You sound like someone who has never experienced the second phase of where this culture inevitably leads to. I pray that it remains that way.
This is not a left/right issue. This is a mental homogeneity to the point of militant aggression towards dissenting views issue. And it always leads to totalitarianism.
As someone who claims to be educated on history, it is important then to remind yourself of why this actually occurs. You can't make essays dismissing some angry mob as if they are a homogenous hivemind. They won't listen to you because they literally can't listen to you, they act independently and uncoordinated. You have to tackle issues which cause them to be aggressive towards racists to begin with. Police brutality, for example, is still a threat not yet addressed. yet in all of Paul's preaching about the mob I don't see him making an iota of effort to do something that would actually stop the mob: fixing their issues. Instead, the current plan seems to be to dismiss their outcries and trod steadily along down the path of least resistance in a world that was already collapsing with or without the anger.
You probably don't know this word, but you're literally advocating for ochlocracy, which is the very thing I was talking about in the upstream comments.
The mob has an infinite well of issues, the mob will never be satisfied. That's exactly how it transitions into totalitarianism. Pandering to the mob just adds more fuel to the fire.
Police brutality etc. are issues that should certainly be addressed, and there's countless other societal issues that need to be looked at. But dealing with those and pandering to the mob are orthogonal issues. We have a democracy, the rule of law, and a government structure specifically to define a process for addressing such issues. These are the mechanisms that differentiate the western world from the soviet nightmare my parents escaped. It's so bizarre and terrifying to watch people openly advocating for discarding them and embracing mob rule. Americans have fought and died to uphold these values, and now a pocket of their own citizenry wants to demolish them.
> You have to tackle issues which cause them to be aggressive towards racists to begin with
Pretty heavily loaded language there. Anyone mob targets = racist? There's far too much evidence of the mob targeting non-racists to even pretend that this is what motivates them at this stage. 'Racist', or rather the newspeak co-opted 'Bigot', is now just the current incarnation of 'Communist', 'Kulak', 'Witch' and whatever other generic labels for the enemy of the mob. The mob never runs out of enemies, the mob never runs out of issues to get angry about. It's Lord of the Flies at a national scale.
You are not addressing the point that the society at large has to continue to trust institutions to alleviate concerns of corruption by the institution. The mob is not formed in a vacuum. Democracy, rule of law, and government only have value when trust in those pillars of our society have not been eroded to the point where large swaths of people form a mob to carry out their own justice. It’s been made abundantly clear in the West that our systems are very vulnerable to bad faith actors from inside the system.
> Americans have fought and died to uphold these values, and now a pocket of their own citizenry wants to demolish them.
This is true for both ends of this spectrum and also never ending. The mob doesn’t see themselves as eroding those institutions just as our current government doesn’t see itself as obstructionists. What makes this difficult is two competing extremes. I don’t focus on cancel culture because I’m concerned more with the erosion of our voting rights and the dismantling of our institutions by our own citizens. It doesn’t invalidate your points what so ever but it makes them a blind spot for individuals with competing priorities.
"I don’t focus on cancel culture because I’m concerned more with the erosion of our voting rights and the dismantling of our institutions by our own citizens."
Maybe we need to focus on both as manifestations of the same disease, even though one is much worse than the other?
Of course, but I don’t have the personal bandwidth to mentally deal with every issue we need to resolve as a society. I get around this by not out of hand dismissing concerns by others but I also can’t take an active stance in their solutions. This is likely a more common story than we want to admit and the numerous issues across our political spectrum fragment our chances at a unified response to the problem.
You may be correct that it is not possible to satisfy the "mob". However, I don't think the mob exists in a vacuum. It seems to me that, at least to a degree, the mob and social unrest are a symptom of a society and democracy that as broken down and that is not working for people. In order to stop it, I think you need to restore people's confidence that the system is working for them.
Removing the immunity of police officers and killing only Canadian levels of civilians would literally take all the wind out of the protests. Pretending that the populace is an insatiable mob rather than people with legitimate grievances that could be addressed is just wrongheaded.
I think you need to spend some more time familiarizing yourself with American history. This is not the first time U.S. citizens have decided to protest for change.
You're acting like this is the first time people have ever complained about things or marched in the streets, and therefore we're on the precipice of communism. We're not.
> The mob has an infinite well of issues, the mob will never be satisfied.
We don't have a mob in the U.S., we have sovereign citizens. The right to march and complain about each other is firmly protected by the U.S. Constitution. The goal of improving the nation is shared by all of us, and we take it seriously, even if some feelings get hurt along the way.
Are you suggesting that just because there's a protest or mob, that they must be right, or that the expression of the mob's force is actually aligned with contending the overarching issue justifying the existence of that mob?
