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> "An argument should be a collaboration between two people to find the truth." This makes me sad because I agree. And yet, in the USA, your right-wing uncle

> "An argument should be a collaboration between two people to find the truth." This makes me sad because I agree. And yet, in the USA, your right-wing uncle probably isn't that interested in the truth. And the new generation of identity-politics liberals are the generation who have grown up taught in an academic world infested with post-modernism; they are also less interested in truth, but to their credit, very interested in improving the world. One would hope the two would coincide, but honestly, it's not looking like it's going to work out that way.

phobosanomaly 6y ago
I'm a leftie, but to be honest I have a left-wing and a right-wing uncle and they're both completely disinterested in the truth. One thinks Trump is god, and the other feels the same way about Noam Chomsky. One thinks Hillary eats babies, and the other thinks the CIA did 9/11. Meanwhile, the landscaping guy at work seems to have a pretty balanced take on things and he doesn't vote because he's not a citizen. He's one of the few people I can talk politics with over a cup of coffee and not want to pull my hair out. I think it would benefit us all to be able to take a disinterested look at this whole deal.
- 3131s 6y ago
  > the other thinks the CIA did 9/11 You're right that it's not true, or at least that memo about a month prior makes a pretty persuasive case for them. Currently it's only clear that a few prominent people in the executive branch of the US government had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks and then later covered up the participation of high level Saudi organizers like Prince Bandar.
  - phobosanomaly 6y ago
    Without naming it, I'm pointing at the Loose Change documentary. I found it to be a not-uncommon conspiracy theory among the left in the early Bush years that the CIA had wired the Towers to blow fight-club style, and that documentary seemed to have a lot to do with it. If you want to step back and start talking about the CIA's role in Afghanistan in the eighties and nineties, as well as the US's covering for the Saudis, and the engineering of the Iraq war, I have an extensive rant prepared that I've been inflicting on my poor friends for years.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
croon 6y ago
I wonder how these comparisons manage to take hold and spread. Being balanced doesn't mean being somewhere in the middle between thinking the Earth is flat and thinking the Earth is spherical. It's neither, but it's certainly closer to one of them. What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring? I also can't help but notice the incredible irony in repudiating identity politics and post-modernism while simultaneously lumping them all into one group.
- da39a3ee 6y ago
  > What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring? Hi, I'm happy to debate this sensibly. Two major areas in which the identity politics movement is inconsistent with how a scientific rationalist society should behave are these: 1. The movement to deny that biological sex is an overwhelmingly important factor shaping human biology, just as it shapes the biology of other mammals. See https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution-deniers/ https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution-deniers/ https://quillette.com/2020/07/30/think-cancel-culture-doesnt-exist-my-own-lived-experience-says-otherwise/ https://quillette.com/2020/07/30/think-cancel-culture-doesnt... 2. Deplatforming people with reasonable, rational viewpoints. Richard Dawkins is an example. Look at the most recent deplatforming by a university historical society that has recently become identity-politics oriented (The Hist at Trinity College Dublin). They deplatformed him because "we value our members comfort above all else". So, that is an example of what I said, and that which you took exception to: the identity politics movement being less interested in truth than other things (here "comfort").
  - croon 6y ago
    https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette Dawkins wasn't "deplatformed" for his legitimate views, but for islamophobia, which is completely legitimate. > In 2013, Dawkins came under fire for a series of statements regarding Islam that seemed to blur the line between reason-based resistance to dogma and xenophobic prejudice. He views Islam as the "greatest force for evil in the world today"[35][36] and stated that "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge,"[37].

phobosanomaly 6y ago

I'm a leftie, but to be honest I have a left-wing and a right-wing uncle and they're both completely disinterested in the truth. One thinks Trump is god, and the other feels the same way about Noam Chomsky. One thinks Hillary eats babies, and the other thinks the CIA did 9/11. Meanwhile, the landscaping guy at work seems to have a pretty balanced take on things and he doesn't vote because he's not a citizen. He's one of the few people I can talk politics with over a cup of coffee and not want to pull my hair out. I think it would benefit us all to be able to take a disinterested look at this whole deal.

3131s 6y ago
> the other thinks the CIA did 9/11 You're right that it's not true, or at least that memo about a month prior makes a pretty persuasive case for them. Currently it's only clear that a few prominent people in the executive branch of the US government had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks and then later covered up the participation of high level Saudi organizers like Prince Bandar.
- phobosanomaly 6y ago
  Without naming it, I'm pointing at the Loose Change documentary. I found it to be a not-uncommon conspiracy theory among the left in the early Bush years that the CIA had wired the Towers to blow fight-club style, and that documentary seemed to have a lot to do with it. If you want to step back and start talking about the CIA's role in Afghanistan in the eighties and nineties, as well as the US's covering for the Saudis, and the engineering of the Iraq war, I have an extensive rant prepared that I've been inflicting on my poor friends for years.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

croon 6y ago

I wonder how these comparisons manage to take hold and spread. Being balanced doesn't mean being somewhere in the middle between thinking the Earth is flat and thinking the Earth is spherical. It's neither, but it's certainly closer to one of them. What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring? I also can't help but notice the incredible irony in repudiating identity politics and post-modernism while simultaneously lumping them all into one group.

da39a3ee 6y ago
> What truths do you suggest these "identity-politics liberals" are ignoring? Hi, I'm happy to debate this sensibly. Two major areas in which the identity politics movement is inconsistent with how a scientific rationalist society should behave are these: 1. The movement to deny that biological sex is an overwhelmingly important factor shaping human biology, just as it shapes the biology of other mammals. See https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution-deniers/ https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution-deniers/ https://quillette.com/2020/07/30/think-cancel-culture-doesnt-exist-my-own-lived-experience-says-otherwise/ https://quillette.com/2020/07/30/think-cancel-culture-doesnt... 2. Deplatforming people with reasonable, rational viewpoints. Richard Dawkins is an example. Look at the most recent deplatforming by a university historical society that has recently become identity-politics oriented (The Hist at Trinity College Dublin). They deplatformed him because "we value our members comfort above all else". So, that is an example of what I said, and that which you took exception to: the identity politics movement being less interested in truth than other things (here "comfort").
- croon 6y ago
  https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette Dawkins wasn't "deplatformed" for his legitimate views, but for islamophobia, which is completely legitimate. > In 2013, Dawkins came under fire for a series of statements regarding Islam that seemed to blur the line between reason-based resistance to dogma and xenophobic prejudice. He views Islam as the "greatest force for evil in the world today"[35][36] and stated that "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge,"[37].