leading up to the conference. Kristian probably knew that feminists would be angry with him and challenge his presence there; he felt he had conference organizers on his side and therefore had the power to control whatever interaction occurred. He had already decided to allow his presence to disrupt the conference and, as you'll see, had decided to allow us to deal with the consequences of the snitchy behavior of his supporters.

If you want to read more about the conference itself that this was a part of, and more about the disruption, go here, to their public event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/693277077405590/

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy
Looking through that Facebook page, I read one post from an activist who said she wasn't going the conference this year because the same thing happens every year. Which is really interesting to me.

Because I'd think if that was the case, then the anarchist community must be overrun by racism/sexism/imperialism/patriarchy. But as someone who isn't an anarchist or leftist at all--politically moderate really--it seems more like the narcissism of small differences. I went to one of these conferences once with a friend, and they didn't seem nearly as different to each other (to me, at least) as they seem to think about each other. So it seems more likely that the reason it keeps happening over and over again is because of the internal dynamics of the group engaging in these protests.

It's speculation, but I could imagine members of these groups looking through the list of speakers and very deliberately hunting for something they can use to justify disrupting an event. And once they've found the person of the year, they will dogpile onto him/her.

:bandwagon:

Encolpio
Apr 12, 2013

Qu Appelle posted:

I have information from the other side of the 'action'/'disruption', as posted by one of the anarchists that disrupted the speech in question.

(Caveat: Ian Awesome is a friend of mine. However, I wasn't at the conference, I wasn't at the 'action', I didn't know about it until afterwards, and I'm remaining mute on the actual discussions surrounding the controversy that led up to this, because there's background info here that I haven't read/researched. However, I can bring you one of their viewpoints. Nor am I commenting on the validity of their actions.)

https://www.facebook.com/events/693277077405590/permalink/699135776819720/. This is a public post.


If you want to read more about the conference itself that this was a part of, and more about the disruption, go here, to their public event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/693277077405590/

The conversation under that first post is insane. Someone says, against the accusation that the conference organisers asked for a police/security presence and snitched to them, that the conference organisers didn't want that to happen and that a school representative did so instead, against the their wishes. Just for saying this she gets accused of using "abuser logic".

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008
Probation
Can't post for 23 hours!
As usual, George Orwell had it right years and years before:

"Notes on Nationalism (1945) posted:

By "nationalism" I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled "good" or "bad." But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By "patriotism" I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

[...]

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty.

dogcrash truther
Nov 2, 2013
Dang. George Orwell was stupid as hell.

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Qu Appelle posted:

I have information from the other side of the 'action'/'disruption', as posted by one of the anarchists that disrupted the speech in question.

(Caveat: Ian Awesome is a friend of mine. However, I wasn't at the conference, I wasn't at the 'action', I didn't know about it until afterwards, and I'm remaining mute on the actual discussions surrounding the controversy that led up to this, because there's background info here that I haven't read/researched. However, I can bring you one of their viewpoints. Nor am I commenting on the validity of their actions.)

https://www.facebook.com/events/693277077405590/permalink/699135776819720/. This is a public post.

:psyduck: what a complete clusterfuck of a conference.

While regardless of my low opinions on anarchism it's at least consistent to criticise a speaker at an anarchist conference if you think he wanted the police rent-a-cops to show up, going on about triggering and patriarchy etc. in that context is laying it on thick while missing the forest for the trees (just come out and straight up accuse him of being authoritarian or something).

Also if his opinions are so terrible, why not just debate him into the ground for the benefit of the public/new attendees/anyone who hasn't heard of any previous take downs of his views? If you try to shut up someone you already think is an opponent of your ideals anyway at this kind of conference, you can bet their first reaction will be to shout "Help I am being oppressed" at the top of their lungs to smear the conference and the movement in the eyes of any newcomers. I guess if you don't care about things like growing your movement or real world relevance it lets you circle jerk in peace :shrug:


Encolpio posted:

The conversation under that first post is insane. Someone says, against the accusation that the conference organisers asked for a police/security presence and snitched to them, that the conference organisers didn't want that to happen and that a school representative did so instead, against the their wishes. Just for saying this she gets accused of using "abuser logic".

