100% of the damage in DC was from Antifa disguised as Trump supporters. The DC police let the true MAGA folks into the capital AFTER Antifa charged through and broke windows and doors. That DC cop that dies was beat by Antifa supporters and Trump people tried to intervene and stop it and rendered first aid.
There is extremism on the left. Much of it is based on idea laundering through academia, such as with Critical Theories. Even many on the left, know this: https://youtu.be/rSHL-rSMIro
It's funny, Ed. You didn't really engage with the article or its argument, choosing instead to grind an axe on a topic that I'm sure was personally painful, but has nothing to do with the topic of this essay.
And yet! Despite not engaging, you've helped prove Joan's argument -- that when we don't take care to differentiate between things that are clearly different on the left and right, we leave ourselves open to taking things that are qualitatively worlds apart -- say, pronoun use on the left vs last week's insurrection at our nation's Capitol by the right -- and incorrectly making them appear equivalent by placing them both under the banner of "extremism."
Joan's article is not about extremism on the left, which is the initial point I was making. I'm also not making a false equivalence. At the level of implementation, right-wing extremism is a far more immediate danger. The main dangers from extremism on the left is their 1) Demand for ideological purity, their illiberal, anti-democratic and even puritanical censoring and cancel culture enacted towards nuance or dissension. Any disagreement is quickly labeled racist, trans-phobic, alt-right, white privilege, misogynistic etc. Shaming, work and public environment of fear and suspicion, cancelling ensues. Protecting and politicizing feelings and equating them with human rights. 2) Disconnect from, dismissal of and dehumanizing view of half of America, especially of conservatives and white males. (BTW The right knows a lot more about what is going on with the left than the incurious know-it-all left knows about the right.) 3) The religious-like elevation of 'identities' of 'oppressed' groups into sacrosanct idols. Now the left agrees with the KKK that skin color is an identity. Common humanness (i.e. MLK and Gandhi)...now relegated to the trash bin of history. 4) Sees nothing but the bad in people and in Western civilization. Have No common vision for bringing the country together. 5) Enabling academic and political corruption through titles, elitism and political correctness.
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” ― Eric Hoffer.
Both the extreme left and the extreme right are rackets. In this they have a lot in common.
Ed, you might want to check out my journal article about how fear of Critical Theory was manufactured as an antisemitic conspiracy theory to update the Nazis' "Judeo-Bolshevism" conspiracy theory: http://transformativestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/Joan-Braune.pdf. Whipping up fear of Critical Theory also plays into Trump's attack on Critical Race Theory through which he is attempting to silence activist leaders and scholars of color.
I consider myself a progressive (i.e. I support Bernie Sanders) and I volunteered in the Spokane Democratic party office for over 4 years until the cancel culture ran me out for disagreeing about adding genders and gender pronouns for internally felt identifications of gender expression and making it clear that use of such pronouns will be mandatory.
One duty of politics is to protect people's rights. It is NOT the job of politics to protect their feelings. When feelings and identities become the ground for politics, as we see with the Trump mob in D.C., and with the political correctness / cancel culture of the "woke" left we have surely lost our way into an emotionally entangled morass.
Your paper deals primarily with conservative movements of thought and extremism. The critical presentation I linked about Critical Theories is from someone on the left.
Did you watch it?
Critiques on the left are the ones you should be most interested in since they should be considered allies in checking the validity of the research and findings done in the areas of culture, race and gender. A more thorough examination and critique from the left can be found in the book: Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose.
Hey! I also supported Bernie. One of the things I liked about him was his clear, unequivocal support of a non-binary classification on federal forms and his long history of support for trans rights as part of a universal, rational, coherent and life-long project of emancipatory politics he summed up beautifully as "Everything that I’m talking about is trying to create a non-discriminatory society.“
Thanks for reminding me how much I like Bernie, Ed!
In no universe is James Lindsay a leftist. My research specialization is in critical theory, and I have published two books on critical theory and numerous other papers. I engage with serious academic critiques, but unless I’m doing a research project on right-wing attacks on critical theory, I don’t have much patience for listening to reactionary youtubers like Lindsay explain my field to me.
I am familiar with your falling out with the Spokane Dems. Refusing to refer to someone by their pronouns does harm. It was unkind and unprofessional of you.
I do think feelings matter in politics. I would like to see a world with less suffering, including less emotional suffering and trauma. That’s a political project.
