It's really hard to recognize a lot of these things as people. I know I'm not supposed to say shit like that, but, seriously, "you people"?
I don't know if you would recall a period of internet discussion when people were enthusiastically arguing about each other's fallacies and citing various references, such as Nizkor. One of the questions about how that fell by the wayside is how many of those people ended up needing the fallacies in order to hold onto something dear to them.
Similarly, there is a reason his behavior is judged differently. Seriously, "Demonrats"? To the one, it's about as juvenile as history suggests we might expect from full-grown Trump supporters. To the other, we can only wonder how people would respond if he went off on "asseists" for their anti-christian dumpster fire.
†
So here's the nasty, stupid truth: There are a couple things happening, here. First, we need to recognize that, in its way, progress is always a buzzkill for
someone. People are willing to tolerate and even legitimize behavior like Trek's because despite everything else, they still have some Venn overlap with delusional rightism. Look at the conservative coalition: White masculine Christianism on a steady drip of capitalism. If we go back and consider why "Lorelei" was in any way a significant song, yes our societal attitudes toward unmarried cohabitation have changed and even progressed, but the old conservative attitudes remain in play.
It's one thing if conservatives, themselves, are determined to preserve old sexist values, but there are however many men out there still disgruntled because they don't have a woman. (
Note: That would be,
enough to get advocacy in the New York Times↗.)
And this is the part that feels really stupid; I don't know who recalls an old
Family Guy bit when Stewie starts to tell someone a joke, then stops and looks around and, confident there are no black people in earshot, resumes telling the racist joke, at which point a black man steps out from behind a potted plant and asks what they're talking about. But, there you have it. What is right and correct really does sometimes kill the joke; plenty who think themselves not racist can sympathize with the fear of opprobium for doing this or that joke.
More than the joke, what if it is part of the argument? I come from a certain time:
Damn straight, I'm a Libby! That was into the Eighties. It's one thing to say it, but I made it into the twenty-first century without understanding certain things about what it means. Had I blamed women every time I was wrong, I would probably sound like some of the folks, today, who are totally notamisogynist but continue to blame feminism for misogyny. (Or do I not "blame" feminism, but simply consider the point a legitimate argument because liberals and feminists fail to satisfy?)
Thirty years ago, there were notabigots who said they supported "gay rights", but thought gays were being too demanding. It was a microcosm of other equality struggles: Change was coming too fast, these middle-roaders suggested, so we needed to slow down; their argument was, quite simply, that for the sake of other people's feelings, millions of Americans should continue to suffer deprivation of civil and constitutional rights.
The argument that the only fair thing to do is maintain the unfairness has always been suspect. At least, you know, according its own pretenses. If, however, the principle is perpetually and eternally writ anew on blank slate, then the totally notasexist dude distressed at the cost and effort of finding a proper wife, or the utterly notaracist friend who points to right-wing crime stories—(
¿Who remembers the Rockwell-Paul newsletters?)—and complains about having to hire unqualified people, will always find reason to sympathize with these attitudes, beliefs, and characters we are to believe they are not.
Taking them at face value, the problem is not that they support this or that supremacism, but that the argument against somehow fails to satisfy them.
And, somewhere in there, we are supposed to pass over the fact of their apparent default setting that accepts and permits that supremacism in society.
(Note the word "permit"; their posture implicitly grants permission. It's always about
empowerment.)
†
Oh, right, the other thing. This part also feels kind of ridiculous, but still:
"Objectification". Yes, like we hear in feminist discourse.
The underlying pretense is that one is addressing a specious argument in order to debunk it. Whether in the world at large, or in small quarters like our community, such debunking is ineffective to the point of futility.
In the past, I've
described the idea↗ of a
whipping idol↗. Most days we might expect such behavior seeks empowerment to whip the idol, as such, but the other thing it can do is focus discourse on triviality.
By objectifying someone like Trek, we pretend his argument is important. But nothing about raising his behavior to focus requires that we actually regard it in any serious manner. And this, somehow, is the tricky part.
Because doing so raises a whipping idol; it also highlights and stakes a specious argument, including the appearance of legitimization that the specious argument is worthy of address. While the question of legitimization should be easily addressed, it somehow isn't.
And, sure, can feel ridiculous to say, but:
What happens if the point is not to debunk or delegitimize the argument, but whip the idol? It seems too easy. There is, of course, the satisfaction of delivering blows. But there is also a pretense of appearing to do something useful.
Moreover, in the history of whipping idols, it has long seemed a question of easy targets, but another seemingly undeniable effect is that focus on such
empty crackpottery forestalls more subtle and even complicated discussion. It's one thing to lash out and throw stones, but the more productive course of redirecting the discussion to better utility and integrity is also more difficult. It's like the question of supportable argument being an unfair expectation that suppresses political views, a means of silencing opposition. And if there seems some vagary in there about who such objections worry is actually being silenced, yeah, it's kind of hard to not notice. In the history of whipping idols, people with better arguments do not need whipping idols.
†
Coming 'round, then, one reason why "it's really hard to recognize a lot of these things as people" is because some people just don't ever have to do better.
†
Oh, right: On the point of being a Democrat, it is not impossible that you would vote for a Democrat in order to forestall rape and pillage; beyond that, conservatives like Trek seem generally unable to discern any actual differences. They can't tell the difference between, say, Chuck Schumer and Slavoj Žižek. And, really, how long has it been since they had to? It's one thing if Democrats keep creeping rightward in order to meet a bunch of their voters in more conservative states and districts, but conservatives view Democrats as extreme leftists, even when passing conservative bills like the ACA, FISA renewal, and DACA.
(Historical note for internationals: The "individual mandate" comes from the Heritage Foundation, was brought to law under Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), and was sponsored in the Senate by nineteen Republicans, with Bob Dole as its shepherd. The 2008 FISA renewal saw Democrats to the right of 1970s conservatives. DACA—the "Dreamers"—were originally a Bush administration proposal, and those extreme leftist Democrats have been begging for a chance to compromise and pass GOP border bills, now, for over seventeen years.)
If they start to sound like bots, as such, it's because generative writing has caught up to their simplicity. I once wondered about the idea that someone wasn't a bot—(
spoiler alert, already knew he was human)—because it became so hard for him to remember what happened thirty days, or even seventeen hours, before.
†
Here's how easy and widespread it is: If I'm not at all surprised that
Exchemist identified himself as a terf↗;
there were signs↗, and part of the question is
how we read them↗. When I told him,
"whether it's you … or the NYT columnist, there is a simplistic presupposition in effect about what liberal critics are doing wrong", he was reciting and basing his argument on conservative make-believe, and the difference
"is found in conservatives who are tired of being told they're wrong about pretty much everything, but have no solid argument to fall back on".
It should be an easy signpost: When the argument in defense is that conservatives are either sinister or stupid, that ought to
mean something. It's one thing if,
as you put it↗, "we got the word, might as well find a use for it", but the difference between recognizing the fact and accepting its meaning seems to raise fears of suppressing political views. And here, we can run around in circles, and to some degree that's part of the point.
But if the question is
will or
competency, that one is either
unwilling or
unable to honestly support their argument, the mere fact of the question, as well as the answer, ought to mean something.
www.pewresearch.org
