No, not just "as divisive identity politics" but as ideas that can't separate themselves from anti-semitism. Intersectionality can't, especially when it's applied through critical race theory, which intersectional "feminism" is (allegedly at least since I see nothing feminist about it.).
I'm not blinded by anything Israel. I see anti-semitism I go after it. I don't care if the target is some far right asshole or the Women's March. Most lefties get a bit squeamish attacking the latter. Not me.
If I think Linda Sarsour is a fucking bigot, and I do, I'll gladly take charges of Islamaphobia from the more squeamish left types. They'll accuse me of supporting everything and anything Israel while imposing their own preferences on the situation there.
"So there aren’t a lot of good places to turn."
If you can't find a place, make one. I'll help. Point me to the bigots.
"I am going to also assume you think #metoo was a good thing, so your thesis seems to be that while it’s good for abusive men to get their comeuppance, if non-abusive men take steps to make sure there is never an impression of bad behavior, then they are ridiculous. So basically, you want us to do nothing and hope for the best?"
You asked Chris not to get lawyerly and you put this in front of him?
Come on, you know that's not what's going on here. It's risk assessment and the response to said assessment. Overstate the risk and set your responses accordingly, expect the pushback.
"After #metoo and the avalanche of new HR training we received, it also became about my career. If that makes me an asshole, so be it"
When did you enter the workforce? I entered in 1996. Policies governing workplace conduct and sexual harassment have always been a part of my work experience so it's always "been about my career". Twenty three years later, it's still about my career. Nothing about metoo or HR training has ever changed that.
I guess it's no surprise that there are workplace cultures so fucked up that they're taking metoo as a threat. I'm in real estate and finance so there's plenty of that. Still, ignorance of risk doesn't excuse it.
And intellectually dishonest, the kind I've deal with from the butthurt triggered Trumpster set. Speaking of which, where's Koz tell me I have to submit?
Unlike the Tea Party, which very consciously tried to make itself an identifiable group, “SJW” is so loose and amorphous a label, and inevitably applied from outside by those hostile, that virtually anyone to the left of trump is an “SJW”.
Pillsy and I had a good conversation about this and I was very clear about what could constitute a SJW while not using that specific term.
I'll let you go find them, but the only person making the designation meaningless is you either out of ignorance or willful distortion.
Pot meet kettle on the motte and bailey, as you seem to do it so well.
This is one of those issues where I've never understood the need to use as a hill to fight on if only because there's almost no upside and all downside, even with articles I've read that treat the material and subject fairly.
Seriously, it's to the point where I disagree with your characterization but don't see a point in engaging it. We probably have more important things to discuss.
Individuals aren't sovereign in the constitutional framework. Sovereignty is a collective people hence the reason why collective rights make more sense in the federal constitutional framework than individual rights, which, to the extent those existed, were simply limitations on federal power.
This is what I like to call Madison's originalism, especially since the whole Madison-based compact theory best explains the original Constitution and why any originalist-type interpretive structure fails.
The modern day conception of free speech began in the early 1960's with NYT v Sullivan followed by Brandenburg v Ohio and the Pentagon Papers case. However, these are legal constructs not social constructs. From a socio-cultural standpoint, this debate gets messy...real messy.
This is going to be a long reply to the OP and maybe a few comments in between. I skimmed the comments and I thought it necessary to pull everyone back, refocus on a few things and see this post in a more appropriate light - Grievance Politics.
Loosely named after the recent Grievance Studies Hoax, Grievance Politics employs a form of critical theory to "problematize" an issue, which in this case is giving speaking platforms to "unapproved" persons. The problem with this kind of critical "analysis" is that it lacks the analytical bite of real analysis as well as the direct recommendation of a solution. The idea is that the critical analysis leads to changed minds leading to social change - like supporting no-platforming people.
Personally, I'm the kind of guy that cuts through the bullshit and makes the argument straight up so this "critique" amounts to whining and bitching. The game goes a little something like this:
- "I the author am going to give you thoughts that I think are lacking in the discussion" only to follow up with things we already knew - kernels of truth blown up and exaggerated in order to make it fresh and insightful.
- "I the author demand we have boundaries, boundaries I say!" ignoring that there are already boundaries in place, and pertaining to this particular discussion, quite good ones. In fact, where issues could arise has more to do with legality something not even introduced.
- "I the author will help us do away with "banal" perspectives" by ignoring them, dismissing them out of hand or just by being a dishonest hack. Read the fourth paragraph carefully and tell me if this is not what's going on here:
"Current controversies surrounding platforming have included everything from hosting prominent white supremacists and alt-righters, to hosting figures with connections to them. Other issues involve trolls, sketchy research, Assad apologists, militancy, and dubious relevance. I will avoid any clear examples for the sake of the conversation, as I am attempting to address overlooked point, not highlight current (or overlooked) controversies. Plenty of people have done great work discovering and condemning said incidents."
To translate - current controversies surrounding involve very bad people that don't deserve a platform but I'm not going to name names because I want to address the overlooked points that aren't actually overlooked while overlooking that the points that aren't actually overlooked involve current controversies and the people involved in them. The reason? They are bad people - and the cycle goes around and around.
