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They're the same racists on the left and the right extremes. It's just, we had decades of wars and (justified) propaganda that thoroughly discredited fascism a

They're the same racists on the left and the right extremes. It's just, we had decades of wars and (justified) propaganda that thoroughly discredited fascism and their style of racism so it's easy to see how the right extremes is bad. What the extreme left is doing on the other hand is a more modern variation of racism and totalitarianism. It's ostensibly driven by noble concepts like social justice but in reality devolves into racial discrimination, dogmatism and tribalism as is seen on far right, just with a different dogma and different racial preferences. Maybe you find that particular dogma more agreeable, or maybe the ends justify the means for you, I dunno. But if you genuinely look at the discussion on Twitter or Reddit and you don't see extreme left views upvoted as often as extreme right I don't really know what to tell you. I guess people on the far right don't recognize their own crowd as an extreme either, it's just normal and common sense to them too, dismissing any rough edges with the same excuses. You want specific examples? Try being public about not fully supporting BLM. Not the literal slogan itself, but parts of everything else the movement and their leaders come with. See if anyone catches the nuance of your opinions as you're branded a racist for not falling in line. You don't even need to say anything racist, even a modicum of doubt in the dogma is seen as dogwhistling your obviously racist views. Do you see a lot of sexism or racial slurs / offenses in what you personally read on the internet? I don't, but the parts that I frequent what I see are mostly leftist racism and sexism, blaming white people for what other white people did, generalizing straight white men as privileged, "sounds about white"... No, none of that rings a bell, or none of that sounds bad or important because <reasons>? Try switching white to black and see how that holds up. Feeling righteous and having noble reasons for racism and sexism doesn't make it right. That's how all racism is justified and never in history has it been the right way to go about treating people.

