[d9h549f34w6]

I for one support Curtis on this issue, but tend not to post here on the subject except under an alternate username. I do this because I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line.

If I were to hazard a guess, I think I'm not alone in this and I think you're not in a minority (or at least a small one). The recent HN stories seem to get a good number of "silent upvotes" before anyone steps into the fray to add a comment.

[tjradcliffe]

> I do in fact fear the "social justice" crowd and their ability to mess with people and their careers when they don't follow the party line

This is something I'd love see SJW's here react to. How do you feel about the fact that you have created a climate of fear amongst people who disagree with you?

Would you prefer convincing them of the correctness of your position, but willing to accept that at least by making them afraid you are helping further your cause?

Or are you concerned you've become the kind of discourse-stiffling monster you set out to defeat?

Or are you proud you've made the priviledged afraid?

Or something else entirely?

Because don't kid yourself: people are increasingly afraid to speak up on these issues because they are genuinely afraid of the consequences to their future employment prospects. Personally, I see that as a shameful situation, antithetical to any reasonable notion of a just society.

[Disclaimer: I've been accused at times of being an SJW, an MRA, a shill for Big Carbon, and quite a few other things besides.]

[protomyth]

"How do you feel about the fact that you have created a climate of fear amongst people who disagree with you?"

I don't think they care or, more specifically, if you fear then you don't think correctly and should shut-up[1]. Its quite a common attitude in movements and has happened many times.

1) or they'll add you to a blacklist to shut you up - the clean modern version of disappearing a person

[d9h549f34w6]

My guess is that they would be happy that they've created that climate of fear. I've noticed a trend among at least some in the "social justice" community that sees progress happening in terms of suppressing bad actions/speech until those who remember it die off. A lot of believing that the way forward is to akin to waiting for the "old racist generation" to die.

[sdfghjkl34567]

Responding under a throwaway.

I've been involved in anti-racist/anti-fascist work, either directly or on the periphery, for about ten years at this point. This takes many forms, from street confrontations with fascists, protests at book readings and other events, and also disrupting fascist conferences and similar.

Anti-Racist Action is the organization that has developed the most tactical and strategic influence in this space, not by design, but by chance (and it largely doesn't exist anymore). Disrupting fascist meetings by denying them space by getting hotels to drop them is the bread and butter of any ARA chapter. It's the easiest thing to do, and most modern tumblerites aren't willing to get in the streets with a bandanna and a baseball bat, so it's what gets done now. And in fact, it's likely that this sort of thing happens because ARA activists got involved in more liberal groups, etc., and the tactics just trickled down.

Personally, I have developed political differences with the "SJW" orthodoxy myself (though obviously in the other direction), and have seen the effects of this sort of attack applied on a social level. It has made my own work slightly more difficult, because I have to pick my comrades more carefully to ensure that they won't alienate me from my network. But this isn't a big deal for leftists, because there are already so many camps that are mutually oppositional that you'd need to do that already for some of your politics anyway. What's new in the last few years is having that extend away from your class alignment. (This is an answer to a question you didn't really ask, which is how the "SJW" community itself is affected by this, though it is what came to mind when I asked myself how I felt about it.)

As far as this issue and other similar issues are concerned, I'm overjoyed that, as you put it, a climate of fear exists for fascists, misogynists, racists, and similar. I hope that this continues and only worsens for these people.

I'm happy for many reasons. The first is that it has, as you've said, made privileged people afraid. I think this is only the beginning. Privilege creates safety, and as it is removed, I think the unsafety of the oppressed will in part come to the currently privileged classes. But if I could flip a switch and make every man feel the persistent, gnawing fear that a woman has of men, I would in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even consider whether the consequences were strategic, I would just do it.

I'm also happy that these people are achieving real victories. This is nearly impossible to do in a post-reformist landscape, and so the people involved in getting this fascist kicked out of this conference will have a real victory under their belt where their friends who are campaigning against some law that will inevitably pass or for some reform that will inevitably never happen won't. I hope that these victories can motivate people into taking more action. Burnout is a huge problem in activism and successes stave it off.

