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Comment by lumberjack | Hacker News Reader

These people act this way because they are elitist. They think they know what should be better than anyone else and therefore there is no need for debate or for rights like free speech.

I find that quite ironic because presumably, these people subscribe to left leaning ideologies. But maybe there isn't so much of a contradiction. They are simply more elitist than they are anything else.

They don't really stand for equality because they do not possess the humbleness to bring themselves to the level of the common person. They believe themselves to be intellectually and morally superior to the common Joe. And yet they want to dupe the common Joe into thinking that they will safeguard his interests while at the same time thinking so poorly of him!

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I think "vanguardist" is a better term than "elitist". "Elitist" connotes a passive enjoyment of privilege, whereas these people see themselves much more as the enlightened few bringing the orthodox[1] to the unwashed masses by any means necessary. They share far more in common with Communists who viewed it as their duty to shepherd the proletariat towards social consciousness than with the Oxbridge set who merely take what's "rightfully" theirs without a second thought.

[1] in the literal, etymological sense

>"Elitist" connotes a passive enjoyment of privilege

Any student on an Ivy League campus is among the most privileged human beings in the world (regardless of where they came from).

Sure. I'm not sure how that addresses the topic at hand, though. We were talking about what drives these kids to behave in the way they do. The GP described their ideology as elitist, whereas I view it more as vanguardist. I'm not sure how these kids' privilege relates to that discussion.

True, but this discussion is being used as a lens for the greater social justice movement, where it would be hard to make the same generality (especially when their uniting quality is that they denounce privilege).

Exactly. The people often complaining about 'privilege' are some of the most privileged individuals out there, yet they don't see that their huge class based advantages kind of make the others a tad moot. But hey, got to complain about the attitudes of those from a worse background, because otherwise they'd have to see their own issues and the holes in their own belief systems.

> among the most privileged human beings in the world

The most elite elitists among American elitists. :-)

> these people subscribe to left leaning ideologies.

Might as well call them extreme-left, which is just as bad as extreme-right and the extreme ideologies that come with it. The left / right spectrum aren't polar opposites either, but it tends to be horseshoe-shaped, so you'll find some ideas that are dangerously close to those on the other side (#KillAll(White)Men is literally calling for ethnic / gender purging. Somehow it's not causing as much as an outrage as #KillAllJews would).

Still recommended reading:

http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians...

The key takeaway isn't so much that the left/right spectrum is a horse shoe, but that in fact there are (at least) two independent axes, and authoritarian attitudes don't necessarily correspond neatly to left/right distinctions.

Although the book spends a lot of time looking at authoritarians on the far right, there's an interesting and useful coda about left wing authoritarians.

I've found it much more useful to ignore the traditional spectrum and look instead at the degree of scorn, hatred, support for social violence and exclusion, and/or support for direct physical violence.

Non-authoritarians don't support harm of others. Even revenge is uncomfortable.

Authoritarians make a point of conspicuous identification with power and authority - however defined - and reliably support verbal, social, emotional, and physical violence.

Self-identified political groupings are much less relevant than tone and behaviour.

I don't think your political leaning has anything to do with being a crybaby who thinks they are entitled to live in a "safe space".

You can easily be an extreme liberal or conservative and still tolerate other views.

This has nothing to do with their politics.

Their argument is demonstrative rather than persuasive (although there is a persuasive component, but they expect interlocutors to be familiar with structuralist theory, which is not unreasonable in an academic setting). I'm not sure this is the most effective way to communicate their ideas, but the frustration and discomfort they are causing to other people is something that they have a lifetime's experience of, which is why they are able to push people's button's so effectively. They are showing people what it feels like to be unexpectedly and unjustly placed into an out-group.

> Their argument is demonstrative rather than persuasive (although there is a persuasive component, but they expect interlocutors to be familiar with structuralist theory, which is not unreasonable in an academic setting).

I think this is spot-on.

> They are showing people what it feels like to be unexpectedly and unjustly placed into an out-group.

But I don't think this is the intent. Rather, the goal is to create a place where the structures they oppose are weaker/nonexistent. A consequence may be that people with privilege are made uncomfortable and/or put in an out-group, and that is fine because as you said this "is something that they have a lifetime's experience of." And that discomfort is even seen positively as a sign that the culture is going in the right direction, but it is just a symptom, not the goal.

The interesting part is not why these people do this, but why they are winning.

Because certain parts of the media have a disturbing attachment to such beliefs (despite their jobs being closely tied to freedom of speech and expression) and these types appealed to their views perfectly. Perhaps because of a certain 'holier than thou' attitude towards the general public.

It might also be because for an authority figure, this sort of thing is a great distraction. It takes the focus away from wealth inequality and corporatism and aims it at other normal people with the 'wrong' opinions.

Just look at this very forum anytime anyone mentions maybe just maybe some self-proclaimed feminists do more harm than good.