BTW I just realized that the creation and mandatory use of pronouns based on individually self-determined criteria is more akin to the giving of titles than normal grammatical use of pronouns, i.e. titles that need to be remembered per individual, such as Reverend, Prof., Dr., Esquire etc. In other words, this change in pronoun meaning and use is about giving special recognition, status and attention to certain people in everyday situations...just because they want it.
I see. Thanks for showing your unwillingness to listen to well-reasoned, well educated academics and fact based narratives just because they don't comport with your ensconced views. And we wonder why the left, especially the academic left, get called 'elitists' and have alienated so much of the country.....
BTW my objection to changing the meaning and use of pronouns has nothing to do with showing disrespect to anyone. I have no problem with gay/transgender people being who they are. I do have a problem with being told that I have to inquire into such and remember anyone's internally felt but otherwise indiscernible and often mutable gender expressions and self selected pronouns, as if that is any of my business or would have anything to do with my interaction with them as a person.
Pronouns serve two purposes: 1) The casual indicator of a person by their apparent gender, male or female. 2) The biological sex of the person for medical, legal and other purposes, i.e. clothing fit, etc. Neither of these purpose have anything to do with a person's internally felt identity. To make it so changes the meaning and use of pronouns entirely.
Having run into this major change in the meaning and use of a very fundamental part of the English language, and having received such charged vitriol for disagreeing with it, I came to realize that this change is much more of a politicized linguistic manipulation that's being pushed into the English language, that it is a type of power grab under the guise of 'equality' and protecting 'feelings'. If it was truly about equity the change would have gone in the opposite direction by creating a pronoun to NOT revealing distinctions of gender (a pronoun for 'this person' or 'that person'). This would be similar to when the term Ms. came into use to NOT real a woman's marital status.
Instead, the movement is to give people with innumerable distinctions and identities special legal and social status. Its really a kind of narcissism to turn all of these differences into identities. Why not do the same with whether or not one has an innie or outie bellybutton? This has nothing to do with equal rights but everything to do with creating special rights.
100% of the damage in DC was from Antifa disguised as Trump supporters. The DC police let the true MAGA folks into the capital AFTER Antifa charged through and broke windows and doors. That DC cop that dies was beat by Antifa supporters and Trump people tried to intervene and stop it and rendered first aid.
"wrong" - Donald J Trump
Would comment here Jake but I think Jo summed it up.
Such nonsense.
There is extremism on the left. Much of it is based on idea laundering through academia, such as with Critical Theories. Even many on the left, know this: https://youtu.be/rSHL-rSMIro
It's funny, Ed. You didn't really engage with the article or its argument, choosing instead to grind an axe on a topic that I'm sure was personally painful, but has nothing to do with the topic of this essay.
And yet! Despite not engaging, you've helped prove Joan's argument -- that when we don't take care to differentiate between things that are clearly different on the left and right, we leave ourselves open to taking things that are qualitatively worlds apart -- say, pronoun use on the left vs last week's insurrection at our nation's Capitol by the right -- and incorrectly making them appear equivalent by placing them both under the banner of "extremism."
It's really, really nice work, actually. Thanks.
Joan's article is not about extremism on the left, which is the initial point I was making. I'm also not making a false equivalence. At the level of implementation, right-wing extremism is a far more immediate danger. The main dangers from extremism on the left is their 1) Demand for ideological purity, their illiberal, anti-democratic and even puritanical censoring and cancel culture enacted towards nuance or dissension. Any disagreement is quickly labeled racist, trans-phobic, alt-right, white privilege, misogynistic etc. Shaming, work and public environment of fear and suspicion, cancelling ensues. Protecting and politicizing feelings and equating them with human rights. 2) Disconnect from, dismissal of and dehumanizing view of half of America, especially of conservatives and white males. (BTW The right knows a lot more about what is going on with the left than the incurious know-it-all left knows about the right.) 3) The religious-like elevation of 'identities' of 'oppressed' groups into sacrosanct idols. Now the left agrees with the KKK that skin color is an identity. Common humanness (i.e. MLK and Gandhi)...now relegated to the trash bin of history. 4) Sees nothing but the bad in people and in Western civilization. Have No common vision for bringing the country together. 5) Enabling academic and political corruption through titles, elitism and political correctness.
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” ― Eric Hoffer.
Both the extreme left and the extreme right are rackets. In this they have a lot in common.
