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> I agree that SF is a special kind of bubble, but I do think there's been an explosion of shockingly extreme right-wing thinking on the Internet in recent year
by microcolonel 8y ago
> I agree that SF is a special kind of bubble, but I do think there's been an explosion of shockingly extreme right-wing thinking on the Internet in recent years... really since about 2008-2012 as near as I can tell.
I think you can attribute that seeming explosion (at least in part) to people suppressing moderate conservatives, who then have a choice between becoming enlightened classical liberals and bearing the cost of that path in social isolation, or joining the more extreme people where they've been banished to (which, for its moral hazards, is a hell of a lot more fun, and a lot less depressing).
These people are not beyond help, but if you keep suppressing them, they will become more entrenched in the underground and the fringes, and they will become as fragile and bigoted as the academic marxists and intersectionalists who inhabit the same sorts of places on the far left.
The high road takes a lot of fortitude when you are a social progressive who is seen as willing to hear and integrate good conservative arguments. Libel, vandalism, and assault are rampant against people visibly associated with conservatives, at least, they have been where I've lived (in southern Ontario).
- heurist 8y agoI haven't seen a lot of active suppression of right wing views other than the more numerous liberals having more bodies to throw at arguments. If the tables were turned and liberal ideas were less popular than conservative ideas then by human nature we'd likely see the same kinds and amount of individual attacks. It already happens in right wing enclaves. I've been banned from multiple conservative subreddits for making reasonable centrist arguments that conservatives historically agreed with or asking questions that stir the pot in a gentle way. On Facebook and Twitter I get people responding with ad hominems to arguments which are not liberal but which do not toe the current Republican party line. Also, someone was arrested the other day for seriously plotting to murder a bunch of popular Democratic politicians. The grass is not greener, in other words. I have not attempted to engage on many other forums but it seems to me that arguing outside the local groupthink is what makes people angry, more than any particular ideology being the driver. Angry people do stupid things. If you're in the minority party locally, you might feel oppressed even if you could go to the next town over and feel right at home.
- Nasrudith 8y agoYeah in my experience it is more conservatives (mostly fundamentalists) who have a persecution complex about it. Which is very differently from those who are or were persecuted. One brings it out and up everywhere as self-justification as they aren't actually being persecuted haven't tweaked their behaviors from even negative receptions. One may call them drama llamas trenchantly but more charitably it is identity based instead of experience based. The other is met with far more guarded pessimism and even with angry backlash tends to be in "friendlier" spaces or stressed. It is more confided than presented usually, more angry than righteous. Actually some degree of trauma territory. These are individual situations based on experiences fundamentally. Ironic inversions of the typical and coexistence of "real" and "fake" persecution behaviors are possible.
- ethics_gradient 8y agoI really, really wish I got a penny every time I get accused of wanting to censor conservatives simply because I criticized them.