3 ms·

From your use of the word "leftists", I suspect you and I wouldn't agree on much; however, on this point I agree with you. Someone above mentioned the "paradox

From your use of the word "leftists", I suspect you and I wouldn't agree on much; however, on this point I agree with you. Someone above mentioned the "paradox of tolerance" and I think your observation fits perfectly with that. I feel strongly about many of the same things that BLM and MeToo does (just to give some concrete examples) but I don't think believing in those things necessitates erasure of people who think differently. Unfortunately you find a lot of the "erasure" sentiment out there and usually they are the loudest voices.

josteink 9y ago
To be clear, by leftists I meant misguided diversity-advocates who had no trouble employing the exact things they claimed to be fighting (racism, sexism and intolerance) as long as it fit their cause. My bad for being imprecise. I find opposing such hypocracy perfectly reasonable, but I can tell from the voting that the HN consensus is that they would rather leave this giant elephant untouched. In which case, you reap what saw.
- vidarh 9y ago
  I'm very much a leftist, and I agree that there is a problem with this. But being more precise is important, because there is a long tradition on the left for pushing for tolerance as well. Libertarianism started on the left. Fittingly for this debate, the word "libertarian" was first used by the anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacques in attacking the anarchist Proudhon for his misogynistic views [1]. But unlike the "diversity-advocates" you complain about, Dejacques argues for diversity as a consequence of liberty, and argues for liberty as essential to the humanity of all. Applying power over others to force diversity is the antithesis of this, and there is a major schism over this on the left just as there is between authoritarian and anti-authoritarian ideologies on the right too. [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-the-human-being-male-and-female https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t...

josteink 9y ago

To be clear, by leftists I meant misguided diversity-advocates who had no trouble employing the exact things they claimed to be fighting (racism, sexism and intolerance) as long as it fit their cause. My bad for being imprecise. I find opposing such hypocracy perfectly reasonable, but I can tell from the voting that the HN consensus is that they would rather leave this giant elephant untouched. In which case, you reap what saw.

vidarh 9y ago
I'm very much a leftist, and I agree that there is a problem with this. But being more precise is important, because there is a long tradition on the left for pushing for tolerance as well. Libertarianism started on the left. Fittingly for this debate, the word "libertarian" was first used by the anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacques in attacking the anarchist Proudhon for his misogynistic views [1]. But unlike the "diversity-advocates" you complain about, Dejacques argues for diversity as a consequence of liberty, and argues for liberty as essential to the humanity of all. Applying power over others to force diversity is the antithesis of this, and there is a major schism over this on the left just as there is between authoritarian and anti-authoritarian ideologies on the right too. [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-the-human-being-male-and-female https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t...