:cawg:

ashgromnies
Jun 19, 2004

blowfish posted:

:psyduck: what a complete clusterfuck of a conference.

While regardless of my low opinions on anarchism it's at least consistent to criticise a speaker at an anarchist conference if you think he wanted the police rent-a-cops to show up, going on about triggering and patriarchy etc. in that context is laying it on thick while missing the forest for the trees (just come out and straight up accuse him of being authoritarian or something).

Also if his opinions are so terrible, why not just debate him into the ground for the benefit of the public/new attendees/anyone who hasn't heard of any previous take downs of his views? If you try to shut up someone you already think is an opponent of your ideals anyway at this kind of conference, you can bet their first reaction will be to shout "Help I am being oppressed" at the top of their lungs to smear the conference and the movement in the eyes of any newcomers. I guess if you don't care about things like growing your movement or real world relevance it lets you circle jerk in peace :shrug:


:cawg:

You just wrote paragraphs in response to an activist named "Ian Awesome". What the gently caress kind of name is that? This is all such a joke. What has this group accomplished? Anything besides arguing with themselves and yelling at strangers?

dogcrash truther
Nov 2, 2013
Actually, the tactics you're decrying as totalitarian have historically been extremely successful so it's not clear why social movements would want to avoid them. Unless you think Mao and Stalin failed to have "real world relevance?"

Qu Appelle
Nov 3, 2005

"If a COVID-19 pandemic occurs, public health officials may have additional instructions, such as avoiding close contact with others as much as possible, and staying home if someone in your household is sick." - Official insights from Public Health: Seattle & King County staff

ashgromnies posted:

You just wrote paragraphs in response to an activist named "Ian Awesome". What the gently caress kind of name is that? This is all such a joke. What has this group accomplished? Anything besides arguing with themselves and yelling at strangers?

I think that 'Ian Not-quite-so-awesome-but-never-mind' was taken.

I will also defend my friend's right to be as awesome as he wants to be. Megaawesome, even.

Vincent Van Goatse
Nov 8, 2006

Enjoy every sandwich.

Smellrose

Qu Appelle posted:

I think that 'Ian Not-quite-so-awesome-but-never-mind' was taken.

I will also defend my friend's right to be as awesome as he wants to be. Megaawesome, even.

Pity he's just a rambling fool with no relevance to anything on the face of the Earth.

ashgromnies
Jun 19, 2004

Qu Appelle posted:

I think that 'Ian Not-quite-so-awesome-but-never-mind' was taken.

I will also defend my friend's right to be as awesome as he wants to be. Megaawesome, even.

Okay, so other than being awesome, what have they accomplished? What has he done to earn the title awesome? Does this group do anything? Put out publications? Direct action?

Qu Appelle
Nov 3, 2005

"If a COVID-19 pandemic occurs, public health officials may have additional instructions, such as avoiding close contact with others as much as possible, and staying home if someone in your household is sick." - Official insights from Public Health: Seattle & King County staff

ashgromnies posted:

Okay, so other than being awesome, what have they accomplished? What has he done to earn the title awesome? Does this group do anything? Put out publications? Direct action?

I honestly don't know why he gave himself this nickname. It could be something silly and random. :iiam:

And I don't know if it's a set group, or a bunch of disparate individuals, that went to this event. I wasn't there.

Qu Appelle fucked around with this message at 05:46 on May 14, 2014

Darth Windu
Mar 17, 2009

by Smythe

Ungoal posted:

:rolleyes: Yes, that totally must be the primary drive behind complaining about SJWs on SA—when you can still do this in GBS, FYAD, BYOB, YOSPOS & PHIZ. You learn something new everyday here. :)

You're right, they're also upset that they can't call people n*ggers anymore either.