Ed, you might want to check out my journal article about how fear of Critical Theory was manufactured as an antisemitic conspiracy theory to update the Nazis' "Judeo-Bolshevism" conspiracy theory: http://transformativestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/Joan-Braune.pdf. Whipping up fear of Critical Theory also plays into Trump's attack on Critical Race Theory through which he is attempting to silence activist leaders and scholars of color.
I consider myself a progressive (i.e. I support Bernie Sanders) and I volunteered in the Spokane Democratic party office for over 4 years until the cancel culture ran me out for disagreeing about adding genders and gender pronouns for internally felt identifications of gender expression and making it clear that use of such pronouns will be mandatory.
One duty of politics is to protect people's rights. It is NOT the job of politics to protect their feelings. When feelings and identities become the ground for politics, as we see with the Trump mob in D.C., and with the political correctness / cancel culture of the "woke" left we have surely lost our way into an emotionally entangled morass.
Your paper deals primarily with conservative movements of thought and extremism. The critical presentation I linked about Critical Theories is from someone on the left.
Did you watch it?
Critiques on the left are the ones you should be most interested in since they should be considered allies in checking the validity of the research and findings done in the areas of culture, race and gender. A more thorough examination and critique from the left can be found in the book: Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose.
Please watch this short 6 minute video: https://youtu.be/kVk9a5Jcd1k
Hey! I also supported Bernie. One of the things I liked about him was his clear, unequivocal support of a non-binary classification on federal forms and his long history of support for trans rights as part of a universal, rational, coherent and life-long project of emancipatory politics he summed up beautifully as "Everything that I’m talking about is trying to create a non-discriminatory society.“
Thanks for reminding me how much I like Bernie, Ed!
https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-says-non-binary-rights-5/
In no universe is James Lindsay a leftist. My research specialization is in critical theory, and I have published two books on critical theory and numerous other papers. I engage with serious academic critiques, but unless I’m doing a research project on right-wing attacks on critical theory, I don’t have much patience for listening to reactionary youtubers like Lindsay explain my field to me.
I am familiar with your falling out with the Spokane Dems. Refusing to refer to someone by their pronouns does harm. It was unkind and unprofessional of you.
I do think feelings matter in politics. I would like to see a world with less suffering, including less emotional suffering and trauma. That’s a political project.
BTW I just realized that the creation and mandatory use of pronouns based on individually self-determined criteria is more akin to the giving of titles than normal grammatical use of pronouns, i.e. titles that need to be remembered per individual, such as Reverend, Prof., Dr., Esquire etc. In other words, this change in pronoun meaning and use is about giving special recognition, status and attention to certain people in everyday situations...just because they want it.
I see. Thanks for showing your unwillingness to listen to well-reasoned, well educated academics and fact based narratives just because they don't comport with your ensconced views. And we wonder why the left, especially the academic left, get called 'elitists' and have alienated so much of the country.....
BTW my objection to changing the meaning and use of pronouns has nothing to do with showing disrespect to anyone. I have no problem with gay/transgender people being who they are. I do have a problem with being told that I have to inquire into such and remember anyone's internally felt but otherwise indiscernible and often mutable gender expressions and self selected pronouns, as if that is any of my business or would have anything to do with my interaction with them as a person.
Pronouns serve two purposes: 1) The casual indicator of a person by their apparent gender, male or female. 2) The biological sex of the person for medical, legal and other purposes, i.e. clothing fit, etc. Neither of these purpose have anything to do with a person's internally felt identity. To make it so changes the meaning and use of pronouns entirely.
Having run into this major change in the meaning and use of a very fundamental part of the English language, and having received such charged vitriol for disagreeing with it, I came to realize that this change is much more of a politicized linguistic manipulation that's being pushed into the English language, that it is a type of power grab under the guise of 'equality' and protecting 'feelings'. If it was truly about equity the change would have gone in the opposite direction by creating a pronoun to NOT revealing distinctions of gender (a pronoun for 'this person' or 'that person'). This would be similar to when the term Ms. came into use to NOT real a woman's marital status.
Instead, the movement is to give people with innumerable distinctions and identities special legal and social status. Its really a kind of narcissism to turn all of these differences into identities. Why not do the same with whether or not one has an innie or outie bellybutton? This has nothing to do with equal rights but everything to do with creating special rights.
"wrong" - Donald J Trump