Books

[Büge]

Neil Gaiman (one of those friends of Douglas Adams who hasn't spent the past decade subsisting on a diet of his own feet) once said we should change "political correctness" to "treating other people with respect".

Course, that's not how it works. The same old assholes who spent the last 30 years ranting about political correctness just went ahead and co-opted "woke" and "canceled" from WOC activists and turned them into insults.

See also that quote about respect from AutisticAbby on tumblr:

[Thad]

A good observation. And says a lot about entitlement and how it works.

I'll back up to something Brent said on the previous page:

I think Dawkins's entire problem is that he doesn't understand that he's punching down.

I think in Dawkins's case, a lot of it is Engineer's Disease: he's an expert in his field of study, and he thinks that qualifies him as an expert outside his field of study. His transphobia, in particular, is an example where he thinks he's talking about biology -- something he knows a lot about! -- but in fact he's actually talking about psychology and sociology. Those are topics he's shown some insights into -- the notion of memes is actually a hugely important contribution to the social sciences! -- but in this case in particular, he's mistaken social constructs for immutable physical characteristics.

Speaking more broadly -- and this ties in a bit with what Carlin says in the video -- there's a whole lot of bigotry that comes from a place of cishet white men mistakenly believing that they're* the ones who are oppressed. I think that's a lot like AutisticAbby's observation about people using "respect" to mean two entirely different things, in the same sentence, and not even realizing that's what they're doing.

A lot of people who benefit from privilege, and who have just internalized the way things are as the Natural Order of Things, people calling out their privilege, and seeking to tear it down, feels like it's unfair discrimination against them. Instead of just an attempt at removing the unfair discrimination they benefit from, all the time, without even thinking about it. They think having their authority questioned is the equivalent of having their personhood questioned.

They've internalized their entitlement so much that they've mistaken it for being the same thing as their personhood.

* I considered using "we're" here since I am, in fact, a cishet white man, but switching back and forth between "they" and "we" made a mess of my sentence structure, so I decided to just stick with "they".

[Friday]

A lot of people who benefit from privilege, and who have just internalized the way things are as the Natural Order of Things, people calling out their privilege, and seeking to tear it down,

Honestly, I think you (and others) are framing it wrong. It's not that we need to tear down cishet white men. They are (for the most part) being treated with the respect and humanity and given power and opportunity (economic and otherwise) that everyone deserves.

I know this is semantics, but I actually think it's important semantics. To get people on board with your cause, it's easier to say "wow, you're treated right but these people aren't" then "actually you benefit from entitlement."

Like it or not, they're going to hear that as "we want you to be treated like a black woman is" even if you don't mean it that way.

Is it unfair that cishet white men are treated the way they are?

Believe it or not, it's actually not. What's unfair is how everyone else is treated.

[Mongrel]

It's the old apocryphal story about [early communist figure of your choice] talking to Marx as a train they're getting on pulls up to the platform.

"Look at those rich bastards up front! When we're in charge, we'll see how they like third class!"
"You haven't listened to a word I said. The whole point of this is so that someday we'll all travel first class together."

Which is horribly trite of course, but the "revenge, not justice" sentiment is what the rich and powerful fear. Partly because it's real - who wouldn't like to see our modern-day plantation owners eat a little crow? But also partly because people project their own experiences, and this is no less true for the rich and powerful.

Power nearly always comes with great insecurity, the fear that someone else is always looking to take it all away, be it the "jealous" lower classes, or the competition. This fear gnaws even harder if you know full well that your money and power are stolen. That's often why excess begets excess in a hopeless chase for more and more wealth. There can never be "enough" to escape what you've done, to escape the consequences. It's an emotion even the hopelessly sociopathic are exquisitely attuned to - paranoia among dictators is a notorious trope for a reason (and it's not paranoia if... ).

[Friday]

Also I mean general cishet white guys. The ones in positions of power who abuse that power and position should absolutely be torn down. I mean, anyone with power who abuses it. Fuck people who abuse power.

And I also don't mean you can't call people out on their entitlement and privilege. I just want people to frame it as respecting the people who are being disrespected, not disrespecting the people who are being respected.

[Büge]

Power nearly always comes with great insecurity, the fear that someone else is always looking to take it all away, be it the "jealous" lower classes, or the competition. This fear gnaws even harder if you know full well that your money and power are stolen.

[mharr]

The genius of Carlin is his ability to angrily destroy the 90s edgelord community with such calm, quiet and evident rationality that many would find themselves nodding along and taking a step back. Talking idiots in out of the rain without triggering their fuck you defenses is a rare and powerful skill.

[Thad]

A lot of people who benefit from privilege, and who have just internalized the way things are as the Natural Order of Things, people calling out their privilege, and seeking to tear it down,

Honestly, I think you (and others) are framing it wrong. It's not that we need to tear down cishet white men. They are (for the most part) being treated with the respect and humanity and given power and opportunity (economic and otherwise) that everyone deserves.

