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It’s the typical problem of judging past people by todays standards. If Webb had been some kind of exceptional raging bigot for his time that’d be one thing but he wasn’t.

The idea that all human beings should be treated with dignity regardless of race, creed, or things like sexual orientation is an exceptionally recent modern idea… at least as a mainstream attitude. You can find people in the past who held it but it was very much a fringe idea until the last 50 years at best.

Historically almost all humans tended to think the people in their tribe represent the Platonic ideal of a perfect human and everyone else is to varying degrees inferior or weird or evil. If we were bugs God would have an exoskeleton.

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If you read the article, you will find that the allegations against Webb were based on a mistaken identification. The odd revelation in the story is that when a physicist made this known, those objecting to the name did not withdraw their objections but if anything raised the volume. And they went looking for information to discredit the physicist.

There is nothing odd about this. The purpose of attacking Webb and the telescope is to mine controversy and social status out of other people and other accomplishments. This is the MO of culture war activists.

By being publicly rebuked and told they were wrong, the attackers were embarrassed and therefore needed to double down to continue their gambit.

Right or wrong has little to do with it, it only supplies the pretense.

Once you understand this, culture war makes a lot more sense. There is no objective wrong being righted. There are only ever more new grievances to be invented to continue the zero-sum racket.

People doing unsavoury things to get attention is one thing, but that I find odd how serious it's taken. Some may be "media whoring" or (ab)using the controversy to fight out personal grievances, but overwhelming majority of people and organisations supporting this are undoubtedly well-intentioned decent honest folk just wanting to do the right thing.

When an argument about history accuracy is countered with "you are marginalizing a black queer junior scientist" – as seems to be happening here – then how is this person not eye-rolled out of the conversation? How can you possibly take someone like that serious? Even if we assume their position is the historically correct one here, these kind of statements are exceedingly toxic and have no place in any serious good-faith conversation.

It’s those magic words “I am an XYZ…” that prevent any eyes from rolling. Those words provide an untouchability and radioactivity around the speaker that we have yet to integrate into modern discourse. As OP said, the good faith nature of argument is turned on it’s head by identity, not merit, based logic.

I disagree with cynicism of the OP however. Many people are just tied up in a movement, without a conniving pathos driving their support. If you look at the historical context identity arguments arrive from, it is very much reactionary to past oppression. And society tolerates reactionary swings for only so long before seeking homeostasis. It is possible (likely, even) that the junior professor behind the vitriol is doubling down due to self preservation. However, I don’t think her supporters are as interested in her self interest so much as they are interested in supporting the movement as a whole. She’s more or less an ideological soldier; yes she may have violated her enemies in atrocious ways, but she is fighting for home team, and thusly retains support regardless of abuse of basic logic.

Hopefully we out grow this phase soon because the ignorance inherent in that support does seem culturally toxic.

From the article:

«Several prominent astrophysicists in interviews supported Dr. Oluseyi but declined to talk publicly. “People err on the side of prudence, which is to say they don’t speak up,” Dr. Gates noted.»

Not so different from what happened in those bad old days, only the acceptable targets have changed.

It’s unfair to lump in all activists with dishonorable, lying ones. There will always be parasites who glob onto any movement purely for the status, but that shouldn’t alone discredit the movement.

Not until these supposed "good activists" loudly and vociferously throw these toxic people out, and under the bus (and very publicly). Until that happens, they are mucking around in the same mud as the pigs, which makes them indistinguishable.

I've heard a number of Christians talk about how many of them dislike people like Pat Robertson. Why don't they speak up? Sometimes they do, but they don't have media empires.

Lunatics and fanatics and grifters are always the loudest and their messages have the highest virality. They maximize engagement.

After all, here we are talking about them. We're not talking about the sane people.

    > I've heard a number of Christians talk about how many of them dislike people like Pat Robertson. Why don't they speak up?

Couldn't tell you, I'm not a religious person. But I agree that these "warriors" for social justice are grifters just like the Pat Robertson's of the world.

... and just like LibsOfTikTok and Tim Poole and all the rest of those kind.

They're all professional trolls that farm controversy for money. They've always existed but social media has just opened up the professional troll career to a lot more independent entrants.

Why is “good activists” in quotes when the entire NYT article is about these good activists (and indeed, the very act of getting such an article published in the NYT is as close to “throwing them out” as we have in our society)..

How does it go? Silence is violence or something? They didn't call it out from day one, then the purity test they would apply to others applies to them.

Simple as that, right?

“the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: ‘theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron’” - @dril

It sucks for people who sincerely want to endeavor for good, but I don't see any of that happening in the culture war sphere. The entire thing runs on invented grievances, word games, abusive power plays and historical original sin.

I also don't see any evidence that it's actually helping the people that activists invariably speak on behalf of.

A movement doesn't have to consist of mostly dishonorable liars to be invalid. It can simply be based on terminally bad epistemology. Like the idea that the only reason people would disagree is because they are privileged. It creates self reinforcing loops that become allergic to facts.

(Funny example: the idea of racial reparations recently popped up again in the Netherlands... except... the country already paid reparations when Suriname became independent.)

>“The entire thing runs on invented grievances, word games, abusive power plays and historical original sin.”

You’re talking about modern conservative ideology here, right? Fits Trump and DeSantis to a perfect T. I agree, it’s based on terminally bad epistemology that exists to justify existing biases and keep us fighting with each other instead of taking on the wealthy oligarchs who “own” everything.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

This kinda buries the lede.

It wasn't novel that people should be treated with respect. What's changed is who is included in that group of people.

There were agencies at the time that did not cooperate with the lavender scare[1]. Completely false to argue that no one treated gay people with dignity before modern times.

1. "The Hoey committee records also show that a small number of agency officials were initially not entirely forthcoming. Investigator James Thomas grew exasperated with John Shover, director of personnel at the National Labor Relations Board. "His attitude at the time," Thomas writes in a July 20 memorandum summarizing a telephone interview, "did not appear to be too cooperative." When Thomas proposed an in-person meeting to discuss two cases of homosexuality in the department, Shover balked. According to Thomas, "he more or less refused to receive me for this purpose and said rather bluntly: 'I am not going to let you see any of our files.'" This occasional resistance and the subtle variations of opinion evident in the committee’s records suggest that, at least at the start of the scare, each agency may have had its own nuanced stance toward homosexuality." https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2016/summer/l...

I think their argument was that Webb wasn't exceptionally bigoted for his time, not that there weren't others less bigoted than him.

> Completely false to argue that no one treated gay people with dignity before modern times.

That claim wasn't made. This is a strawman.

But in keeping with the article.

> Completely false to argue that no one treated gay people with dignity before modern times.

They literally said the exact opposite, emphasis added:

> The idea that all human beings should be treated with dignity regardless of race, creed, or things like sexual orientation is an exceptionally recent modern idea… at least as a mainstream attitude. You can find people in the past who held it but it was very much a fringe idea until the last 50 years at best.

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