Seriously, would you make excuses like this for a pro-ISIS muslim? A white nationalist? A violent anarchist? An antisemitic holocaust denier?
Believing that one person is less human than the other by the attributes of their birth is not a philosophical discussion like capitalism vs communism.
If witches are actually doing damage, then by all means hunt them.
ISIS? Nazis? They want to destroy the world and make it over in their own image, not be left alone in quiet enjoyment of their kinks. Different things entirely.
(All made more complicated by the fact that Goreanism itself seems to operate on a bizarre multiple-levels-of-fiction basis, but still.)
Did you honestly think it was the latter? Without even considering the less malicious of the two first?
I mean, after Scott Adams and Dave Sim, it wouldn't be shocking to learn that a geek I respected had views that disgusted me.
Do you think that's fair to Larry?
I don't want to give you a hard time, I just wish people were more careful about this kind of thing.
I only have a vague familiarity with the Gorean subculture. The modern subculture seems largely to be an extension of BDSM oriented role-play. The main negative I've heard is that Goreans sometimes take themselves way too seriously, ala a deep Star Wars or Star Trek nerd. I don't think I've ever heard them described as "abusive to women".
Even just adding "Gorean" within the letter would've helped me understand better. In literary circles, the books (after the first couple at least) do not have a great reputation, and they definitely have been criticized as sexist / misogynist (in addition to being simply bad pornographic writing). So it's easier to see how this sort of controversy can pop up.
(I don't know too much in detail about either, the only Gor related media I've seen is a tangentially related film bad enough to make it onto MST3K -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw_of_Gor)
I'm no republican, but I end up being more annoyed by liberals for such blatant doublethink, for being unable to recognize their own actions.
You're arguing with a strawman.
There's an ocean of space between "leftist" and "bigoted" for normal centre and right-wing people who aren't bigots. I'll agree that the social justice community has made a bad habit of throwing around "racist" and "sexist" far too freely, especially in the wake of Trump's election.
But this isn't like that. This is a guy who celebrates sexism. Who has made sexism a cornerstone of his ideology.
It is not hypocritical to be intolerant of intolerance, anymore than it is hypocritical to use violence to stop violence (since that is the entire mechanism of law enforcement).
To put it another way, the leftists will acknowledge that anyone can grow out of stupid ideas (and indeed, there are hopeful stories of bigots changing their tune), while the things the right gets down on people for (being gay, whatever) are things built into the person.
So, I think this is an inaccurate characterization of the left. You're free to be annoyed by whatever annoys you, of course, but this one might merit rethinking.
So while I agree with you - your second statement "annoyed by liberals" should probably be changed to "annoyed by leftists". Liberals and leftists couldn't be more different but are often used interchangeably. Leftists will do what we are talking about. Liberals don't.
So I'll go ahead and agree that there are more than a few liberals out there who seem reasonable to me, and I might even consider myself among them :)
Yes they are. Opposing views (and the people who hold them) are seen as morally inferior. Furthermore, people who hold leftist beliefs defend other people who hold views such as “women are inferior”, or “homosexuality should be punishable by death”, etc.
And I say this is a liberal, left-leaning, pro-multiculturalism individual.
My point is perhaps not entirely relevant to this Drupal guy though.
>Seriously, would you make excuses like this for a pro-ISIS muslim? A white nationalist? A violent anarchist? An antisemitic holocaust denier?
I can only speak for myself but I would tolerate it vehemently. I have more respect for politeness through gritted teeth than indignation, exclusion and marginalization because the former implies real effort and a conscious fight against your innate prejudice. Of course, no prejudice is best but show me the man who doth not judgeth and i will show you a liar.
That's the business of the criminal justice system. If someone is committing criminal acts, then they need to be caught and prosecuted. If they merely hold objectionable views, then it's not my job to try them in the court of public opinion.
If I'm free to persecute people whose beliefs I disagree with, then what right have I to complain if someone starts persecuting me for my beliefs? Witch-hunting and thought-policing is a very slippery slope.
One could be very easily misled into thinking so with comments like "basket of deplorables". And it's not the only or the worst that leftists said about their opponents. One could argue about if it's exactly "half of the population" or merely 37%, but the idea of un-acceptance and plain old hate is definitely there. And occasionally spills out into violence, as we have seen lately.
> Believing that one person is less human than the other by the attributes of their birth is not a philosophical discussion like capitalism vs communism.
Communists believe bourgeoise are less human, at least if you look how they treated them whereever they got to win. Including kids, of course. In fact, in the USSR having ancestors of a wrong class (not "worker class") was a permanent stain on one's CV for a quite long time. Not sure about other communist/socialist countries but don't think they were more moderate.
> If witches are actually doing damage, then by all means hunt them.
Except beliefs don't do damage. Actions do. And in this case literally nobody was able to name any harmful action that ever happened. Unless "I got my feelings hurt knowing you think wrongthoughts" is counted as harm, which it is not.
Even if you could, that was a comment from a center-right neoliberal about the supporters of a far right authoritarian, and didn't involve leftists in any capacity.
> Communists believe bourgeoise are less human, at least if you look how they treated them whereever they got to win.
The bourgeoisie are a narrow elite, particularly so (compared to, e.g., the developed West and economies which met the criteria for moving on from capitalism to socialism in the Marxist model of Communism) in places where Leninist vanguardism established regimes, not half of the population. And, in any case, Leninist vanguardism isn't representative of leftism, in much the same way Dominionism isn't representative of Christianity. (Or, for that matter, the same way that Leninist vanguardism isn't representative of atheism.)
Ah, I know, no true Scottsman!
> not half of the population.
Well, I don't know if any regime managed to kill literally half of the affected population, but certainly Stalin and Pol Pot could be seen as a viable contenders. Not forgetting the wonders of Cultural Revolution of course. If some movement hold the championship in dehumanising the opponents, it's certainly ones that created Gulag, killing fields, Great Leap Forward, and other similar wonders. All no true Scottsmen of course. And we should not forget one National Socialist Worker Party, which despite the name also definitely has nothing to do with socialism and such.
> And, in any case, Leninist vanguardism isn't representative of leftism
But of course. How did I know?
> the same way that Leninist vanguardism isn't representative of atheism.
Atheist ideas were not central to the bolsheviks' worldview - while totalitarian ideology they followed left no place for Christianity or any other old religion, they were perfectly fine creating new one, with their own saints, holidays, prayers, rituals and churches. They were against God only because The Party leaves no space for God on the top in their ideology. But leftist socialist ideology was the backbone of their worldview. Of course, now, that disastrous results of this ideology is in full view, modern leftists show wonders of creativity to prove that nobody who ever tried to build a society based on leftist principles was actually adherent of these principles. These effort are nothing but laughable, but some people do it again and again.
Thank you for confirming my point: there are people who believe McCarthy was wrong only because he picked the wrong targets. If he had picked other targets, the resulting witch hunts would have been acceptable.
"Actually doing damage" is a fairly good discriminator, imho.
And obviously, no single person holding the digital pitchforks would ever think of themselves doing the same thing as a superstitious peasant a couple hundred years ago.
Is there something productive anyone could do in this regard? I would guess in the most cases, the trenches are almost instantly dug way too deep for a sensible discussion...
[1]: To resort to an example Jon Ronson talked about in various talks. Well worth a Google query.
if we really thought that there were people who had sold
themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers
Assuming, of course, one has an objective way to determine when damage has been done. It's perhaps possible that this isn't always as easy as it sounds.