I would not say that I set out to defeat a "discourse-stifling" monster. The monsters I set out to defeat were patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy. These systems violently oppress, they don't "stifle discourse." In fact, they LOVE discourse! When people are discoursing, they aren't in the streets. I've seen so many promising movements hobbled by reformism that I'm glad the possibility no longer exists, though that isn't at all the fault of SJW-outrage (and is rather a consequence of the fact that the economy is in large part so perilous that nobody can afford the concessions that were previously won by reformists). So if discourse is permanently removed as a tactical and strategic option for future leftists, I'll consider it a victory.

You might be unsurprised to find out that free speech is not valued on the left or among "SJW" groups. I suggest you research this further, because I can't communicate to you in a single hacker news comment why this is, or what theoretical basis it has.

[mindslight]

> But if I could flip a switch and make every man feel the persistent, gnawing fear that a woman has of men, I would in a heartbeat.

Would it not be better to work towards nobody feeling such fear?

> I'm also happy that these people are achieving real victories ... their friends ... are campaigning against some law that will inevitably pass

Once again championing (any) change itself over sane outcomes. Oppressive laws and the march of the machine are inevitable, so let's just fight each other?

Your comment is a poignant example of everything gone wrong with the "progressive" mentality. Thank you for being candid though.

[sdfghjkl34567]

>Would it not be better to work towards nobody feeling such fear?

But that isn't the hypothetical. Do you understand the concept?

Certainly if I had a faeries & unicorns switch I'd hit that as well, but we don't always have the options we'd like.

In the meantime, if it's possible to make fascist programmers afraid for their careers, that's great for me. It means fascist movements are disrupted before they can even form. God knows leftists have been afraid for long enough.

[mindslight]

You came up with that specific hypothetical and it inherently carries your framework. It is set up as a zero sum interaction where everyone needs to be brought down rather than lifted up. But fighting injustice with more injustice is a race to the bottom.

By your usage, I presume you're using definition #1 of http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascist even though you are not capitalizing it. If it is possible to make Fascist programmers afraid for their careers, then Fascists cannot possibly wield much power.

On the other hand, the results of mob justice look an awful lot like a distributed implementation of fascism definition #2 - how is it not appropriate to describe, for example, a summary firing for political views as such?

[sdfghjkl34567]

Dictionaries are descriptions, not proscriptions, of words. I'm not "using" any definition of fascism other than the one I've built up in my own mind based on my own lived experiences. I'm not going to be questioned on a dictionary.

It is true that all exercises of political power are at the end of the day coercive. My personal take on this is to minimize political power, but to do this takes a specific social arrangement that doesn't exist in the present day.

The hypothetical I came up with is one where it's easier to attack an existing system than to create new and liberatory systems. This is the same as reality. It is much, much easier to get a fascist talk removed from a conference than it would be to get everyone at that conference to come to an appropriate understanding of feminist and anti-racist thought and praxis. There are certainly people involved in education, propaganda, and outreach, but this is by nature a much slower process and one that will not bear fruit in any reasonable time span. It is certainly not fast enough to counteract things like fascists at conferences, so we shut down the fascists.

I also obviously disagree as to whether denying a fascist the ability to spread fascism is injustice, or more broadly, whether attacking the oppressor classes and limiting their ability to oppress is somehow unjust. But then, I also care much less about any concept of "justice." Certainly the world is not a just place, and I question whether the concept of justice as communicated by oppressor classes is something we need to bring with us into the future.

Finally

>distributed implementation of fascism

Do you notice the contradiction?

[anon_adderlan]

> In the meantime, if it's possible to make fascist programmers afraid for their careers, that's great for me. It means fascist movements are disrupted before they can even form. God knows leftists have been afraid for long enough.

Disrupting fascist movements sounds like a great idea, but is that really your intent?

> But if I could flip a switch and make every man feel the persistent, gnawing fear that a woman has of men, I would in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even consider whether the consequences were strategic, I would just do it.

Because it seems your intent is to make others as afraid as you are regardless of the consequences. Unless it's not, in which case things would probably be a lot more clear if you stopped flip flopping and refusing to define the words you use.

[almaIV]

"Would it not be better to work towards nobody feeling such fear?"

When you ask questions like this, you give the respondent authority, because it is worded in a way that gives the possibility that the respondent might say something intelligent in response.

There is no such possibility here.

[TheCartographer]

>You might be unsurprised to find out that free speech is not valued on the left or among "SJW" groups. I suggest you research this further, because I can't communicate to you in a single hacker news comment why this is, or what theoretical basis it has.