Everyone agrees police brutality is a problem. Not all of us think attacking speech, undermining important institutions, and destroying people over opinions is the way forward.
No one here is against protest in general, the right to march, or the right to complain. A lot of us are against this particular protest which is ostensibly combating police brutality and racism, but manifests in undermining universities, attacking, controlling, and suppressing speech, and establishing doctrine based on anecdote and emotional reflex.
I would argue a mob is just a sort of tumor clinging onto the back of a very legitimate protest movement. My point, which I maintain, is that people like Paul are using this as an excuse to dismiss the movement in its entirety by selecting the (real) problems created by the mob. You would not be allowing the mob to rule by satisfying the entire group's demands. This is a function of very ordinary protests that have gone on over the last forever.
And I don't think it's fair to compare racists, which are real, to witches, which are not.
"racist" and "witch" are just labels given to those that don't agree with you or are somehow disapproved of by the mob. Not surprisingly, their definitions just change as needed by the mob. The term racist is just as ephemeral as witch in the cancel-culture world.
Racist used to mean something around "believing one race was inherently better than another," but now it means anyone who doesn't agree with the BLM organization or who supports the Constitution, rule-of-law, Trump, etc..
In fact, if you've taken a look at modern critical race theory writings, you might be a racist if you:
- emphasize objective thought, cause and effect thinking
- support nuclear families as a good structure
- prefer individualism
- "work before play" or believe that hard work is key to success
Is this how this is supposed to work, then? A lot of people get angry about something and demonstrate/riot, and in response the laws get changed to pacify them.
There's a term for that: "mob rule". It's not a good thing.
I'm not for one second saying that Police brutality isn't a problem. I don't live in the USA so I don't know. I am saying that if your system doesn't provide a method for fixing this problem without rioting, then your system is probably broken, and it might be better to fix the system and then use the fixed system to fix the problem.
That's how things tend to work when people are so alienated or disenfranchised from the system that change within the system becomes impossible, yes.
And while people like to dismiss any group whose concerns they disagree with as being merely an "angry mob," more often than not that "mob's" concerns are legitimate, and their anger is justifiable. Laws don't get passed to "pacify" them, they get passed because public pressure and awareness turns public opinion in their favor, making it politically infeasible for those in power to continue the status quo.
That's not the way it's supposed to work, but that's the inevitable result of a democratic process and society not working as it ought to begin with.
>> That's how things tend to work when people are so alienated or disenfranchised from the system that change within the system becomes impossible, yes.
And the endpoint of that process is revolution. Again, not a good thing. Revolutions are bloody.
How can you fix the democratic process so that works as it ought and prevent the disaster you're heading for?
I don't know. I never thought I'd see the day when Americans seem more concerned about "SJWs" exercising their free speech rights than actual secret police tossing political dissidents into black vans but I guess here we are.
Many people oppose "cancel culture" and "SJWs" because they see them as part of a vast leftist conspiracy imposing a political agenda across media, arts and academia and oppressing free (read: right-wing) speech at every turn. Many of the same people support Trump's abuses of power being wielded against those they consider "leftist agitators" like BLM and Antifa.
Both cases linked by fear of and opposition to the existential threat of "the left" as an insidious enemy within and a willingness to accept any means necessary to stop it.
I look on in desperate horror at the blatant, authoritarian corruption happening every single day at the White House, and yet the only righteous anger I see on the “intellectual watering hole” of HN is towards cancel culture. I don’t get it. Don’t people read the news? How do you not have an ulcer from watching this shit every day for four years?
The legitimate concerns and justified anger tend to be characterized by long-term (multiple years), consistent pressure. People exerting it can listen to opposing views (without angry screams) and justify their own.
What we see today are angry flashes that can change direction on a whim. Flash mobs of statue tear-downs, coronavirus mask/no-mask outrages, etc. are in my view more of a symptom of pent-up aggression fanned by pre-election opportunism, not of legitimate concerns. My 2c.
With the exception of the coronavirus protests, everything else has had years of consistent pressure behind it.
There have been riots and protests over police brutality and systemic racism for years. People have been protesting America's whitewashing of its history and romanticizing of the Confederacy for years. None of these issues are new. The CHAZ wasn't the result of "pre-election opportunism," read their list of demands. It's fueled by anger, yes, but also seeks redress for grievances the black community has been complaining about for years. "Biden 2020" isn't in there anywhere.
> That's how things tend to work when people are so alienated or disenfranchised from the system that change within the system becomes impossible, yes.
In some ways yes. It seems to me that democracy requires those in power to have a healthy fear that if the government doesn't work for their constituents then they might overthrow it.
Jefferson said:
"what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants"
Granted I'm not trying to make some extreme, tough guy statement that the current situation is equivalent to a revolutionary war. I just mean that to some degree that is how a democracy works.