I know this is semantics, but I actually think it's important semantics. To get people on board with your cause, it's easier to say "wow, you're treated right but these people aren't" then "actually you benefit from entitlement."

Like it or not, they're going to hear that as "we want you to be treated like a black woman is" even if you don't mean it that way.

Is it unfair that cishet white men are treated the way they are?

Believe it or not, it's actually not. What's unfair is how everyone else is treated.

There's something to that, but by definition setting everybody on equal footing means taking away advantages that the privileged currently enjoy. It means taking away the advantages that cishet white men currently enjoy for getting hired for a job, getting admitted to a good school, etc.

Course, more than that, it means acknowledging that those advantages exist in the first place. Which is uncomfortable, and should be. Most people really don't like to acknowledge that they didn't get their job, or their education, or what-have-you, just on their own merits, that they had an unfair advantage that came entirely from luck-of-the-draw aspects of their identity.

This is where railing against affirmative action and other imaginary examples of "reverse racism" comes in. If you can't acknowledge that the deck is stacked in favor of white people, if you can't acknowledge there's a problem, then you can't acknowledge affirmative action as a corrective, you can't see it as a counterweight that balances the scales, you can only see it as something that tips the scales.

And, bigger picture, this is how racism and other forms of bigotry are cyclical, and how the way our society is organized to pit people against each other serves to divide us. Racism wouldn't go away if we had UBI and free college, but those things might reduce people's insecurity about having to compete for work and school.

Or maybe not, but we should still do those things anyway.

[Mongrel]

Power nearly always comes with great insecurity, the fear that someone else is always looking to take it all away, be it the "jealous" lower classes, or the competition. This fear gnaws even harder if you know full well that your money and power are stolen.

If only there were always just two.

[Thad]

Stand Up for Towel Day 2021: they're streaming a series of (previously recorded) videos related to Hitchhiker's Guide on Tuesday, May 25. Minimum ticket price £4.20 / USD$6.00; proceeds go to Save the Rhino.

[mharr]

Re: the recent short discussion of Starship Troopers, Charlie Stross just posted his thoughts in an attempt to return to regular non-doomscroll blogging. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... opers.html

I defer to the experts there, the comments are as ever an excellent article in their own right.

[Thad]

I think Dawkins's entire problem is that he doesn't understand that he's punching down.

I've been thinking a lot about this observation in light of Dave Chappelle's latest entry in his series of transphobic standup specials.



Chappelle made his reputation on speaking truth to power, and he seems to be operating under the delusion that he's still doing that. Like Dawkins, he's bought into the Bizarro World notion that an oppressed minority demanding to be treated with basic fucking decency are the real bullies -- a trope which was already ancient when Protocols of the Elders of Zion was published. It's disappointing to see Chappelle fall for that line of bullshit; I thought he was smarter than that. After all, he's the guy famous for putting together some of the sharpest, most incisive comedy about racism ever, and then walking away from it all once he realized his material was being embraced by racists. Christ knows he's seen this "how come they can say that word and I can't?" bullshit before; I would have thought he had the sense to make the connection.

Course, I think part of it's just a simple knee-jerk "Oh, you're going to tell me not to say that? Fuck you, now I'm going to say it more." Straight-up childish defiance shit.

[Brantly B.]

Just like the only real cure for racism is just being around other races and the only real cure for partisanship is just being around other ideologies, the only cure for quiltphobia is just being around quiltbags. But that's not possible for a large number of people, since the very existence of such people is suppressed by their society. So they base their opinions of trans people on the one they're most familiar with.

And that's Caitlyn Jenner.

[Brantly B.]

Now, am I saying Caitlyn Jenner is the problem? Well, I'm not not saying that, but here's the thing.

In the absence of Caitlyn Jenner, the platonic ideal of a trans person in most people's heads would still be, by necessity, a famous person. Probably RuPaul, even though RuPaul isn't trans. So even though they'd be aware of the fallacy of it was brought up explicitly, they're still operating under the innate mental link: All trans people are famous and influential.

Assuming that Chappelle doesn't really have any trans friends in Hollywood (which we can probably go ahead and assume), then his viewpoint isn't really insane... any more than any person's viewpoint would be insane, giving the same situation.

[Thad]

No, he's using "I had a trans friend" as cover.

[Brantly B.]

Hey, my father is a Republican...

[Thad]

[Friday]

shut the fuck up Guild

[mharr]

When people start waving your name on a placard as the new Nazi dog whistle you might want to take a step back.

[Thad]

When people start waving your name on a placard as the new Nazi dog whistle you might want to take a step back.

That does seem like the sort of thing that would have given 2004 Dave some pause.