Sorry readers, it made my head hurt too.
When someone makes extravagant claims and conveniently shifts away from the dirty work of defending or clarifying one's position with specifics, my bullshit detectors are going to go off. I'll dispense with the guessing game and put forth a list of the people that I am confident would be on his list and to hell with it if they aren't because they fit the profile:
Jordan Peterson
Dave Rubin
Sam Harris
Charles Murray
Ben Shapiro
Christina Hoff Sommers
Milo Yiannapolous
Ann Coulter
Charlie Kirk
Candace Owens
I've seen plenty of people of John-Pierre's SJ ilk refer to these people as "detestable", "mean-spirited", "extremist", "bigoted", "malicious" and other colorful labels. Not a fan of most of them myself but at the very least, let's not think we're talking about Nazis, pedophiles, Holocaust deniers, flat earthers and other speakers and ideas outside of the Overton Window.
Like I said, there are no overlooked points, just overlooking the fact that people have made the same points only much better. To demonstrate:
1. “Hearing both sides” is not a virtue - Correct, there are cases where it isn't. Any astute reader of Jonathan Rauch's Kindly Inquisitors will point to the Afterword section of the book where this very point is stated - some things aren't up for debate. We don't need to re-litigate ideas after they've been thoroughly debunked and pushed outside of the Overton Window. We need not get both sides of racism, white supremacy, sexism, the Holocaust, 9/11, President Obama's birth certificate, etc. That's non-controversial to me.
2. What platforming communicates about the host - This is very common sense and reputation is very much a concern for any university especially those that don't want to piss off their alumni that donate. However, there's a wrinkle with respect to public universities - if public universities offer limited public forums for speakers and student groups can invite speakers to use those forums, college administrators can not discriminate based on viewpoint, as it violates the First Amendment.
3. Platforming as a function of the Overton Window - this is a bit of a fancypants way to describing the epistemology in Rauch's Kindly Inquisitors. Criticism/acceptance matters as it contributes to the ability of ideas getting mainstream acceptance or tossed outside of the Overton Window.
However...there's a problem with this...
"By platforming malicious voices the respect and seriousness of thought you have garnered rubs off on them."
The use of the White Supremacist as an example doesn't jive with the reality of the types of speakers in these controversies. Therefore, the people you tag with the "malicious" people mean people you disagree with and still fall within the Overton Window. That's where you're going with this. You claim to talk about these "malicious" people and use cover like white supremacists but you leave openings wide enough to drive a truck through.
Also, in the environment like a public university, the respect and seriousness label isn't a necessary condition for university administrators especially since the students tend to do the invites.
The one thing about a right to a platform - no such thing. I described a privilege. That's the way to look at it.
4. A voice’s ideological bent is not the sole basis of judgment: include rhetoric, personal behavior/tone, associations, etc
To a point but a smart person that comes off like an asshole to people that disagree with them with bad intentions are the people I most enjoy seeing because they don't put up with people's crap. My problem with this is that it allows so much subjectivity that the most squeamish among us can use that to deplatform speakers they don't like - just ask Christina Hoff Sommers, hardly a white supremacist that one.
5. Actions, not words, should guide our judgment of platformers - See this is where naming names would help but I'm sure that's asking too much so I'll just assume this whole point was made in bad faith despite there being some common sense to it but I wouldn't go as far.
6. Platforms as gateways - Totally. Someone could come to our platform here at Ordinary Times, read a post about platforms and complicity and unconscious bias, take a few hits from the SJ crack pipe and before we know it he or she will be singing the praises of Robin Diangelo's White Fragility and will be ready at moment's notice to deploy Allison Bailey's privilege preserving epistemic pushback as the Kafka trap to show that protest is evidence of the very claims it makes.
Holy shit, come to think of it, I think it's irresponsible for the editors to allow this platform to be used as a gateway to crackpipe epistemology. How can we tolerate people to spend their time learning how to make their views impervious to argument by ignoring criticism rather than learning how to engage in good faith. I better make sure that we remove the offensive content immediately!!!
Joking aside, if this were the 1980s and you were talking about heavy metal, you'd make the PMRC proud and Dee Snider would have to whoop some ass.
7. Platforming for “entertainment?” - I'm entertained. If I wasn't entertained, I wouldn't have written all of this.
Seriously, there's nothing here I didn't already know and the "problematic" aspects of platforms aren't being described by people of John-Pierre's ilk for the people outside of the Overton window but rather the kind of people John-Pierre wants out of it. It's all there laid out and easily discernible to those that can get past the window dressing and the perfume hiding the smell of the bullshit.
Political activism like this rubs the wrong way. Makes me want to tear it apart to show what little is behind it. If I have to take an author down a few pegs, so be it. It wouldn't be the first time I've done it.
If this is a bit much for a comments section, I'll be glad to publish this is a response post.
I don't think they fit the intersectional paradigm at all, and the pushback from the story that broke about the Women's March was all the evidence I needed. Most of them aren't being seen as Jewish women but as WHITE Jewish women.