I can’t speak for the states but I feel strongly that the aggressive conformists are gaining ground on several levels of society. One can avoid the worst of it if as you say one stays away from certain threads online and I’ve personally taken steps to do so but the way it has started to permeate broader academia and work places is creating a real problem which needs to be addressed and the fact that sensible people are speaking out about it now is encouraging.
> I feel strongly that the aggressive conformists are gaining ground on several levels of society. ... the fact that sensible people are speaking out about it now is encouraging.
It is, but I am afraid sensible people speaking out may be on the decline. Many employers now schedule obligatory "sessions" where employees are given a spiel on a topic heavily pushing "the right view" with a short 2-3 minuted at the end dedicated to "discussion". With "just try to criticize this" as an unspoken seasoning.
This would have been dismissed as "ludicrous, never going to happen here" when I came to the US 20 years ago but is the accepted norm now. Ironically, folks leaving for Vietnam claim more freedom as their main reason for leaving...
> Many employers now schedule obligatory "sessions" where employees are given a spiel on a topic heavily pushing "the right view" with a short 2-3 minuted at the end dedicated to "discussion". With "just try to criticize this" as an unspoken seasoning.
That reminds me of what I've spoken about a few times with friends, that it's similar to what Hillary Clinton said about the need to have a public and a private opinion, only for different reasons. Most people know what is allowed and what is expected to be said in public, and they'll behave accordingly. But they have a different, real opinion in private.
It hasn't started permeating academia - the thing started its life in academia. Most of the newspeak and the mobs' grievances are rather directly born of "critical theory" born at the Frankfurt School. This is a bun that's been in the oven for decades.
The critical theory was originally a tool for a philosopher to use, a lens to view things through or toy for them to play with:
A way to look at things as power dynamics between societal groups, and how things those groups hold as truth are in part determined by how they speak. Language reinforces and spreads a view of the world, and a worldview is a tool for power. The way a group speaks of the world is their "discourse" of it.
The critical theoretical project's aim is to look at the dominant groups' discourses and critique them relentlessly, to deconstruct, devalue and delegitimize them, to rob the words they use of the meaning that they're purported to hold.
This kind of view is useful if it's a lens in a philosopher's toolbox and firmly sealed in a sandbox where it doesn't interfere with other programming, but utterly terrible to let loose on the world. Why?
Because it's the intellectual equivalent of a universal acid. Nothing in that process is constructive, its only purpose is to corrode, erode, destroy established things. The only way the mindset knows how to function is to outline problems in a thing or to torture them out by doing a "close reading" of the material. Suffice to say an enemy can mind-read basically whatever they want to into a body of discourse.
And that's what's going on out in the world: Basically every strand of activism from feminism, BLM, diversity trainings, X studies runs on that critical theoretical acid, and is actively trying to instill a "critical consciousness" (ie. ability and tendency to view things through the lens of critical theory and consequently take action to change the world against dominant discourses) in every corner of life.
This is a problem.
Why? Being more aware of power dynamics doesn't sound half bad in itself, and a more rounded curriculum might legitimately be a good idea. The problem isn't in the substance of what they claim they want to do, but the HOW of it. Critical theory is essentially an intellectual acid that's used to demolish pretty much anything into a feeble, shoddy and illegitimate-feeling house of cards, right?
They're literally trying to construct the societal world on acid and caring more about words used than actual reality.
They're literally trying to use a solvent as the foundation of society, the method that has two tools: Problematicize and delegitimize so as to tear down and destroy. There is no positive value - kindness, humor, gentleness in the program. Basically nothing is valued positively or viewed non-cynically, so next to nothing can be built. As a consequence, it's a destructive or takeover ideology. What it has has been taken from someone or is focused on tearing something down. Remove targets, you'll notice the whole endeavor is empty, because it stands against much, but truly stands for very little, if anything at all.
Ever see mentions that people are being literally killed or somesuch when someone makes a comment an activist deems inappropriate. The focus on words is why. Speaking constructs a hegemonic discourse that will lead to oppression which legitimates some crackpot bigot somewhere to kill a transperson, so it's sane to them to treat any criticism or disagreement as if it was violence.
Another problem is that some dominant discourses are not just social constructs in the sense that they're how the presumed-dominant group has ended up talking about things. Some discourses are dominant/hegemonic because they correspond well with reality and end up staying in a reality-connected memeplex where language is at least in part concerned with describing reality.
This is utterly irrelevant in critical theory land, and so the theory doesn't care, and will try to dismantle them because they are simply tools of power used to oppress oppressed groups whose discourses are unfairly sidelined. Who says things is important, what is said, not so much. Everything is reduced down to group-based power struggles, and conceived as zero-sum games where victory is tearing down the majority enemy.