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

dogcrash truther posted:

Actually, the tactics you're decrying as totalitarian have historically been extremely successful so it's not clear why social movements would want to avoid them. Unless you think Mao and Stalin failed to have "real world relevance?"

Stalin and Mao had the advantage of having a mass movement. Once you're important enough, there's no point in placating people anymore so you can just throw your weight around to silence people (did they also shout down everyone before they had reached at least a little bit of name recognition?)

ashgromnies
Jun 19, 2004

Darth Windu posted:

You're right, they're also upset that they can't call people n*ggers anymore either.

Naggers? What's wrong with that? I don't get it.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

blowfish posted:

Stalin and Mao had the advantage of having a mass movement. Once you're important enough, there's no point in placating people anymore so you can just throw your weight around to silence people (did they also shout down everyone before they had reached at least a little bit of name recognition?)

Stalin did, yes. And when Lenin was dying he wrote a letter to the rest of the Party essentially saying "this dude is a huge rear end in a top hat, whatever you do make sure he does not end up in charge after I die" . One of the first things that Stalin did when Lenin died was to hide that letter, and then one of the first things that Kruschev did when Stalin died was to dig it back up again. So you can act that way if you are on top of that kind of poo poo I guess, but it was probably easier back when letters were written by hand on paper and no one had a photocopier. If Lenin had simply been able to cc: everyone in the office, millions of lives could have been spared.

Earwicker fucked around with this message at 14:10 on May 14, 2014

ashgromnies
Jun 19, 2004

Lowly posted:

So ... talk about something else? As far as I know, people are free to talk about whatever they like within a given forum as long as it's on topic, and it's the moderators who decide what's on topic, not random forum users. If it's off-topic, the mods will shut it down, in my experience. So if a moderator is letting the discussion happen, then it seems it's on topic within the forum's rules?

It's also possible to have multiple discussions happening simultaneously. If you aren't interested in one discussion, just have another alongside it. If people are interested they'll respond. If they're not, they won't. You can't force people to only talk about the topics you like best.

I don't really look in the video game forums too often so maybe it's different there, but most threads I look at, the discussion moves so fast, it doesn't really stay on one topic for that long unless you're checking it every few minutes. I almost never get to respond to topics I'm interested in because I don't check the forums all that regularly. Usually when I do check, I find that four or five topics have been discussed since I last looked. If you feel like a certain discussion is taking up too much forum space, just leave and come back in like a day, the conversation will have moved on.

If we went by what mods thought was acceptable, every thread would be full of child porn.

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!
I think we should invite the GBS poster AATREK CURES KIDS to this thread :v:

I. M. Gei
Jun 26, 2005

CHIEFS

BITCH



Ungoal posted:

:rolleyes: Yes, that totally must be the primary drive behind complaining about SJWs on SA—when you can still do this in GBS, FYAD, BYOB, YOSPOS & PHIZ. You learn something new everyday here. :)

This makes it sound like you had the freedom to do those things in GBS for a long time. When in actuality, the word "human being" was bannable in GBS from around late 2007 up until Aatrek's outing last year.

Whether it benefits GBS to allow that particular word again today is debatable, but people seem to forget just how sickeningly prevalent SJW attitudes were on these forums before the Fall of Aatrek. GBS 2.1 might actually be the best thing to happen to SA in a long time... in the same way that the Allies invading Nazi Germany was the best thing to happen to Germany in a long time.

I. M. Gei fucked around with this message at 07:40 on May 15, 2014

Funky See Funky Do
Aug 20, 2013
STILL TRYING HARD
My biggest beef with social justice warriors is the nomenclature. Why is problematic a word? Why is it better than "a problem"?

AKA Pseudonym
May 16, 2004

A dashing and sophisticated young man
Doctor Rope
One's a noun and one's and adjective. It's not like it's a neologism either.

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!
Stop using big words you elitist~

Accretionist
Nov 7, 2012
I BELIEVE IN STUPID CONSPIRACY THEORIES
If they sully, "problematize," next it's time for a loving gangwar

Tartarus Sauce
Jan 16, 2006


friendship is magic
in a pony paradise
don't you judge me
When people use "problematic," it often reminds me of Lumbergh from Office Space, because there's that same craven, hand-wringy, concern-trollish, vaguely-passive-aggressive quality about it.