ctdonath 6y ago
Yup. Try saying, with genuine honest neutrality, “all lives matter”, “it’s ok to be white”, or “capitalism doesn’t care about race/gender” and see what happens.
- matthewmacleod 6y ago
  All three of these phrases are political slogans. They are inherently associated with a set of political views, because they exist specifically to oppose another set of views and slogans. It’s unreasonable to echo a political slogan in public and then complain that people don’t assume your neutrality. You cannot say “it’s okay to be white” and expect others to consider it neutral, in much the same way that you can’t say “blood and soil”.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    It's the other way around: these phrases are neutral observations and reasonable opinions, perhaps reasonable reactions to insanity of well-known political slogans - importantly, it's something a random person can come up independently, without reading the exact words first. But at some point, these phrases rapidly become politicized, and this catches a lot of people off guard. You voice your thoughts, fully expecting the audience to consider it neutral, but it so happens that your words pattern-match to a phrase that became a political slogan somewhen in the last few months, and boom, your audience hates you. You just stepped on a political landmine[0]. It seems to me than in the past 5-10 years, social discourse became littered with such political landmines, and at this rate, it's very hard to keep up with the list of phrases that can blow up in your face. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968760
    - matthewmacleod 6y ago
      That's only true in the sense that every phrase can be a "neutral observation" if you choose to ignore the context in which it is used and the associations it has. It's the same concept as dogwhistling at its core. Like the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states' rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases" that are often used to communicate a hidden message with plausible deniability. I mean after all, who could disagree that "all lives matter" – it's obvious isn't it? I don't really accept it's all that hard to be aware of the implications of the language you use to communicate. I suppose you might theoretically step on a "landmine", but I'll tell you what – I am virtually certain that nobody who has said "it's okay to be white" to their audience has accidentally stumbled upon a neutral phrase with good intentions.
js8 6y ago
You didn't really answer GP's question, can you be a little more specific about which groups and individuals you perceive as left-extremist? I mean, people write a lot of crap on the Internet. It seems to me that you chose to perceive these people as leftist, rather than them proving it by participating in some kind of leftist organization or at least producing some left-leaning writing.
- clusterfish 6y ago
  Come on, I even gave you specific examples of specific issues that are widely recognized to be leftist. Denying it is like denying that anti-black racism is a predominantly right wing extreme.
morpheos137 6y ago
Ever try listening to NPR in recent years? It is really approaching the point of self parody. I would say that at least 80% of NPR "stories" have an explicitly stated racial angle and probably greater than 90% have a gender or race angle. It is literally almost the only thing NPR commentary and analysis segments talk about these days. Yes racism is bad. No it is not reasonable that every single segment is about how supposedly blacks, transgender blacks, illegal immigrants, etc, are victims. Even in coronavirus coverage it is all about race and a particular race at that. There is very little mention of anti-Asian hate crimes (often by blacks) almost no mention of interesting race facts, like the fact that Filipino American nurses were far more likely to die of Covid than other ethnic groups. Instead arcane stories, like African Americans in general are afraid of vaccines and that is okay because of the Tuskeegee experiments 50-60 years ago are aired. Again racism is bad. But when CNN or NPR is spending a huge, gigantic amount of their airtime covering racial issues every single day it is a little perplexing. It would make sense if the goal was to manufacture racial tension as distraction from real issues. Maybe it is. If you constantly focus on the outrage of the day you can ignore the slow boiled frog of rising economic inequality over the past 20 years. I am seriously interested in a study that quantified the number of NPR news analysis stories that contain explicit commentary on race in 2020. I bet it is over 80% meanwhile the black share of the population is around 12%. Seems to me it would make sense to have the number of stories more proportional to that.
- AshWolfy 6y ago
  Of the 30 stories currently featured on the NPR website, 1 is about race
  - morpheos137 6y ago
    In the title. However, I am sure, having listened to NPR almost every day, that most of those stories contain an explicit "racial analysis" segment. It is also possible that the written content is less race obsessed than what airs on the radio. I know when I am listening to NPR driving to work I hear racially focused stories back to back every single day as if there was absolutely nothing else interesting to talk about.
runarberg 6y ago
> It's ostensibly driven by noble concepts like social justice but in reality devolves into racial discrimination, dogmatism and tribalism I’m sorry but I simply don’t think this is true. You are stretching to reach a false equivalence: Tribalism: It depends on your criteria, it is hard to find any group of people that doesn’t engage in some form of tribalism. It is part of known human cognitive bias to favor in-group members over out-group. However, I say this is still false equivalence since fascists actively pray on this bias, while normally leftist groups tend to raise awareness and fight against this bias. I’ve personally attended leftists workshops with the goal of eliminating tribalism from the group’s actions. Dogmatism: Yes you will find anti-capitalist dogma in leftist circles. They would argue that capitalism is the ultimate dogma though. Perhaps that is dogmatist thinking to do that? Anyway, I think it is a stretch to equate strong believes in socialism, anarchism, anti-discrimination and social justice on the left with the strong believes of racial superiority, capitalism, and the need for strong leaders on the far right. You would have to argue that any believe is dogma if you want this to be equivalent. Racial discrimination: Now here is a real long stretch. Being racist will have you kicked out of leftist groups. (barring some nas-bols) racism is not tolerated. You might be thinking about discrimination against white people, if so there are sibling comments explaining why you are wrong. Or if you are thinking that some groups are excluded from certain activities because of privileged, it is more about giving victims a safe space to talk, privileged groups are not excluded from the movement as a whole (unless they fail to recognize their privilege and prefer to bask in it). Now there is a subgroup of leftists called Maoists and National Bolsheviks that do engage in dogmatism and racism. However they are usually not welcome in most leftist groups, and I do believe they are very few in numbers (I’ve never encountered one in the wild). I’ll end with an example in the wild where a (true) leftist youtuber calls out a Maoist youtuber for being reactionary. Very much demonstrating that this kind of behavior is not welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8OsvahWWzw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8OsvahWWzw
- flyingfences 6y ago
  > Racial discrimination: Now here is a real long stretch... You might be thinking about discrimination against white people It's not racial discrimination unless it's grown on the Right; otherwise, it's just "sparkling discrimination on the basis of race".

ctdonath 6y ago

Yup. Try saying, with genuine honest neutrality, “all lives matter”, “it’s ok to be white”, or “capitalism doesn’t care about race/gender” and see what happens.

matthewmacleod 6y ago
All three of these phrases are political slogans. They are inherently associated with a set of political views, because they exist specifically to oppose another set of views and slogans. It’s unreasonable to echo a political slogan in public and then complain that people don’t assume your neutrality. You cannot say “it’s okay to be white” and expect others to consider it neutral, in much the same way that you can’t say “blood and soil”.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It's the other way around: these phrases are neutral observations and reasonable opinions, perhaps reasonable reactions to insanity of well-known political slogans - importantly, it's something a random person can come up independently, without reading the exact words first. But at some point, these phrases rapidly become politicized, and this catches a lot of people off guard. You voice your thoughts, fully expecting the audience to consider it neutral, but it so happens that your words pattern-match to a phrase that became a political slogan somewhen in the last few months, and boom, your audience hates you. You just stepped on a political landmine[0]. It seems to me than in the past 5-10 years, social discourse became littered with such political landmines, and at this rate, it's very hard to keep up with the list of phrases that can blow up in your face. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968760
  - matthewmacleod 6y ago
    That's only true in the sense that every phrase can be a "neutral observation" if you choose to ignore the context in which it is used and the associations it has. It's the same concept as dogwhistling at its core. Like the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states' rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases" that are often used to communicate a hidden message with plausible deniability. I mean after all, who could disagree that "all lives matter" – it's obvious isn't it? I don't really accept it's all that hard to be aware of the implications of the language you use to communicate. I suppose you might theoretically step on a "landmine", but I'll tell you what – I am virtually certain that nobody who has said "it's okay to be white" to their audience has accidentally stumbled upon a neutral phrase with good intentions.

