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Chris Fox's avatar

"No group of people can have their beliefs simplified down to “they operate in bad faith so assuming bad faith is prudent.”"

Who's being absolutist now?

This is one point where you and I diverge. I will not keep my mind open to the possibility of mitigating explanations forever. If someone is holding a gun to my head then it really doesn't matter what trauma or grievance lies at the root of his malice and understanding it will not save my life.

In the world today the cost of failure is simply unacceptably great. Since 1970 more than half the world's wildlife has disappeared and more species become extinct literally every day. The cost of conservative triumph is not just vast human suffering but in the of of all life on earth except maybe at the hydrothermal vents

The numbers on that side who can be reached through understanding is simply too small.

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Steve QJ's avatar

"Who's being absolutist now?"

That's not absolutism. It's just a fact that follows very naturally from the fact that human beings don't operate a hive mind. It's like saying no two people have exactly the same opinion about everything. But sure, just to avoid any possible room for misunderstanding;

"No group of *millions of* people can have their beliefs simplified down to “they operate in bad faith so assuming bad faith is prudent."

If one person is holding a gun to your head, then sure, you should make whatever assumptions about that person best serve you. But millions of people aren't holding a gun to your head. Metaphorically or literally. I'd bet lots of liberals, whatever they say in public, are wildly irresponsible on the environment. I'd bet lots of conservatives do good work. The environment, in particular, is a mess we're *all* making. And, of course, by "all," I mean pretty much every country in the world.

But the reason we keep disagreeing on this point is that I've seen the exact same argument you're making, countless times, to refer to white people. "THEY'VE shown us who they are." "THEY can't be trusted." "THEY are all racist, even if they claim they're not." The people who make these arguments are just as convinced as you are. I think they're wrong too.

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Chris Fox's avatar

I neither said nor implied anything remotely like that last paragraph

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Steve QJ's avatar

You really don't think this is at least very similar to the way you routinely talk about conservatives? And non-binary people for that matter?

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Chris Fox's avatar

First of all I have conceded that the entire "non-binary" thing makes me too angry to talk about with equanimity or objectivity and so I am not talking about the topic anymore.

Second, there is a world of difference between lumping together all the members of a race and lumping together all the members of an ideology noted for the extreme rigidity of its orthodoxy. No, they are not as homogenous as ants but it sure isn't for lack of trying. Behold the expulsions of the two participants on the Jan6 committee; who would ever have thought in 2015 that Liz Cheney would be anathema? She's going to lose her primary to some lunatic who obediently says "Trump won."

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Steve QJ's avatar

"First of all I have conceded that the entire "non-binary" thing makes me too angry to talk about with equanimity or objectivity"

Yes you have. I'm not trying to throw it in your face. I'm just saying that this is a dangerous instinct. Because it requires oversimplification in the same way the left is oversimplified by some on the right. And when that happens, we get the team sports approach to politics that's so popular at the moment.

When I'm dealing with the kinds of people who call me a "leftist," I'm regularly, confidently informed that I think men can be women and that kids should go to drag shows and that I think white people are all racist.

This isn't because of anything I've said of course, it's because anybody who is a liberal must automatically believe all of these things according to everything they see on Twitter and Fox News.

Liberal politicians are almost unanimously engaged in certain things I disagree with. Particularly around gender and race. Yet I still vote liberal because, on balance, I think they're the least worst option.

A criticism I've been aiming at the left for years is that the entire platform is pretty much, "we're not as bad as the other guys," whereas the right runs on platforms like crime and taxation and jobs. Or better yet, stopping their kids from being brainwashed in schools.

We could have a long and fruitful conversation about how successful conservatives are at *fulfilling* those promises. But I can see reasons for voting that way that aren't rooted in racism or bad faith or a lack of concern about the environment etc, etc.

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Chris Fox's avatar

This is what I refer to as ideological syndromes. We differ in seeing a symmetry; outside the "woke" culture our side actually is diverse; I hold some views congruent with the "left syndrome" such as reining in corporate power and wealth inequality but at the same time I am not on board with the pronouns and bathrooms.

But. The symmetry is broken; left-as-woke is a *stereotype* promoted by the right, whereas in reality a lot of us are disgusted with the uh trans activists and their absolutist stridency.

OTOH—and I expect you will disagree—the right-syndrome is much more homogenous and much less tolerant of any deviation. Sure there are conservatives who think we should leave a little room for orangutans but they don't get invited to CPAC. You're all in for "Trump won" or you get primaried.

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Steve QJ's avatar

Haha, yeah, I don't think we're going to agree on this. But I have to say, I see the identity politics aspect of the left as being just as indispensable politically speaking.

What do you think would happen if a liberal politician started saying "all lives matter" during campaign speeches? Or that there are important differences between men and women that can't be erased with a declaration of pronouns and cross-sex hormones?

It's not necessarily about homogeneity, I strongly suspect most politicians, in private, understand that Trump lost. Just as they understand that there are differences between males and females. But in public, yes, they're all in (or at least silent) because that's the stupid game we're playing. To be extremely clear, I don't endorse this. I find the dishonesty repugnant. I guess we just disagree about the size of the asymmetry.

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Chris Fox's avatar

*Of course* they know Trump lost (a recording of the committee was saying the same as I typed). But they say the words anyway because it's a qualification of membership. So intense is the need to belong that the plain truth recedes to the background. That membership is promoted by the necessity of homogenity.

We are not like that.

Just look at us here. You and I disagree. We don't attack each other for it. We don't call each other names. We continue to respect each other.

(I hope)

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Steve QJ's avatar

"I hope"

Of course! As you said here recently, "if two people agree on everything, one of them is redundant."😁

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Chris Fox's avatar

My contribution to the corpus of memorable quotes.

Far behind Maxwell Smart and HL Mencken

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