What if someone isn't on board with the program? No sweat, in line with their Marxist social conflict theory heritage, critical theorists use the device of "false consciousness" or "internalized oppression" to sweep away people from oppressed groups who don't buy into the critical theoretical revolutionary narrative. It's really convenient how disagreement is just evidence of your rightness and proof that the opponents have done bad things. Needless to say, it means they're right in every case and the whole shebang is unfalsifiable because every counterargument is either the hegemonic discourse that is to be deconstructed and torn down or internalized oppression. Lived experience of minorities is only valid if they have woken to critical consciousness, ie. come to the right conclusions.
Now start looking around, and the fingerprint of the critical theoretical worldview is everywhere. Insistence on alternate ways of knowing, framing everything as oppressor-oppressed relationships, redefinitions of words so as to exclude majority groups from fair treatment (See eg. Reddit's hate speech rules. Orwell couldn't have done "some are more equal than others" better: https://www.reddithelp.com/en/categories/rules-reporting/acc... ). Many places where they simply try to force language to be reality rather than trying to find it.
One salient example: Trans-rights activists insisting that lesbians should be attracted to them because what defines a woman is that the person thinks themselves one. It leads to totally inclusive and accepting funtimes like this: https://lesbian-rights-nz.org/shame-receipts/
I think in some areas you are right: The general population is not that affected (yet!).
But in universities and open source projects there absolutely is an oppression of free speech. In open source projects it is usually corporate directed middle managers who no longer program, so they have to profile themselves as bureaucrats fighting for a cause in order not to lose their cozy jobs.
I would have to see the left gaining real political or financial power. Right now I am far more concerned about right wing fascism since that is gaining popularity in multiple countries.
The left controls academia, the arts, media, and corporate HR departments. That's a significant amount of power that can be wielded against people who don't conform.
As has been pointed out a couple of times, it's not a question of left vs right though, it's a question of liberal vs illiberal. The number of people who have lost their livelihoods for mere speech (on both ends of the political spectrum) goes to show that the illiberals do have significant political and financial power, and toleration is declining.
And as a counterpoint to my position Nick Sandmann has settled out of court with the Washington Post (after settling with CNN). I'm not aware of settlements in the opposite political direction.
And as another ex-Soviet I'd prefer they never do.
There is already real-life intimidation. 2 Seattle Councilmembers who disagreed to vote to defund police to a sufficient degree had protests around the house, and Oakland mayor's house got protested and vandalized for the same crime, voting "wrong". These are just few, very recent examples out of a rich tapestry of everything from rioting with impunity to getting fired for posting a link to a scientific study.
Frankly, if trump goons (and I really detest trump and most of what passes for his policy positions) literally machine-gunned whoever perpetrated the Oakland mayor's house vandalism, it would be super counter-productive, but morally the right thing to do in my book.
> Frankly, if trump goons [...] literally machine-gunned whoever perpetrated the Oakland mayor's house vandalism, it would be super counter-productive, but morally the right thing to do in my book.
How can you say something like this and still consider yourself a virtuous person. I will never understand the authoritarian mindset that thinks summary execution without trial is a legitimate response to property vandalism. It's not. It is murder.
No, it's not at all murder. At the very worst, it's disproportionate defense against crime. If you kill someone actively trying to kill you it's obviously fine, if you kill someone vandalizing a house it's the same principle; it would usually be disproportionate, but not wrong as such.
However, in this particular case, when fighting mob intimidation like this (or marxism in general, come think of it) ends justify the means.
I know at least two people who have been fired over the last month for wrongthink: one was due to a guy's stupidity; with the other, some woke vigilante went after him and intentionally took some jokes out of context. And this isn't an uncommon story. Did I imagine these two people losing their jobs, or did it really happen? Did they have their speech suppressed? And if it did happen, can you not see any parallels to how totalitarian regimes - Soviet or otherwise - operated?
> There is no real speech suppression going on (except, maybe, by the right wingers in power), but the leftists and mobs reminiscent of the soviet era certainly don't have any power right now.
During any coup d'etat, the perpetrators have two immediate objectives: isolate the existing leader and control the flow of information (usually the TV broadcasters or radio). This is true of almost every coup. For instance, a few years ago, the Turkish military attempted a coup against Erdogan, and were thwarted when he started making Facetime calls to the outside.[1] Schools are also often targeted over the longer term, and in places with state religion, the religious institutions are as well. I'd ask whether the "right wingers in power" are more isolated than any generic previous people in power, and I'd ask whether the "right wingers in power" have control over those culture institutions, or whether those are more guided by "the leftists and mobs" who "don't have any power right now."
The most we can really say is that some right wingers have titles, but I'd argue that they have little actual power. (The current right-winger can't even get his former National Security Adiver's charges dropped, which were filed during his presidency by his people.)