This is the most interesting part of the whole phenomenon. I think the answer is that everyone is scared to confront them. The modus operandi of this movement is to personally attack the character of anyone who disagrees with them. They've toppled university presidents, CEOs, and politicians. They got Rolling Stone to publish a completely unsubstantiated article falsely accusing a bunch of young men of a vicious gang rape. No one wants to be next.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals

Wow thank you for this link.

Its interesting to see where these horrible tactics come from.

It certainly frightening to see things like rule 13 “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

This is horrifying to see codified, and what I assume being practiced on purpose, like what those yale students did to their professor, or at least tried too.

Yep once you know "the rules" you can easily analyze all these protests or incidents.

I am strangely relieved that their perception of power is this basic:

“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.

I think they're winning because the overall premise is just correct. Black death and torture is one of the most serious moral issues the U.S. faces today.

There are some people with poor impulse control who get in the news a lot. The opposition promotes the hell out of those people (as we are doing right now) in order to try to discredit the leaders. The fact that the movement is still winning despite the countercampaign is because so many of the other people in the movement are extraordinary, grounded people speaking for truth.

Generational poverty and crime are definitely serious issues, but that's not the movement's "overall premise". The movement's philosophical underpinning is a complete abdication of personal agency and responsibility. They perceive themselves to be part of a powerless and oppressed group (which is false, especially for some of these 'victims' that are Ivy League students with many open doors). To support that, they've built a revisionist narrative of Western civilization, espoused in works like "A People's History of the United States", that centers on oppression of these out-groups and on the evils on capitalism. They have a paranoid sense that everything is an act of oppression, see "microaggressions" and "cultural appropriation". They are hostile to freedom because their goals of changing how individuals relate to each other socially cannot be achieved without coercion.

Freedom is not their goal, the goal is equality of outcome.

You are accurately characterizing a subset of behaviors but I don't think they are characteristic of the movement's day to day operations.

>I think the answer is that everyone is scared to confront them.

Yep. They're winning because people are too afraid to confront them. And people are too afraid to confront them because this is what happens when you confront them...

At Work: They complained to HR that you sexually harass them. You get fired.

As an Administrator at Universities, Schools: They accused you of being racist, and you get fired.

As a Student at Campus: They and their 100 mob of students surround you. They are clearly angry. 100 people. Surrounded you. Angry. Anything goes. You will obviously have to apologize for having a different view than them, if you want to get out of there in one piece.

Online: They accuse you of doxxing them. The mods bans you.

And so on and so on...

Because until recently no one has had the balls to stand up to sjw/radfem kids. What worries me the most is that in the process of fixing this social misalignment the far right could gain ground. Which is replacing one evil with the other...

They're winning because, while their tactics can be terrible, immature, and oppressive, their moral thrust is correct. Most women and minorities do face obstacles in American society--even today--that most white men don't. This is evidenced in a wide variety of population statistics, at confidence levels that would be high enough to make headlines if they were risks in a medical study.

I don't see how getting an administrator, who support a women's right to freedom of speech, freedom of expression (the ability to wear a nurse outfit for Halloween, the ability to wear a Native American outfit for Halloween, since she loves Native Americans). I don't see how getting an administrator, who support a women's right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, fired is going to help women become less oppressed.

Looks like they are winning on university campuses, and there is a counter-movement led by Trump appealing to non-college-educated whites. Many of the people supporting Trump cite "saying things other people aren't willing to say" as their reason for supporting him.

These seem to be the two extremes driving political discourse in the USA right now.

The "Oh My God We Must Punish You for Saying Anything We Suspect of Maybe Possibly Being Construed by Some as Racist/Sexist" crowd, and "I'm Going to Say Racist/Sexist Things Constantly, and You Can't Stop Me" crowd.

Because everybody is too afraid to confront them.

I read a post on reddit the other day that left vs right is really a horse shoe. That the far left and far right are very close to each other. I thought it was fairly intuitive.

So if Common Joe's views on gender can be summarized as "Women should stay in the kitchen", is it elitist to not take that idea seriously? It has nothing to do with people's relative social or intellectual standing, and no one should have to bring themselves down to anyone else's level. Bad ideas are bad ideas, and should be labelled as such.

It's hard to tell if someone making a controversial statement is doing so to learn and participate in discussion, or if they're just trolling. And with ol' Common Joe the latter can be just as likely as the former. So sometimes people err on the side of caution, and prefer to avoid outright controversial topics that are difficult to discuss and articulate. I don't think it's an issue of anyone looking down on anyone else.

I have never seen a single person take the position you a suggesting with any real seriousness, this is a caricature of a real discussion, the problem is who gets to decide on what the current brand of "band ideas" are. At the moment its who ever is the biggest bully.

It depends on whether you don't take that idea seriously because you have thought seriously about whether women should stay in the kitchen and have concluded that they shouldn't, or whether it's just because that's what Common Joe thinks.

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