In the zeal of those that tried to make feminism more inclusive, they succeeded by eliminating any trace of what made feminism good and then added an anti-semitism problem it can't solve for.
I read my Jewish friend's commentary when it's on my Facebook feed and yeah, I have to say their pain infuriates me. Maybe I'm being too morally righteous for my own view but it is what it is.
Of course she is. First hand accounts described the mess and those sympathetic to Gay were twisting themselves into knots trying to defend her.
Assuming it’s true, it says a lot since people are generally hostile to Sommers which is why I would have preferred a Martha Nussbaum and her liberal feminism to blow holes into the fraud of intersectionalism
I watched the students protesting Christina Hoff Sommer's speech at Lewis and Clark. It was in a typical classroom type, not in a high profile or high traffic type place that could have created a captive audience situation. There were maybe 30-40 people attending at most?
I'd have to think about your point as applied to more high profile people but I have bigger fish to fry.
Kind of bummed that the other comments section was shut down before I could respond. It's like we were bonding...you may even lift after all :D
Good stuff...I'll try to avoid running back and forth between motte and bailey. I'd like to think my views on it are pretty straightforward but that's not completely up to me to decide.
I think we both think online discourse on the subject is f--ked, perhaps irreparably. The amount of nonsense well exceeds the meaningful substance. Between the overreactions to the lack of understanding to the Chicken Littles to the cries of "alt right adjacent" etc etc etc
I appreciate the fact that you brought up a mixed bag of ideas because I see good intention leading to bad ideas, some of that good intention being the focus on what liberalism hasn't delivered. Still, the road to hell is paved with good intention.
The biggest criticism I have of what constitutes modern identity politics, besides the fact that it reduces and centers politics around constructed group identities, is that it reduces politics down to power relations between groups, usually in the dominant/marginalized, oppressor/oppressed, where power is a zero-sum game. Unlike liberalism, where universal appeals to rights, equality, etc. justify and encourage inclusion, under these kinds of power relations, with an oppressor/oppressed framework, liberal inclusion isn't a solution because by definition it can't be. The power structures responsible for marginalizing certain identities need to be "dismantled", and the oppression is by virtue of being included within the status quo.
It's also concerning because of the relationship between power and concepts of truth, knowledge, narratives and discourse - where all of these are either a function of or carried out in service of power. If communication of ideas is discourse done in the service of maintaining power and privilege and the discourse is targeted towards a marginalized group, it's an act of violence (hence discursive violence).
Standpoint epistemology is a great example of this because it was the second wave radical feminists that argued for it on the basis that "science" or positivist type epistemologies were created to service men in order to oppress women (I believe it was Catherine Mackinnon that's made that claim but I'd have to check)
Modern "anti-racism" discourse of the "woke" variety is not informed by liberal opposition to racism but rather critical race theory, which developed out of the field of critical legal studies and the attempts by critical race theorists to influence law were documented in Daniel Farber's and Susanna Sherry's "Beyond All Reason".
Critical race theory is also one of the key pillars of modern day aka intersectional feminism.
We're seeing the same people slam themselves into walls but I'm not sure if we have the same opinion why it's happening. Hopefully the above explanation helps. My beef is ideological.
Now to your two excellent points:
1. I loathe to use the term threat or even menace because I not only agree with your concern but have a few of my own. It's not the debate of whether they're a menace but the true belief that they are, and maybe I shouldn't be surprised by this, but I'm finding some of the more vocal opposition coming from liberal athiests that compare SJ to faith and faith-based activism. There are also those that take the crude caricature of the SJW as the hater of all things Enlightenment and believe they're opposing them on those principles, only their really at best vulgar rationalists not dissimilar to the kinds of righties we've both had to deal with.
I think they can be irritating and cause problems. I think the online performativity is useless. I think that the SJ crowd being younger is clashing with people in my generation and older. I see at least three or four stories a day about people that don't feel like they fit in on the D side and switched. I say this as an observation and not as a means to judge.
Also, I think there's more that becoming mainstream, but I'm also cognizant that there's a still a wide gap between online and real world, and in the latter, I don't encounter.
2. They're not my tribe. They won't be my tribe. I will never let them be. By that, I'm talking about those that hold the views I described above (plus others I linked to re: constructivist epistemology).
I need to be careful here...ideologically speaking, given the current power relations (oppressed/oppressor) with things like white and men being those in power and race being central to both anti-racism and intersectionalism, the logic of the ideology is such antisemitism is not a bug but a logical conclusion. I watched the mess unfold with the Women's March with Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour. I was disgusted with the way people circled the wagons around them and the bullshit that was used to justify their bigotry. I recall one of their "allies", a Jewish woman write a series of tweets that basically told Jewish women to shut up. I may have the tweet link in a draft post somewhere. Anyway, Derrick Bell's Space Traders is quite the gem for that kind of nasty shit too.