Who needs theory? Practicality tells all.

Extreme ideologies don't value free speech, because free speech allows the unwashed masses to communicate to each other just how ridiculous they think your ideology is. This is true regardless of where an ideology falls on the oversimplistic "right-left" spectrum: North Korea, Fascist Italy, Communist Russia, Oligarchical-Capitalist Russia, Cambodia, North Vietnam, Burma, Communist China, pretty much the entire Middle East, etc. The list goes on and on and on.

Suppress free speech and criminalize dissident thoughts, and you establish a social basis for staying in power - for the good of the people, of course.

It's unsurprising that extreme ideological adherents are always united in at least one common idea, regardless of the actual content of the ideology they are espousing: the belief that people themselves don't know what is best for their own interests and must be closely watched and shepherded (and culled) if they fall into an annoying habit of thinking on their own.

[sdfghjkl34567]

I'm sure you've studied these political ideologies extensively (though my political ideology is pretty obviously very far from the ones you've listed). But it doesn't seem like you've ever questioned the sacred cow that is free speech to you.

I would give you some discussion questions, but I'm sure you'll never, ever move past this roadblock, so I won't feed the trolls.

[TheCartographer]

No trolling here. I'm a staunch believer in free speech, no matter how distasteful.

Not because it is a sacred cow, but because I believe the benefits to free speech far outweigh any drawbacks. (For largely the same reasons, I support open data in government to an much further extent than I think most people would.)

Out of curiostity, Mr Throwaway, what -ism do you use to identity your personal ideology?

[instantgator]

>North Korea, Fascist Italy, Communist Russia, Oligarchical-Capitalist Russia, Cambodia, North Vietnam, Burma, Communist China, pretty much the entire Middle East, etc.

>though my political ideology is pretty obviously very far from the ones you've listed

That is very arguable and not obvious at all.

[tjradcliffe]

Thanks for the forthright reply!

I've been involved in political activism of one kind or other for decades, mostly in ways that are opposed to your ideals, so I'm not one tiny bit surprised to find a lefty who is opposed to free speech, nor am I unfamiliar with the "theoretical basis" for such abhorent positions.

I wanted to cast as broad a net as possible in my question, as I know how eclectic the left is: the two major Communist parties in my country spent most of their political capital fighting each other while the mainstream drifted gently, and rather too far, to the right.

Your myopia, anger and hatred are unfortunately true to the rightwingnutjob's caricature of anyone interested in building a just society, which makes the job of sane social reformers more difficult. Just so you know (yeah, I know, we're you're enemies too... and it's important to have a comprehensive enemies list, isn't it?)

And while on the one hand I can take heart in the knowledge that you'll never get close to achieving your goals, I'm also saddened that you will spread so much toxicity into your environment on your way to ultimate failure. The world needs more love, not more hate, or more fear.

[sdfghjkl34567]

Yes, communism is certainly a dead horse these days. It's a little disappointing to me, but then I was never an electoralist and would never have taken either of those parties seriously. It's a little hilarious to read "I know how eclectic the left is: there were TWO communist parties in my country!" I suggest you research the left a little more, specifically the libertarian (in the original sense) left.

If you have a specific idea at all about how the world should be better, the people who oppose that are certainly not your friends. I think you're mistaking vision for myopia, dedication for anger, and pragmatism for hatred... but then you certainly hate me more than I hate you.

I'm probably just as unsure as you about whether I'll achieve my goals, but I have to try, because to do anything less would be a betrayal of all of humanity. I believe everyone is responsible for their actions, and so if I'm to be responsible I have to act somehow.

It's very easy to say that "the world needs more love," but love doesn't break bricks, as the saying goes. I doubt your own activism is limited to "love"; you probably do things that are intended to make reality assume some objective state. In doing that, you are preventing your opponents from forcing the world into their preferred state. This is no different from opposing free speech. I just have a more complete vision of the world that I want, and it doesn't include Mein Kampf or Birth of a Nation or hacker news's casual misogyny and racism.

[cactusface]

> But if I could flip a switch and make every man feel the persistent, gnawing fear that a woman has of men, I would in a heartbeat.

