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.
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.
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.
«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.
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?
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.
Simple as that, right?
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.)
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.