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by cosmiccartel 2963 days ago
> Identity politics flying the flag of "free thought, only so long as you reject the mainstream and the left" still seems to me to be identity politics.

The rebuke here is aimed at the left's hostility to dissenting political opinions, not against the left's political opinions as such. That's the distinction.
1 comments
krapp 2962 days ago
>The rebuke here is aimed at the left's hostility to dissenting political opinions, not against the left's political opinions as such.

And yet that rebuke being aimed only at "the left" seems to imply that hostility is endemic to leftist political opinion, intended or not. Otherwise why mention the left at all? There is plenty of hostility and intransigence among the right as well... and among "anti-establishment" thinkers.

Rejection of the mainstream as an ideology just leads to the acceptance of an alternative mainstream and alternative orthodoxy. There is no true "free" thought, everyone is bound to some framework of prejudice and bias.

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cosmiccartel 2962 days ago
It is presently endemic among the left rather than the right. That doesn't mean it's intrinsically related to the other ideas associated with the left.

> Rejection of the mainstream as an ideology just leads to the acceptance of an alternative mainstream and alternative orthodoxy. There is no true "free" thought, everyone is bound to some framework of prejudice and bias.

I agree, but that's not relevant.

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glenra 2962 days ago
> And yet that rebuke being aimed only at "the left" seems to imply that hostility is endemic to leftist political opinion, intended or not. Otherwise why mention the left at all?

Not all of "the left" is hostile in this particular way, but virtually all of those who are hostile in this way are of "the left".

If you disagree with that assessment, can you think of any examples of a left-wing speaker being prevented from speaking (and the audience being prevented from hearing them speak) by a violent unruly mob of right-wing protestors?

I'm looking for a polarity-reversed equivalent of the sort of reaction Charles Murray and his host got when he tries to talk on campus. Does that ever happen? (link: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/middleb... )

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