There's not much point in railing against racists / sexists / etc. if you're going to make equally condescending generalizations about the victims you're trying to save.

[almaIV]

"most modern tumblerites aren't willing to get in the streets with a bandanna and a baseball bat"

Probably because this is a really stupid course of action to begin with, independent of tumblr.

Using baseball bats to reinforce your political views seems like a great idea until your opponents show up with guns. Which means you, now, have to show up with guns, and so on, until you're a full-on terrorist group.

Well, that and you risk going to jail for assault with a deadly weapon, and you don't want to be in the same cell with someone from the Aryan Brotherhood when they find out your reason for jailtime was assaulting white power groups.

[hga]

Using baseball bats to reinforce your political views seems like a great idea until your opponents show up with guns.

I have to wonder if this dangerous person lives in the US, or at least the true US, the 2/3rds of which allow concealed carry. I marvel at how the National Socialist Movement and some "White Nationalists" thought it wise to meet in New Jersey and Illinois, respectively, where and when it was illegal to carry concealed (not groups of smart people, it would seem :-). Hmmmm, for that matter, Ohio is in one way the worst state in the union for self-defense, because the burden of proof is on the person claiming it. (These incidents mentioned at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Racist_Action)

Try that shit in the state of Missouri where Strange Loop is meeting and you'll very possibly get legally shot. Counterwise the Nazis were greatly aided by prior Weimar efforts at gun control, which they of course reinforced once they started getting formal power.

In fact, all these actions by the left in the US strike me as extremely unwise, for in the many possibilities of "this will not end well", those of a very well armed population putting paid to their pretensions should be quite prominent in their minds.

[sdfghjkl34567]

Do you think that white nationalists don't take guns to their protests and marches? Do you think when the KKK meets, they're unarmed?

It's hilarious to me that you seem to think leftists could set off an arms race.

Also, what do you think the black panthers, weather underground, etc., were?

[almaIV]

Were? The black panthers still exist. They have nothing to do with people calling themselves "anti-fascist" though.

"Do you think that white nationalists don't take guns to their protests and marches?"

I think the kind of person who talks about carrying around baseball bats isn't going to go to these marches.

What you think is hilarious is on you and your weird sense of humor. If you go to a meeting with baseball bats, eventually, the people you're disrupting are going to bring weapons stronger than baseball bats.

[hga]

Hmmm, I wasn't thinking of sdfghjkl34567 and company as cowards, but now that you mention the possibility, maybe it isn't a coincidence that the calm events (not protests and marches) they brought baseball bats (and hammers) to in the US, at least per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Racist_Action#History were in states where their targets couldn't legally carry guns. It would be interesting to check with Google to see if their targets meet elsewhere relatively unmolested.

[sdfghjkl34567]

The "new" black panthers exist, but as a former actual black panther I know says, I don't see their breakfast programs.

Antifa did and do routinely disrupt fascist actions with physical force and frequently got (and get) shot for it. Sometimes the antifa are the ones doing the shooting.

But most of the time the antifa are hilariously underarmed compared to the (as you've pointed out) very well armed rightists and it's a combination of bravado and stupidity that they take the actions they do. The KKK, neo nazis, etc., have all had weapons stronger than baseball bats for a while. There's no "eventually." Do you understand what I'm saying?

[hga]

But venues for anti-fascist violence most certainly include "protests at book readings and other events, and also disrupting fascist conferences and similar", or so you seem to be saying, and most certainly per history in the US (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Racist_Action#History). But as I noted elsewhere, the non-protest/march incidents happened in viciously anti-gun states (although that's no longer true for Illinois), where those using guns to defend themselves from hammers and baseball bats would have gone to jail as well.

Plus, if what you say was true, can you point to some incidents where your side actually, you know, got shot for their troubles? I mean your violent side, not the pre-Black Power civil rights period of this.

[blackbagboys]

Thank you for confirming my suspicion that if you scratch the surface, all political extremists are motivated by the same all-consuming, destructive nihilism.

[saryant]

That one clearly does, hence the throwaway.

(edit: parent edited post, this no longer makes sense. Original was about revolutionaries never expecting the guillotine to fall on their own neck)

[sdfghjkl34567]

Yeah, that wouldn't make very much sense. Far more revolutionaries have been on the guillotine than behind it.