I'm' not saying your group is like that, and I know it's not. If you chose to call yourself a social justice warrior, I would tell you you're not the kind I have any quarrels with. To the extent I have a "tribe", it's a small group of more centrist liberals, some even more towards the progressive end, that support social justice causes but could be called anti-SJ.
I think some of the worst criticism from the anti-SJ left risks being equally dogmatic, except they're arguing against SJ but being for universal liberalism, and it comes off dogmatic because they appeal to the self evident nature of liberalism's track record, which does come off a bit like traditional conservatism (going with what we know).
I hope this covers all of it and I''m trying to keep it all in the open. Sorry for the delay.
Yes, there are certain elements to the ideological SJL that I strongly disagree with and amount to nothing more than faith-based declarations.
Take standpoint epistemology, which on its face may seem relatively neutral. People from marginalized standpoints have knowledge localized to their situation. That's a reasonable claim.
Claiming that the knower of that information is the ONLY person that can be the knower and have epistemic and moral privilege as a result? Since it stands the concept of being able to communicate and transmit information on its head, I think we can check that off as faith.
You can find more under "constructivism and education"
I think the viewpoints you speak of are becoming more prevalent in mainstream discourse (Slate just had an oppression olympics style article on Pete Buttieg (sp?)) Purely identity focused. Pure headache.
That's becoming more prevalent than the destructiveness, and don't think there are counter movements in social media that are pushing back. Some of us are liberals that just have no need for that shit. Some...not so liberal...
Not necessarily seeing it as big of a threat as you do isn't handwaving. It's disagreement and it's valid given exactly what he said. Paint with a broad enough brush and any story writes itself.
I'd say the people you think are getting hit by the "increasingly destructive Left" are starting to hit back harder.
Why do we have to make this about the Left's behavior? You're looking at the trees and not the forest. I use labels like the SJ-Left or Identitarian Left to describe a general set of ideas and principles that arose as critiques of certain aspects of liberalism.
Hell, it's possible that every commenter here that leans liberal, even those that talk about whiteness as oppressive think they're genuinely doing this from a liberal disposition, and who am I to tell them they're not? It's pretty for people with a liberal position to oppose racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.
Truth be told, my quarrel isn't with liberals fighting for social justice causes, and my own hostility towards the ideological SJ Left may have inadvertantly thrown a few people under the bus . So I need to be more careful and correct that mistake.
My hostility is mostly with the key ideas that drive it. I don't want to call it an ideology per se because it's not, I guess because of the postmodernist skeptcism towards grand narratives ( I don't know, I tried reading Lyotard and my head spun).
We need to separate the people away from the ideas, at least temporarily. The ideas matter because they're politically neutral in that they can be adopted by either political side and in a way they are.
I'm making my way through the comments so if you clarified anything below and I didn't see it, I apologize.
My concern is two-fold:
1. You're criticizing the left for characteristics (and to some degree behaviors) that the Right is openly embracing now.
To me, you're more center right. I have no quarrel with that obviously.
2. My read on your interactions and criticisms of the Left is that if they behave differently, there may be enough reconciliation or compromise to where things could possibly reverse.
In theory, it's not a bad idea but the way I see things, I worry about you asking people to try to work towards consensus or compromise without fully understanding all the forces in play, forces that would look to fuck me over in a heartbeat let alone more politically vulnerable and marginalized groups.
You're free to stick to your guns. I'm not going to tell anyone what to do or think, but we need to take things up a level and really get serious. I'm singling you out simply since I know your positions on this (and I hit your post), but I would suggest the same for anyone.
Good lord, it's 2:30 am. Why the hell am I here? lol
Would I get the same "ok?" if I mentioned critical constructivist epistemology, critical pedagogy, critical race theory, postmodern feminism, and Foucault's theories on power, knowledge, truth and discourse?
Would that also include certain general ideas coming out of postmodernism and poststructuralism?
Please understand that I'm asking this question with the utmost sincerity, and if I'm confusing you, I'll do more than a hit and run with my comment and fully flesh out some thoughts like I did below on what I think is happening on the right.
"I’m confident that there are more cogent arguments than Mike’s out there, if that’s what you’re asking."
I was probably being a bit short and I apologize for that.
You are very right in your confidence.
Put me in coach!!!!
I forget that I've only really spoken with Maribou about this at length and that's on my FB page not here.
Coincidentally, I leave for Hilton Head in the AM. I guess I'll have to check later in the night.
On “Confronting the Radicalism of Young Men Online”
True and more often than not, the degree to which someone is committed is inversely correlated to the head being screwed on straight.
My head is screwed on straight but I have a "screws loose" issue. ;)
"
No, not just "as divisive identity politics" but as ideas that can't separate themselves from anti-semitism. Intersectionality can't, especially when it's applied through critical race theory, which intersectional "feminism" is (allegedly at least since I see nothing feminist about it.).
That and the whole naive power dynamics thing.
"
I'm not blinded by anything Israel. I see anti-semitism I go after it. I don't care if the target is some far right asshole or the Women's March. Most lefties get a bit squeamish attacking the latter. Not me.