"I'm not saying the movie was RAAAAAACIST, but it was problemaaaaaaaaatic..."

It has this quality of someone trying to "hide" by using a "softer" word. The problem is, by now, most people can read the underlying insinuations of "problematic," so you aren't hiding anything.

And when people use it to underscore something that's obviously bad or hosed up, they just make themselves sound stupid. "It's problemaaaaaatic that horror movies usually kill the black guy first." No poo poo, Sherlock?

I suppose it's a step up from people just declaring that something with racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist/whatever elements or implications is just irredeemably evil and hateful.

If an otherwise-good thing has some negative implications, elements, or undertones, just bloody say so, and explain what those were. If someone objects or disagrees, then debate and discuss the issue like an adult.

Tartarus Sauce fucked around with this message at 13:16 on May 15, 2014

silence_kit
Jul 14, 2011

by the sex ghost

Tartarus Sauce posted:

When people use "problematic," it often reminds me of Lumbergh from Office Space, because there's that same craven, hand-wringy, concern-trollish, vaguely-passive-aggressive quality about it.

"I'm not saying the movie was RAAAAAACIST, but it was problemaaaaaaaaatic..."

It has this quality of someone trying to "hide" by using a "softer" word. The problem is, by now, most people can read the underlying insinuations of "problematic," so you aren't hiding anything.

And when people use it to underscore something that's obviously bad or hosed up, they just make themselves sound stupid. "It's problemaaaaaatic that horror movies usually kill the black guy first." No poo poo, Sherlock?

I suppose it's a step up from people just declaring that something with racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist/whatever elements or implications is just ;irredeemably evil and hateful.

If an otherwise-good thing has some negative implications, elements, or undertones, just bloody say so, and explain what those were. If someone objects or disagrees, then debate and discuss the issue like an adult.

I agree. It's also really lazy. "Problematic" is like the easiest commentary about art or society someone could make.

silence_kit fucked around with this message at 14:45 on May 15, 2014

BigFactory
Sep 17, 2002
It's a mechanism to label every single thing on gods green earth as crypto-racism or sexism because that's how they stim. It's probably a subconscious behavior.

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy
Problematising the post-problematisation of problematism.

A lot of this stuff originates in academic sociology / cultural studies departments, so I'm assuming "problematic" was used there before making the jump. A quick search tells me it was being used in academic papers 20 years ago.

I've read some theories as to why academics like to use jargon. A lot of it is practical -- it allows you to sum up complicated ideas and move on. But it can also show you lack confidence in what you're saying. And a lot of it can also be used to dress up biased arguments and make the quite ordinary people who do it appear to be fantastic super-geniuses, which is good career-wise.

BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 18:29 on May 15, 2014

foutre
Sep 4, 2011

:toot: RIP ZEEZ :toot:

Tartarus Sauce posted:

If an otherwise-good thing has some negative implications, elements, or undertones, just bloody say so, and explain what those were. If someone objects or disagrees, then debate and discuss the issue like an adult.

Although I'm sure this isn't always the case, generally the point of labeling something as problematic is that you then expand on why and in what ways it's problematic -- it's not meant to just be an empty label.

Tartarus Sauce
Jan 16, 2006


friendship is magic
in a pony paradise
don't you judge me
Something that often bothers me about liberalism in general is that people often castigate themselves and one another for failing to meet what strikes me as a nigh-unattainable Platonic ideal of Social Awareness and Social Justice.

So, you get people yelling at each other for being "bad allies," or apologizing deeply for being "bad allies" themselves when they make a mistake or gaffe, or discover that they have an unconscious bias, stereotype, or inappropriate thought.

Me, I find the idea of a "bad ally" to be a contradiction in terms, because if you're really that lovely, you're not really an ally, and if you're an ally, then whatever your mistakes, flubs, or screw-ups, you're still fundamentally a friend, and that is what should count in my book.