js8 6y ago

You didn't really answer GP's question, can you be a little more specific about which groups and individuals you perceive as left-extremist? I mean, people write a lot of crap on the Internet. It seems to me that you chose to perceive these people as leftist, rather than them proving it by participating in some kind of leftist organization or at least producing some left-leaning writing.

clusterfish 6y ago
Come on, I even gave you specific examples of specific issues that are widely recognized to be leftist. Denying it is like denying that anti-black racism is a predominantly right wing extreme.

morpheos137 6y ago

Ever try listening to NPR in recent years? It is really approaching the point of self parody. I would say that at least 80% of NPR "stories" have an explicitly stated racial angle and probably greater than 90% have a gender or race angle. It is literally almost the only thing NPR commentary and analysis segments talk about these days. Yes racism is bad. No it is not reasonable that every single segment is about how supposedly blacks, transgender blacks, illegal immigrants, etc, are victims. Even in coronavirus coverage it is all about race and a particular race at that. There is very little mention of anti-Asian hate crimes (often by blacks) almost no mention of interesting race facts, like the fact that Filipino American nurses were far more likely to die of Covid than other ethnic groups. Instead arcane stories, like African Americans in general are afraid of vaccines and that is okay because of the Tuskeegee experiments 50-60 years ago are aired. Again racism is bad. But when CNN or NPR is spending a huge, gigantic amount of their airtime covering racial issues every single day it is a little perplexing. It would make sense if the goal was to manufacture racial tension as distraction from real issues. Maybe it is. If you constantly focus on the outrage of the day you can ignore the slow boiled frog of rising economic inequality over the past 20 years. I am seriously interested in a study that quantified the number of NPR news analysis stories that contain explicit commentary on race in 2020. I bet it is over 80% meanwhile the black share of the population is around 12%. Seems to me it would make sense to have the number of stories more proportional to that.

AshWolfy 6y ago
Of the 30 stories currently featured on the NPR website, 1 is about race
- morpheos137 6y ago
  In the title. However, I am sure, having listened to NPR almost every day, that most of those stories contain an explicit "racial analysis" segment. It is also possible that the written content is less race obsessed than what airs on the radio. I know when I am listening to NPR driving to work I hear racially focused stories back to back every single day as if there was absolutely nothing else interesting to talk about.

runarberg 6y ago

> It's ostensibly driven by noble concepts like social justice but in reality devolves into racial discrimination, dogmatism and tribalism I’m sorry but I simply don’t think this is true. You are stretching to reach a false equivalence: Tribalism: It depends on your criteria, it is hard to find any group of people that doesn’t engage in some form of tribalism. It is part of known human cognitive bias to favor in-group members over out-group. However, I say this is still false equivalence since fascists actively pray on this bias, while normally leftist groups tend to raise awareness and fight against this bias. I’ve personally attended leftists workshops with the goal of eliminating tribalism from the group’s actions. Dogmatism: Yes you will find anti-capitalist dogma in leftist circles. They would argue that capitalism is the ultimate dogma though. Perhaps that is dogmatist thinking to do that? Anyway, I think it is a stretch to equate strong believes in socialism, anarchism, anti-discrimination and social justice on the left with the strong believes of racial superiority, capitalism, and the need for strong leaders on the far right. You would have to argue that any believe is dogma if you want this to be equivalent. Racial discrimination: Now here is a real long stretch. Being racist will have you kicked out of leftist groups. (barring some nas-bols) racism is not tolerated. You might be thinking about discrimination against white people, if so there are sibling comments explaining why you are wrong. Or if you are thinking that some groups are excluded from certain activities because of privileged, it is more about giving victims a safe space to talk, privileged groups are not excluded from the movement as a whole (unless they fail to recognize their privilege and prefer to bask in it). Now there is a subgroup of leftists called Maoists and National Bolsheviks that do engage in dogmatism and racism. However they are usually not welcome in most leftist groups, and I do believe they are very few in numbers (I’ve never encountered one in the wild). I’ll end with an example in the wild where a (true) leftist youtuber calls out a Maoist youtuber for being reactionary. Very much demonstrating that this kind of behavior is not welcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8OsvahWWzw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8OsvahWWzw

flyingfences 6y ago
> Racial discrimination: Now here is a real long stretch... You might be thinking about discrimination against white people It's not racial discrimination unless it's grown on the Right; otherwise, it's just "sparkling discrimination on the basis of race".