If I think Linda Sarsour is a fucking bigot, and I do, I'll gladly take charges of Islamaphobia from the more squeamish left types. They'll accuse me of supporting everything and anything Israel while imposing their own preferences on the situation there.
"So there aren’t a lot of good places to turn."
If you can't find a place, make one. I'll help. Point me to the bigots.
On “A Polish Joke”
"I am going to also assume you think #metoo was a good thing, so your thesis seems to be that while it’s good for abusive men to get their comeuppance, if non-abusive men take steps to make sure there is never an impression of bad behavior, then they are ridiculous. So basically, you want us to do nothing and hope for the best?"
You asked Chris not to get lawyerly and you put this in front of him?
Come on, you know that's not what's going on here. It's risk assessment and the response to said assessment. Overstate the risk and set your responses accordingly, expect the pushback.
"After #metoo and the avalanche of new HR training we received, it also became about my career. If that makes me an asshole, so be it"
When did you enter the workforce? I entered in 1996. Policies governing workplace conduct and sexual harassment have always been a part of my work experience so it's always "been about my career". Twenty three years later, it's still about my career. Nothing about metoo or HR training has ever changed that.
I guess it's no surprise that there are workplace cultures so fucked up that they're taking metoo as a threat. I'm in real estate and finance so there's plenty of that. Still, ignorance of risk doesn't excuse it.
"
And intellectually dishonest, the kind I've deal with from the butthurt triggered Trumpster set. Speaking of which, where's Koz tell me I have to submit?
"
Need a tissue?
"
Unlike the Tea Party, which very consciously tried to make itself an identifiable group, “SJW” is so loose and amorphous a label, and inevitably applied from outside by those hostile, that virtually anyone to the left of trump is an “SJW”.
Pillsy and I had a good conversation about this and I was very clear about what could constitute a SJW while not using that specific term.
I'll let you go find them, but the only person making the designation meaningless is you either out of ignorance or willful distortion.
Pot meet kettle on the motte and bailey, as you seem to do it so well.
On “Thoughts on Platforming”
This is one of those issues where I've never understood the need to use as a hill to fight on if only because there's almost no upside and all downside, even with articles I've read that treat the material and subject fairly.
Seriously, it's to the point where I disagree with your characterization but don't see a point in engaging it. We probably have more important things to discuss.
"
Individuals aren't sovereign in the constitutional framework. Sovereignty is a collective people hence the reason why collective rights make more sense in the federal constitutional framework than individual rights, which, to the extent those existed, were simply limitations on federal power.
This is what I like to call Madison's originalism, especially since the whole Madison-based compact theory best explains the original Constitution and why any originalist-type interpretive structure fails.
"
The modern day conception of free speech began in the early 1960's with NYT v Sullivan followed by Brandenburg v Ohio and the Pentagon Papers case. However, these are legal constructs not social constructs. From a socio-cultural standpoint, this debate gets messy...real messy.
"
Yeah, that was my feeling on the main post.
"
This is going to be a long reply to the OP and maybe a few comments in between. I skimmed the comments and I thought it necessary to pull everyone back, refocus on a few things and see this post in a more appropriate light - Grievance Politics.
Loosely named after the recent Grievance Studies Hoax, Grievance Politics employs a form of critical theory to "problematize" an issue, which in this case is giving speaking platforms to "unapproved" persons. The problem with this kind of critical "analysis" is that it lacks the analytical bite of real analysis as well as the direct recommendation of a solution. The idea is that the critical analysis leads to changed minds leading to social change - like supporting no-platforming people.
Personally, I'm the kind of guy that cuts through the bullshit and makes the argument straight up so this "critique" amounts to whining and bitching. The game goes a little something like this:
- "I the author am going to give you thoughts that I think are lacking in the discussion" only to follow up with things we already knew - kernels of truth blown up and exaggerated in order to make it fresh and insightful.
- "I the author demand we have boundaries, boundaries I say!" ignoring that there are already boundaries in place, and pertaining to this particular discussion, quite good ones. In fact, where issues could arise has more to do with legality something not even introduced.
- "I the author will help us do away with "banal" perspectives" by ignoring them, dismissing them out of hand or just by being a dishonest hack. Read the fourth paragraph carefully and tell me if this is not what's going on here:
"Current controversies surrounding platforming have included everything from hosting prominent white supremacists and alt-righters, to hosting figures with connections to them. Other issues involve trolls, sketchy research, Assad apologists, militancy, and dubious relevance. I will avoid any clear examples for the sake of the conversation, as I am attempting to address overlooked point, not highlight current (or overlooked) controversies. Plenty of people have done great work discovering and condemning said incidents."
To translate - current controversies surrounding involve very bad people that don't deserve a platform but I'm not going to name names because I want to address the overlooked points that aren't actually overlooked while overlooking that the points that aren't actually overlooked involve current controversies and the people involved in them. The reason? They are bad people - and the cycle goes around and around.
Sorry readers, it made my head hurt too.