I absolutely don't think people should rest on their laurels and just ignore, excuse, or dismiss mistakes, problems, or injustices because "it's all good enough," but I do think some people could stand to take a more relaxed attitude to the fact that life is messy and people are imperfect, and that we will probably never be able to create a totally fair, just, equal society (without introducing new inequalities and injustices, at least).

Omi Polari posted:

I've read some theories as to why academics like to use jargon. A lot of it is practical -- it allows you to sum up complicated ideas and move on. But it can also show you lack confidence in what you're saying. And a lot of it can also be used to dress up biased arguments and make the quite ordinary people who do it appear to be fantastic super-geniuses.

CoughcoughJudithButlercoughcough.

(By the way, I really enjoyed your previous comments on totalitarianism. Thanks!)

Cults and the like will also introduce and use jargon as a way of confining, directing, and restricting how members think, a la Orwell.

If you can cut people off from the emotions and thoughts they'd normally have in response to particular words (because you have altered the definitions of those words) or concepts and experiences (because you've introduced weird babble to describe those concepts and experiences), you can put a damper on their bullshit detectors.

Tartarus Sauce fucked around with this message at 18:30 on May 15, 2014

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Tartarus Sauce posted:

Something that often bothers me about liberalism in general is that people often castigate themselves and one another for failing to meet what strikes me as a nigh-unattainable Platonic ideal of Social Awareness and Social Justice.

So, you get people yelling at each other for being "bad allies," or apologizing deeply for being "bad allies" themselves when they make a mistake or gaffe, or discover that they have an unconscious bias, stereotype, or inappropriate thought.

Me, I find the idea of a "bad ally" to be a contradiction in terms, because if you're really that lovely, you're not really an ally, and if you're an ally, then whatever your mistakes, flubs, or screw-ups, you're still fundamentally a friend, and that is what should count in my book.

Now imagine one of your talking points is "Republicans and neocons in particular are selfish shits; dumbasses lap up their intellectual diarrhea without thinking" and the next thing that happens is someone ostensibly on your side shouts "Yeah, also 9/11 was done by jews and vaccines are autism shots by ~big pharma~, wake up sheeple".

:frogout:

e: the problem I see is that dumb shits like that don't get booted out enough.

suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 20:03 on May 15, 2014

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy

Tartarus Sauce posted:

Something that often bothers me about liberalism in general is that people often castigate themselves and one another for failing to meet what strikes me as a nigh-unattainable Platonic ideal of Social Awareness and Social Justice.

So, you get people yelling at each other for being "bad allies," or apologizing deeply for being "bad allies" themselves when they make a mistake or gaffe, or discover that they have an unconscious bias, stereotype, or inappropriate thought.

Me, I find the idea of a "bad ally" to be a contradiction in terms, because if you're really that lovely, you're not really an ally, and if you're an ally, then whatever your mistakes, flubs, or screw-ups, you're still fundamentally a friend, and that is what should count in my book.

I absolutely don't think people should rest on their laurels and just ignore, excuse, or dismiss mistakes, problems, or injustices because "it's all good enough," but I do think some people could stand to take a more relaxed attitude to the fact that life is messy and people are imperfect, and that we will probably never be able to create a totally fair, just, equal society (without introducing new inequalities and injustices, at least).
Yeah that's pretty much my feeling. And well, I think one long-running theme in progressivism is that human beings and society are capable of being improved upon. Even to the point of thinking that society is inevitably moving forward, that there's an arc to history that favors progressive justice. If you don't get with the program you're on the "wrong side of history." The logic is that government can be used to accomplish this, or speed up the progress.

But it's not entirely wrong: You can look to history and see that governments have certainly been able to make people behave worse. Why can't they make people behave better? But to demand human *perfectibility* seems like a bad way to go, and in the 20th century resulted in some really catastrophic political experiments. I don't think we're in danger of that today, but mainly, I think progressive politics too often puts too much of a burden on people and expects too much from them. This isn't to endorse the opposite conservative view that people cannot do any better, which is another argument.

