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I've been trying to figure out why this topic in particular triggers exceptionally passionate discussion on HN.

I have some pet theories, but they're really speculative, and I'm not very confident in them.

I have the feeling that this movement has the potential of destroying our public discourse culture, to undermine free thinking and remold our societies to be more unfair, capricious and despotic.

We're seeing the modern equivalents of witch hunts and book burnings.

There's passion, and then there's dirty fighting. Name calling and dismissiveness. A veritable army of straw men. Unwillingness to even attempt to understand an opposing viewpoint.

Let's call that what it is. It ain't "passion."

I don't disagree. But isn't calling anybody who disagrees even slightly with you a racist, or a bigot, or a xenophobe, or a hate monger, or any of a thousand other things, the very height of "unwillingness to even attempt to understand an opposing viewpoint." I don't hear critics of CRT and wokism calling their opponents the most reprehensible and odious names they can imagine. I see plenty of CRT advocates doing just that. Why is this okay?

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