When someone makes extravagant claims and conveniently shifts away from the dirty work of defending or clarifying one's position with specifics, my bullshit detectors are going to go off. I'll dispense with the guessing game and put forth a list of the people that I am confident would be on his list and to hell with it if they aren't because they fit the profile:
Jordan Peterson
Dave Rubin
Sam Harris
Charles Murray
Ben Shapiro
Christina Hoff Sommers
Milo Yiannapolous
Ann Coulter
Charlie Kirk
Candace Owens
I've seen plenty of people of John-Pierre's SJ ilk refer to these people as "detestable", "mean-spirited", "extremist", "bigoted", "malicious" and other colorful labels. Not a fan of most of them myself but at the very least, let's not think we're talking about Nazis, pedophiles, Holocaust deniers, flat earthers and other speakers and ideas outside of the Overton Window.
Like I said, there are no overlooked points, just overlooking the fact that people have made the same points only much better. To demonstrate:
1. “Hearing both sides” is not a virtue - Correct, there are cases where it isn't. Any astute reader of Jonathan Rauch's Kindly Inquisitors will point to the Afterword section of the book where this very point is stated - some things aren't up for debate. We don't need to re-litigate ideas after they've been thoroughly debunked and pushed outside of the Overton Window. We need not get both sides of racism, white supremacy, sexism, the Holocaust, 9/11, President Obama's birth certificate, etc. That's non-controversial to me.
2. What platforming communicates about the host - This is very common sense and reputation is very much a concern for any university especially those that don't want to piss off their alumni that donate. However, there's a wrinkle with respect to public universities - if public universities offer limited public forums for speakers and student groups can invite speakers to use those forums, college administrators can not discriminate based on viewpoint, as it violates the First Amendment.
3. Platforming as a function of the Overton Window - this is a bit of a fancypants way to describing the epistemology in Rauch's Kindly Inquisitors. Criticism/acceptance matters as it contributes to the ability of ideas getting mainstream acceptance or tossed outside of the Overton Window.
However...there's a problem with this...
"By platforming malicious voices the respect and seriousness of thought you have garnered rubs off on them."
The use of the White Supremacist as an example doesn't jive with the reality of the types of speakers in these controversies. Therefore, the people you tag with the "malicious" people mean people you disagree with and still fall within the Overton Window. That's where you're going with this. You claim to talk about these "malicious" people and use cover like white supremacists but you leave openings wide enough to drive a truck through.
Also, in the environment like a public university, the respect and seriousness label isn't a necessary condition for university administrators especially since the students tend to do the invites.
The one thing about a right to a platform - no such thing. I described a privilege. That's the way to look at it.
4. A voice’s ideological bent is not the sole basis of judgment: include rhetoric, personal behavior/tone, associations, etc
To a point but a smart person that comes off like an asshole to people that disagree with them with bad intentions are the people I most enjoy seeing because they don't put up with people's crap. My problem with this is that it allows so much subjectivity that the most squeamish among us can use that to deplatform speakers they don't like - just ask Christina Hoff Sommers, hardly a white supremacist that one.
5. Actions, not words, should guide our judgment of platformers - See this is where naming names would help but I'm sure that's asking too much so I'll just assume this whole point was made in bad faith despite there being some common sense to it but I wouldn't go as far.
6. Platforms as gateways - Totally. Someone could come to our platform here at Ordinary Times, read a post about platforms and complicity and unconscious bias, take a few hits from the SJ crack pipe and before we know it he or she will be singing the praises of Robin Diangelo's White Fragility and will be ready at moment's notice to deploy Allison Bailey's privilege preserving epistemic pushback as the Kafka trap to show that protest is evidence of the very claims it makes.
Holy shit, come to think of it, I think it's irresponsible for the editors to allow this platform to be used as a gateway to crackpipe epistemology. How can we tolerate people to spend their time learning how to make their views impervious to argument by ignoring criticism rather than learning how to engage in good faith. I better make sure that we remove the offensive content immediately!!!
Joking aside, if this were the 1980s and you were talking about heavy metal, you'd make the PMRC proud and Dee Snider would have to whoop some ass.
7. Platforming for “entertainment?” - I'm entertained. If I wasn't entertained, I wouldn't have written all of this.
Seriously, there's nothing here I didn't already know and the "problematic" aspects of platforms aren't being described by people of John-Pierre's ilk for the people outside of the Overton window but rather the kind of people John-Pierre wants out of it. It's all there laid out and easily discernible to those that can get past the window dressing and the perfume hiding the smell of the bullshit.
Political activism like this rubs the wrong way. Makes me want to tear it apart to show what little is behind it. If I have to take an author down a few pegs, so be it. It wouldn't be the first time I've done it.
If this is a bit much for a comments section, I'll be glad to publish this is a response post.
On “In The Shadow of the Weaponized Rubble”
Pillsy,
I don't think they fit the intersectional paradigm at all, and the pushback from the story that broke about the Women's March was all the evidence I needed. Most of them aren't being seen as Jewish women but as WHITE Jewish women.
In the zeal of those that tried to make feminism more inclusive, they succeeded by eliminating any trace of what made feminism good and then added an anti-semitism problem it can't solve for.
