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Comment by surgical_fire | Hacker News Reader

> I feel like unpacking that, "They're smug," sentiment might yield important insights.

I agree, but I never dug enough to get these answers. I just noticed the pattern of behavior.

I think that the progressive discourse since the turn of the millennium did get increasingly preachy, to the point where even I, who am sympathetic to many of their pleas, find them annoying quite often.

Another friend I have hypothesizes that what is generally seen as "left" during that time frame moved on from class struggle and economic inequality (which used to be major talking points in the 80s and 90s) to more soft social issues. As a result, some of the lower classes started to embrace ideas of those that blamed others for their misfortune (be it immigrants, gays, blacks, etc). I find that an interesting argument, but never took the time to more thoroughly inspect it.

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I can't buy your friend's conclusion, because people have been blaming immigrants, [insert analague for gays here], blacks, etc. in America and beyond for at least 100 years.

That said, I think what I'm interested in picking at that word, "preachy". It's an inherently subjective sentiment, so what does it really mean, to this person or that one? Are they offended (or maybe angered, or maybe threatened, or maybe repulsed) by the message, or the way the message is conveyed, or real/imagined ramifications of the message, or...

I just don't want to take this feeling for granted without really understanding what it is, you know? Anything like it is rooted both in reality and our interior lives, even when the two are at odds; teasing out how much goes into which is a part of that process of understanding.

> I can't buy your friend's conclusion, because people have been blaming immigrants, [insert analague for gays here], blacks, etc. in America and beyond for at least 100 years.

Well, as I said, I am not from the US. This blatantly discriminatory discourse was a lot less fashionable back in the day. Not that there was no discrimination, but the political discourse was not as contaminated by it.

> That said, I think what I'm interested in picking at that word, "preachy". It's an inherently subjective sentiment, so what does it really mean

Of course it is subjective. A lot of things in politics are subjective, related to feelings, abstract ideas, concepts.

And I am the first party that used the word "preachy" to describe my perception to more progressive discourse. This word implies an excessive appeal to morality, which used to be a hallmark of reactionary discourse when I was young - homosexuality, videogames, heavy metal, Dungeons & Dragons, et cetera and so forth was rallied against for being evil, moraly abject, satanic, and ao on.

From the turn of the millennium, more or less when progressive discourse shifted from socioeconomic concerns to more purely social issues, the talking points adopted the same tone. You don't fully support affirmative action? You are racist. You don't fully support abortion? You hate women. You like action movies that feature a strong male figure? You are misogynistic. It's all very tiresome.

> You don't fully support affirmative action? You are racist. You don't fully support abortion? You hate women. You like action movies that feature a strong male figure? You are misogynistic.

It's everywhere, this thinking in sides with no ground in between. Someone says something which in their mind it is in support of cause A, so if you contradict them -- even ask them a honest question they can't answer -- you are undermining their effort to support A, therefore you must be anti-A. If you're not in camp A, you're in camp B.

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