[tjradcliffe]

Mostly put there by their fellow-revolutionaries.

[duncan_bayne]

This has to be a false flag. Surely?

"But if I could flip a switch and make every man feel the persistent, gnawing fear that a woman has of men, I would in a heartbeat."

If that's intentional parody, it's brilliant. If not, I guess there's always therapy.

[hga]

No, there really are people out there like that. If you haven't run into one before, you should perhaps consider yourself fortunate, but then again that perhaps limits your view of how evil people can be, especially at the "gut" level, the level that's best at motivating actions or at least preparations.

[defen]

Ted Kaczynski was wrong about a lot of things, but reading this I can't help but think he was correct in his diagnosis of the ills of modern leftism (power process, feelings of inferiority, oversocialization)

[convexfunction]

So you think that being scared is evidence of fascism, misogyny, racism, or similar? No legitimate reasons to think what's happening is terrifying?

How terrifying.

[eli_gottlieb]

>You might be unsurprised to find out that free speech is not valued on the left or among "SJW" groups. I suggest you research this further, because I can't communicate to you in a single hacker news comment why this is, or what theoretical basis it has.

Communist here. Fuck you: of course we care about free speech.

[anon_adderlan]

> I'm overjoyed that, as you put it, a climate of fear exists for fascists, misogynists, racists, and similar. I hope that this continues and only worsens for these people.

That 'climate of fear' also exists for those people who don't fall into such cleanly vilifiable categories, and yet occasionally engage in language and behavior that could be categorized as such, often unknowingly because those definitions seem to depend on contexts they cannot determine, have different meanings for each individual, and are rapidly being expanded to encompass broader categories of thought and behavior.

> I'm happy for many reasons. The first is that it has, as you've said, made privileged people afraid. I think this is only the beginning. Privilege creates safety, and as it is removed, I think the unsafety of the oppressed will in part come to the currently privileged classes. But if I could flip a switch and make every man feel the persistent, gnawing fear that a woman has of men, I would in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even consider whether the consequences were strategic, I would just do it.

One thing I've noticed about the fearful is that they tend to resent the fearless, and want everyone to live under the same fears they do. It's a very primal thing, as people who fear the same things are part of the same tribe. These fears are not used to achieve anything strategic, but to define the very culture members exist in, and so are vigorously spread and defended regardless of any practical value they may have. In such a culture you will never get beyond that fear. You can see this most readily in religious sects, but many political movements are little other than that.

And regardless of the 'harm' fear prevents, it is still the antithesis of knowledge, and a society ruled by fear cannot be ruled by knowledge. In such a society knowledge itself is a threat, and the only people willing to discuss controversial ideas will either be the ones courageous enough to question or hateful enough not to care. The fearful of course will not be able to tell the difference.

Personally, that is not a price I am willing to pay for a 'safe' society. That doesn't mean such a system is right or wrong, only that it doesn't align with my values. But regardless of differing values, it still troubles me that anyone would take such joy in other people's fear and unsafety, and I don't think any good can come of that.

> So if discourse is permanently removed as a tactical and strategic option for future leftists, I'll consider it a victory.

And yet here you are, using a throwaway account to engage in tactically and strategically driven discourse.

[a8da6b0c91d]

> fascist

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[sdfghjkl34567]

Why is this not gray? I thought hacker news was above memes.

[Sacho]

Personally, I also don't understand what definition of fascism you are using(and another person call you out on it earlier...). Defining it as "the one I've built up in my mind" pretty much means it's noise to me, since it does not carry any information(I have no idea what kind of definition you've built up in your mind).

[sdfghjkl34567]

It is not possible for anyone to understand what definition of any word anyone is using. Regardless of dictionaries human concepts are organic and subjective and very difficult to communicate. The entirety of human art is based on this concept. If you can see only noise there perhaps you have subsisted on a barren rule-based if-then existence a little too long.

[venomsnake]

Because it is more coherent than your posts.

[anon_adderlan]

Perhaps because it's making a good point in addition to being clever.

Why is it important to you that it be gray? Why are you implying that the status of Hacker News is affected by this?

[sudioStudio64]

I would say that depending on the area and subject there is also a "freedom justice" crowd that can be just as crazy and groupthink-ish.

I also find myself not posting sometimes because of repercussions at a later date....not too often, but you know...