I read my Jewish friend's commentary when it's on my Facebook feed and yeah, I have to say their pain infuriates me. Maybe I'm being too morally righteous for my own view but it is what it is.
On “Thoughts on Platforming”
Of course she is. First hand accounts described the mess and those sympathetic to Gay were twisting themselves into knots trying to defend her.
Assuming it’s true, it says a lot since people are generally hostile to Sommers which is why I would have preferred a Martha Nussbaum and her liberal feminism to blow holes into the fraud of intersectionalism
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You’re an honorary lifter. Good enough for me. Let me think about those questions and report back.
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Pillsy,
I watched the students protesting Christina Hoff Sommer's speech at Lewis and Clark. It was in a typical classroom type, not in a high profile or high traffic type place that could have created a captive audience situation. There were maybe 30-40 people attending at most?
I'd have to think about your point as applied to more high profile people but I have bigger fish to fry.
Kind of bummed that the other comments section was shut down before I could respond. It's like we were bonding...you may even lift after all :D
On “The Signals and Noise of Virtue”
I responded to pillsy tonight...I'll circle up ASAP.
I don't know what it is about being on vacation that keeps me away from the internet!
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Pillsy,
Good stuff...I'll try to avoid running back and forth between motte and bailey. I'd like to think my views on it are pretty straightforward but that's not completely up to me to decide.
I think we both think online discourse on the subject is f--ked, perhaps irreparably. The amount of nonsense well exceeds the meaningful substance. Between the overreactions to the lack of understanding to the Chicken Littles to the cries of "alt right adjacent" etc etc etc
I appreciate the fact that you brought up a mixed bag of ideas because I see good intention leading to bad ideas, some of that good intention being the focus on what liberalism hasn't delivered. Still, the road to hell is paved with good intention.
The biggest criticism I have of what constitutes modern identity politics, besides the fact that it reduces and centers politics around constructed group identities, is that it reduces politics down to power relations between groups, usually in the dominant/marginalized, oppressor/oppressed, where power is a zero-sum game. Unlike liberalism, where universal appeals to rights, equality, etc. justify and encourage inclusion, under these kinds of power relations, with an oppressor/oppressed framework, liberal inclusion isn't a solution because by definition it can't be. The power structures responsible for marginalizing certain identities need to be "dismantled", and the oppression is by virtue of being included within the status quo.
It's also concerning because of the relationship between power and concepts of truth, knowledge, narratives and discourse - where all of these are either a function of or carried out in service of power. If communication of ideas is discourse done in the service of maintaining power and privilege and the discourse is targeted towards a marginalized group, it's an act of violence (hence discursive violence).
Standpoint epistemology is a great example of this because it was the second wave radical feminists that argued for it on the basis that "science" or positivist type epistemologies were created to service men in order to oppress women (I believe it was Catherine Mackinnon that's made that claim but I'd have to check)
Modern "anti-racism" discourse of the "woke" variety is not informed by liberal opposition to racism but rather critical race theory, which developed out of the field of critical legal studies and the attempts by critical race theorists to influence law were documented in Daniel Farber's and Susanna Sherry's "Beyond All Reason".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
Critical race theory is also one of the key pillars of modern day aka intersectional feminism.
We're seeing the same people slam themselves into walls but I'm not sure if we have the same opinion why it's happening. Hopefully the above explanation helps. My beef is ideological.
Now to your two excellent points:
1. I loathe to use the term threat or even menace because I not only agree with your concern but have a few of my own. It's not the debate of whether they're a menace but the true belief that they are, and maybe I shouldn't be surprised by this, but I'm finding some of the more vocal opposition coming from liberal athiests that compare SJ to faith and faith-based activism. There are also those that take the crude caricature of the SJW as the hater of all things Enlightenment and believe they're opposing them on those principles, only their really at best vulgar rationalists not dissimilar to the kinds of righties we've both had to deal with.
I think they can be irritating and cause problems. I think the online performativity is useless. I think that the SJ crowd being younger is clashing with people in my generation and older. I see at least three or four stories a day about people that don't feel like they fit in on the D side and switched. I say this as an observation and not as a means to judge.
Also, I think there's more that becoming mainstream, but I'm also cognizant that there's a still a wide gap between online and real world, and in the latter, I don't encounter.
2. They're not my tribe. They won't be my tribe. I will never let them be. By that, I'm talking about those that hold the views I described above (plus others I linked to re: constructivist epistemology).
I need to be careful here...ideologically speaking, given the current power relations (oppressed/oppressor) with things like white and men being those in power and race being central to both anti-racism and intersectionalism, the logic of the ideology is such antisemitism is not a bug but a logical conclusion. I watched the mess unfold with the Women's March with Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour. I was disgusted with the way people circled the wagons around them and the bullshit that was used to justify their bigotry. I recall one of their "allies", a Jewish woman write a series of tweets that basically told Jewish women to shut up. I may have the tweet link in a draft post somewhere. Anyway, Derrick Bell's Space Traders is quite the gem for that kind of nasty shit too.
