[tomlockwood]

> not by the one that's been weaponised

Ok, but which authority gets to objectively identify when accusations of racism have been weaponised? How do we distinguish between "weaponised" accusations of racism, and legitimate ones?

[chippy]

This was brought up right at the end in the BBC podcast. The academic said something like "you don't get to distinguish. That accusations were made means that something was done to warrant some reaction". I feel the academic agreed that it could be weaponised but saw that its not possible to distinguish and that there would always be some justification.

The presenter suggested that the solution would be to not believe in the ideology. "The best way to get rid of witchfinders is to get rid of the belief in witches"

[probably_wrong]

> Ok, but which authority gets to objectively identify when accusations of racism have been weaponised?

No one. If there was such an authority, you wouldn't have a "purity spiral" to begin with.

[tomlockwood]

So who gets to identify objectively when a purity spiral exists? Almost all people in a "purity spiral" have the impression they're applying the appropriate amount of "purity".

[circlefavshape]

Are you trying to assert that there is no such thing as a purity spiral because there is no objective definition of one, and no authority that can definitively identify one?

[tomlockwood]

No. I'm trying to decide whether I should trust the people that are in a "purity spiral" who say they're being reasonable, or the people gesticulating at the knitting community and saying there's a purity spiral there because they said so.

Who is more credible? How are we sure which one is?

[circlefavshape]

If it was possible to objectively decide who is more credible then the world would be a much simpler place. You'll have to decide for yourself who to trust

[tomlockwood]

That's honestly a very postmodern view! I think given that the article linked doesn't have any experimental or quantitative basis, I'll choose not to trust it.

[spangry]

There are a number of things you could do. You could look for corroborating accounts. For example (note these are a three part series written by the same person):

https://quillette.com/2019/02/17/a-witch-hunt-on-instagram/

https://quillette.com/2019/06/07/instagrams-diversity-wars-r...

https://quillette.com/2019/07/28/knittings-infinity-war-part...

You could gather and directly examine evidence yourself:

https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/07/2019-my-year-of-col...

https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/07/2019-my-year-of-col...

Ultimately I guess you have to make your own judgement of what kind of ideas and behaviour you deem 'reasonable'. The difficulty, I suppose, is if you yourself are caught up in one of these purity spiralling communities. It's hard to maintain objectivity in such a situation. Delusional people don't know that they're delusional. People caught up in a cult don't think they're in a cult.

I've seen people only come to understand how insane things are when the mob finally turns on them, but by then it's too late to get out unscathed.

[tomlockwood]

> The difficulty, I suppose, is if you yourself are caught up in one of these purity spiralling communities. It's hard to maintain objectivity in such a situation. Delusional people don't know that they're delusional. People caught up in a cult don't think they're in a cult.

Is it possible that some people accuse those who believe Quillette is objective of being caught up in such a community?

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette

It'd seem so. Now who am I to believe? Should I believe Quillette because three different articles corroborate accounts of purity spirals? Or should I believe the editors of this other page when they say Quillette isn't objective.

Should I infer from comments on the internet some social malady that needs a remedy?

Shrug.