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I agree there is a lot of mob mentality going on. But I feel like you are only viewing this when you perceive it to be started by the "left". Mob mentality is n

by swang 11y ago

I agree there is a lot of mob mentality going on. But I feel like you are only viewing this when you perceive it to be started by the "left". Mob mentality is not a left or right problem. "Progressives" are not the one's doing this. Mob mentality is a human thing. Is your reasoning that only people attacking Justine Sacco were "progressives" and "liberals?" Does that mean everybody, to put for a lack of a better term, "on the right" understood the context of Justine Sacco's tweet and did not join in and pile on? I mean in the context of just those tweets, what she said was pretty racist and offensive. So the implication that only liberals attacked her means that either conservatives didn't attack her because they already understood what she meant by those tweets (hard to imagine anyone could in that moment since one of the biggest things about it was that she was on a plane and couldn't defend herself) or they didn't believe those tweets were racist (which they were when taken without context). Dividing people by framing this as a left/right issue is not the way to go if you really want to stop the internet mob.

SFLemonade 11y ago
Good point. I shouldn't make this into a left vs. right issue. It is absolutely a human issue (and I would argue that it's especially cultural in this sense). That said, I do think that the reasoning behind these shamings does come back quite often to progressive thought. That's not to say that regular liberals or conservatives deliberately didn't engage. I'm sure that many of them did. And it's also not to say that liberal or conservative thought would somehow be inherently better just by way of the fact that it doesn't participate in shamings. However, from my view, the rationale behind the engagements seems to overlap a lot with progressivism. The reason I point that out is because I want to highlight how dangerous it is for any philosophy to assert that it is so right - so just - that those who disagree with it are bigots whom need to be silenced. Progressive thought does this. So that's why I call it out. But indeed, I do agree that this is also a general mob mentality issue. We should just be weary of philosophies (or political movements) that are unwilling to listen to, engage, compromise, and respectfully disagree with their opposition.

by swang 11y ago

SFLemonade 11y ago

Good point. I shouldn't make this into a left vs. right issue. It is absolutely a human issue (and I would argue that it's especially cultural in this sense). That said, I do think that the reasoning behind these shamings does come back quite often to progressive thought. That's not to say that regular liberals or conservatives deliberately didn't engage. I'm sure that many of them did. And it's also not to say that liberal or conservative thought would somehow be inherently better just by way of the fact that it doesn't participate in shamings. However, from my view, the rationale behind the engagements seems to overlap a lot with progressivism. The reason I point that out is because I want to highlight how dangerous it is for any philosophy to assert that it is so right - so just - that those who disagree with it are bigots whom need to be silenced. Progressive thought does this. So that's why I call it out. But indeed, I do agree that this is also a general mob mentality issue. We should just be weary of philosophies (or political movements) that are unwilling to listen to, engage, compromise, and respectfully disagree with their opposition.