I'm' not saying your group is like that, and I know it's not. If you chose to call yourself a social justice warrior, I would tell you you're not the kind I have any quarrels with. To the extent I have a "tribe", it's a small group of more centrist liberals, some even more towards the progressive end, that support social justice causes but could be called anti-SJ.
I think some of the worst criticism from the anti-SJ left risks being equally dogmatic, except they're arguing against SJ but being for universal liberalism, and it comes off dogmatic because they appeal to the self evident nature of liberalism's track record, which does come off a bit like traditional conservatism (going with what we know).
I hope this covers all of it and I''m trying to keep it all in the open. Sorry for the delay.
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However, vaccinating people at the border, or returning those who are carrying a communicable disease, might eliminate the xenophobia
Are you one of those people that feels this way? Just a yes or no will work.
No need for a long-winded bullshit answer.
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Mike,
Yes, there are certain elements to the ideological SJL that I strongly disagree with and amount to nothing more than faith-based declarations.
Take standpoint epistemology, which on its face may seem relatively neutral. People from marginalized standpoints have knowledge localized to their situation. That's a reasonable claim.
Claiming that the knower of that information is the ONLY person that can be the knower and have epistemic and moral privilege as a result? Since it stands the concept of being able to communicate and transmit information on its head, I think we can check that off as faith.
You can find more under "constructivism and education"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_epistemology
I think the viewpoints you speak of are becoming more prevalent in mainstream discourse (Slate just had an oppression olympics style article on Pete Buttieg (sp?)) Purely identity focused. Pure headache.
That's becoming more prevalent than the destructiveness, and don't think there are counter movements in social media that are pushing back. Some of us are liberals that just have no need for that shit. Some...not so liberal...
Not necessarily seeing it as big of a threat as you do isn't handwaving. It's disagreement and it's valid given exactly what he said. Paint with a broad enough brush and any story writes itself.
I'd say the people you think are getting hit by the "increasingly destructive Left" are starting to hit back harder.
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What were we talking about?
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(Also WMDs in Iraq were a Big Lie.)
They've been stuck to my shoulders the whole time.
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Why do we have to make this about the Left's behavior? You're looking at the trees and not the forest. I use labels like the SJ-Left or Identitarian Left to describe a general set of ideas and principles that arose as critiques of certain aspects of liberalism.
Hell, it's possible that every commenter here that leans liberal, even those that talk about whiteness as oppressive think they're genuinely doing this from a liberal disposition, and who am I to tell them they're not? It's pretty for people with a liberal position to oppose racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.
Truth be told, my quarrel isn't with liberals fighting for social justice causes, and my own hostility towards the ideological SJ Left may have inadvertantly thrown a few people under the bus . So I need to be more careful and correct that mistake.
My hostility is mostly with the key ideas that drive it. I don't want to call it an ideology per se because it's not, I guess because of the postmodernist skeptcism towards grand narratives ( I don't know, I tried reading Lyotard and my head spun).
We need to separate the people away from the ideas, at least temporarily. The ideas matter because they're politically neutral in that they can be adopted by either political side and in a way they are.
I'm making my way through the comments so if you clarified anything below and I didn't see it, I apologize.
My concern is two-fold:
1. You're criticizing the left for characteristics (and to some degree behaviors) that the Right is openly embracing now.
To me, you're more center right. I have no quarrel with that obviously.
2. My read on your interactions and criticisms of the Left is that if they behave differently, there may be enough reconciliation or compromise to where things could possibly reverse.
In theory, it's not a bad idea but the way I see things, I worry about you asking people to try to work towards consensus or compromise without fully understanding all the forces in play, forces that would look to fuck me over in a heartbeat let alone more politically vulnerable and marginalized groups.
You're free to stick to your guns. I'm not going to tell anyone what to do or think, but we need to take things up a level and really get serious. I'm singling you out simply since I know your positions on this (and I hit your post), but I would suggest the same for anyone.
Good lord, it's 2:30 am. Why the hell am I here? lol
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Would I get the same "ok?" if I mentioned critical constructivist epistemology, critical pedagogy, critical race theory, postmodern feminism, and Foucault's theories on power, knowledge, truth and discourse?
Would that also include certain general ideas coming out of postmodernism and poststructuralism?
Please understand that I'm asking this question with the utmost sincerity, and if I'm confusing you, I'll do more than a hit and run with my comment and fully flesh out some thoughts like I did below on what I think is happening on the right.
"I’m confident that there are more cogent arguments than Mike’s out there, if that’s what you’re asking."
I was probably being a bit short and I apologize for that.
You are very right in your confidence.
Put me in coach!!!!
I forget that I've only really spoken with Maribou about this at length and that's on my FB page not here.
Coincidentally, I leave for Hilton Head in the AM. I guess I'll have to check later in the night.
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"What if today’s “edgy” jokes are the one’s that mock insecure white dudes?"
Serious answer.
Go nuts. They deserve it.
I'm a white dude and I'm so secure with myself that it edgy humor was about secure white dudes, I wouldn't care.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.