This is a silly example, but take the shitstorm after Macklemore won the Grammy. People were criticizing him for appropriating hip-hop and stripping it from its power to challenge white supremacy. But to say that hip-hop must do that and serve as the cure for the ills plaguing black America really puts an impossible burden on the artists who do it. That's just an example. Who can really live up to that standard?

BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 20:25 on May 15, 2014

a Loving Dog
May 12, 2001

more like a Barking Dog, woof!

Strategic Tea posted:

SA never seemed like a haven to the kind of SJWs we're mocking in this thread. I've never seen anyone seriously complain that we don't take their trans-nippon dragonsouled idenitity seriously or whatever.

The SJW complaining on SA is mostly people upset that they can't use the word human being for hilarious irony anymore. In which case we've turned our back on our history of mocking 'freaks' like... homosexuals and brown people?

it seriously never gets old to me that people so hellbent on admonishing "hateful irony" or whatever are so goddamn quick to casually throw out "brown people" like its nothing

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Tartarus Sauce
Jan 16, 2006


friendship is magic
in a pony paradise
don't you judge me

blowfish posted:

Now imagine one of your talking points is "Republicans and neocons in particular are selfish shits; dumbasses lap up their intellectual diarrhea without thinking" and the next thing that happens is someone ostensibly on your side shouts "Yeah, also 9/11 was done by jews and vaccines are autism shots by ~big pharma~, wake up sheeple".

:frogout:

e: the problem I see is that dumb shits like that don't get booted out enough.

Oh, goody, those people. :frogout: indeed. I've had to confront two friends (so far) around their "skepticism" of vaccines and "concern" about autism, and I had one acquaintance years ago who turned out to be a diehard Truther. (And now Sandy Hook Trutherism is a thing, which is even MORE sad.)

What you're talking about (if I'm following) is people feeling obligated to "circle the wagons" and protect everybody within the "tribe," no matter how batshit or toxic--because they're "family," and/or because they don't want to give the opposition an "in" by showing that the group isn't all solidarity, love, and rainbows.

Liberals and conservatives each do it in their own way, and either way, it means you end up with termites in your building, so to speak.

When I talk about people flogging themselves and each other over being "bad allies" and such, I'm talking more-or-less about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqevO_zrxsA

I remember coming across a blog post somewhere not too long ago where the author basically went on and on about having accidentally mis-gendered someone, and how that proved he "still had work to do" on himself. It was one of the milder and less melodramatic and/or self-blamey posts I've read of this type, and it still reminded me too much of the penitentes who whip and cut themselves in the public square as an act of penance.

Then, in "SJW-esque" circles, I've seen folks in those groups basically demand nothing less than the most groveling, self-abasing apologies for offenses against the group or its creed from perceived "offenders," and it can get pretty creepy and punitive at times.

Omi-Polari posted:

This is a silly example, but take the shitstorm after Macklemore won the Grammy. People were criticizing him for appropriating hip-hop and stripping it from its power to challenge white supremacy. But to say that hip-hop must do that and serve as the cure for the ills plaguing black America really puts an impossible burden on the artists who do it. That's just an example. Who can really live up to that standard?

Right. Or, within activist groups, sometimes someone will come up with some protest, education, or outreach activity, and somebody will scold the other person for coming up with something that not EVERYBODY would be able to participate in or benefit from.

So, say, somebody who'll suggest creating a webpage or an e-blast or a Youtube channel might be accused of being elitist, ableist or classist, because NOT EVERYONE HAS/CAN USE A COMPUTER, YOU MONSTER. (Note the difference between that, and, say, "Hmm, that's a great idea. How can we make it more accessible for ______?")

Concern-trolling activism (or whatever you want to call it) bugs me, because no matter how good you are, you are never GOOD ENOUGH.

Tartarus Sauce fucked around with this message at 21:28 on May 15, 2014

  • Locked thread