It’s the illiberal right shaking hands with the illiberal left. The problem is this time the purges aren’t just ideological, but also financial: there are winners and losers in our healthcare industry likely to be defined by their polarity to Trump.
Banning terms from general and academic use originated, in modern America, from the illiberal left’s cancel culture.
I’m not saying they caused this—it’s not novel that illiberalism leads to censorship. But the tactics both groups use when they get their hands on power are remarkably similar.
> the nonstop equivocation
You probably mean false equation. I don’t believe I am, because the illiberal left never came into power. At least not federally. Liberals on the left successfully checked our radicals in a way the right did not.
(If you want policy fusion between the illiberal left and right, it’s in RFK Jr. Marin County sees eye to eye with MAGA on e.g. vaccines.)
before cancel culture it was satanic panic from the right. This is not a new phenomenon, and I don't think it has much to do with the shift towards right wing extremism
"the buck stops here". he controls the most powerful army in history. I don't care whose arm is reaching up his colon to move his lips - he's responsible. it's his signature on the orders.
Nobody is arguing with you on that. You said cancel culture was grassroots while this is not. My point is they both started grassroots. This one just reached higher.
If we’re talking about banned words or terms, one of our Supreme Court justices wouldn’t define the term “woman.”
The Biden administration directed ICE to use the term “undocumented noncitizen” instead of “illegal alien.” They also pressured social media sites to censor certain content.
is any of this comparable to banning any acknowledgement of the existence of trans and intersex people in anything connected to the federal government?
in fact refusing to define a term doesn't sound like banning at all. to ban is to forbid somebody else from doing something. to refuse to do something personally isn't banning.
Being unable to describe a woman would be pretty similar to banning trans acknowledgement. They're basically 2 sides of the same coin; the mismatch between reality and the categories we use. There are different opinions about which part of the mental model has to give. Ie, the concept of man/woman is too imprecise for political discourse - do politicians abandon the word woman or do they abandon the parts of reality that don't fit into a man/woman model?
The obvious solution is the third option of letting a few more genders in, but that would still require being able to articulate what a woman is.
The gender one is more consequential; if we accept that they exist there are a lot of women who get involved in the legal system because of their gender. Eg, say there is a case that involves gender discrimination - a judge that can't identify what a woman is will struggle to come up with reasonable rulings.
In fairness we don't have the words the judge used in front of us so maybe there was some hedging involved. But they do have to be able to come up with a working definition.
if the ruling is unsatisfactory, you can appeal. you can bring in expert witnesses. she's a professional, and she'll make her decisions based on the facts of the case, and hopefully not based on prejudice. if it's the supreme court, she won't be alone.
A Nazi punching a Jew in the face is much worse than a Jew punching a Nazi in the face. I hope you agree with this. The latter is even, arguably, good.
That's a matter of context, and raises the question of whether they're in a civil society or a war (or both at once). In principle in a civil society nobody should be punching anybody in the face and mitigating circumstances like the other person being a nazi are only details. But see Sartre's feelings about living alongside nazis in occupied France: the were very polite and pleasant, and the whole situation was tense and awkward because you're unsure of your duty in that situation - is it war or not?
There is no such thing as a civil society when one group believes the other should be segregated, enslaved, have genocide committed against them, etc. That is just gas lighting one group so that they don't know they are the frog in the boiling pot. Trying to be civil in a tolerance paradox situation just makes sure you're eliminated, but maybe just not today.
Is this a quote from Sartre, or just an interpretation? I looked for it and couldn’t find it, beyond maybe representing his “Paris under the occupation”
No, not a quote, a very poor recollection of casually reading about this. He was keen on resisting, tried to organize a group (of writers?) and made some proposals for violent acts (assassinations?) but they couldn't get it together to do anything.
It’s the illiberal right shaking hands with the illiberal left. The problem is this time the purges aren’t just ideological, but also financial: there are winners and losers in our healthcare industry likely to be defined by their polarity to Trump.