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So the point is not necessarily to convince people there was no Holocaust, Holodomor or Armenian genocide. It's to make some people doubt. In effect, they becom

by b0rsuk 5y ago

So the point is not necessarily to convince people there was no Holocaust, Holodomor or Armenian genocide. It's to make some people doubt. In effect, they become neutral to the idea, and that's enough to enable fascists.

_jal 5y ago
There's a concept called the Overton Window, which refers to a range of opinions that are mainstream-enough to be held without being considered a kook of some sort. These are just methods of injecting fringe ideas into mainstream discourse to make it seem like 'normal' people think these things. A lot of this just functions via repetition, see also the 'Big Lie' technique, which has a history going back quite a bit further than last November. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
- krapp 5y ago
  Funny you should mention the Big Lie...[0] https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk/desk-y8ggkc94j3106/ https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk/desk-y8ggkc94j3106/
claytongulick 5y ago
It seems like a pretty big leap from "There are aspects of this that don't add up to me" (neutral) to "enabling facists". I tend to view everthing with a degree of skepticism, and I tend to reject the idea that there are subjects that are "off limits" for critical evaluation. I'm not sure how that's enabling fascism. It seems like it would do the opposite, no?
- zuminator 5y ago
  Viewing everything skeptically causes one to doubt things that are true, and also to doubt that things that are false are really false. That results in undermining the truth and reinforcing the lie. Everything becomes an undifferentiated "shrug?" and important beliefs stop feeling as if they're worth defending. But it turns out that most of us want to have strong beliefs after all. So, after our commitment to democratic principles (along with everything else) has been weakened due to the skeptical paradigm, we are ripe to have other strong beliefs take the place of those which have been dethroned. Enter fascism, evangelism, and other belief systems with highly dedicated cadres. They're like opportunistic infections which take root when our natural bullshit-detecting immune systems have been destroyed by a diet of excess skepticism.
- jfengel 5y ago
  I tend to view everthing with a degree of skepticism The problem is that that can't actually be true. If it were, you wouldn't be able to actually do anything. You'd be too busy being skeptical about whether the sun will actually rise tomorrow or whether all of the people around you are actually simulacra. It's an old and well-discussed problem called Radical Skepticism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism You can expand "degree" to re-enable your ability to act, but that's exactly what's going on here. They're saying, "No, we're not going to waste more time re-re-re-reevaluating often-refuted observations". I'll set aside tendentious arguments about what constitutes "fascism", but it's definitely the case that people use insincere arguments for "skepticism" in order to shut down all genuine inquiry. That's not productive, and it's useful to find ways to circumvent that.
- b0rsuk 5y ago
  If you say "I don't know about that", or "I'm not sure if that really happened", it's a short walk from tolerating fascists. My country is having a conservative/authoritarian turn, and only about 30% votes for the regime. The rest has no opinion or thinks everyone used to be just as bad.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    > If you say "I don't know about that", or "I'm not sure if that really happened", it's a short walk from tolerating fascists. I strongly disagree. There is an enormous shift from "I question whether Jews were killed" to "Let's go kill Jews". (To avoid misunderstandings and red herrings: Yes, the Holocaust happened, and was very much as horrific as claimed. The evidence is clear, consistent, overwhelming, and almost impossible to deny. And there are almost certainly recruiters who use "just asking questions" to try to recruit people. Nevertheless, "shut up and stop asking" isn't the answer. Instead, the answer is to show evidence, in overwhelming amounts. This may not silence the recruiter, but the recruiter isn't the target of your evidence. The recruitee is.)
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Replying to myself, because I'm too late to edit: You said "tolerating fascists" rather than "being a fascist". But it's still an enormous shift from "I question whether Jews were killed" to "It's OK that you want to kill Jews".

by b0rsuk 5y ago

_jal 5y ago

There's a concept called the Overton Window, which refers to a range of opinions that are mainstream-enough to be held without being considered a kook of some sort. These are just methods of injecting fringe ideas into mainstream discourse to make it seem like 'normal' people think these things. A lot of this just functions via repetition, see also the 'Big Lie' technique, which has a history going back quite a bit further than last November. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

krapp 5y ago
Funny you should mention the Big Lie...[0] https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk/desk-y8ggkc94j3106/ https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk/desk-y8ggkc94j3106/

claytongulick 5y ago

It seems like a pretty big leap from "There are aspects of this that don't add up to me" (neutral) to "enabling facists". I tend to view everthing with a degree of skepticism, and I tend to reject the idea that there are subjects that are "off limits" for critical evaluation. I'm not sure how that's enabling fascism. It seems like it would do the opposite, no?

zuminator 5y ago
Viewing everything skeptically causes one to doubt things that are true, and also to doubt that things that are false are really false. That results in undermining the truth and reinforcing the lie. Everything becomes an undifferentiated "shrug?" and important beliefs stop feeling as if they're worth defending. But it turns out that most of us want to have strong beliefs after all. So, after our commitment to democratic principles (along with everything else) has been weakened due to the skeptical paradigm, we are ripe to have other strong beliefs take the place of those which have been dethroned. Enter fascism, evangelism, and other belief systems with highly dedicated cadres. They're like opportunistic infections which take root when our natural bullshit-detecting immune systems have been destroyed by a diet of excess skepticism.
jfengel 5y ago
I tend to view everthing with a degree of skepticism The problem is that that can't actually be true. If it were, you wouldn't be able to actually do anything. You'd be too busy being skeptical about whether the sun will actually rise tomorrow or whether all of the people around you are actually simulacra. It's an old and well-discussed problem called Radical Skepticism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism You can expand "degree" to re-enable your ability to act, but that's exactly what's going on here. They're saying, "No, we're not going to waste more time re-re-re-reevaluating often-refuted observations". I'll set aside tendentious arguments about what constitutes "fascism", but it's definitely the case that people use insincere arguments for "skepticism" in order to shut down all genuine inquiry. That's not productive, and it's useful to find ways to circumvent that.
b0rsuk 5y ago
If you say "I don't know about that", or "I'm not sure if that really happened", it's a short walk from tolerating fascists. My country is having a conservative/authoritarian turn, and only about 30% votes for the regime. The rest has no opinion or thinks everyone used to be just as bad.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  > If you say "I don't know about that", or "I'm not sure if that really happened", it's a short walk from tolerating fascists. I strongly disagree. There is an enormous shift from "I question whether Jews were killed" to "Let's go kill Jews". (To avoid misunderstandings and red herrings: Yes, the Holocaust happened, and was very much as horrific as claimed. The evidence is clear, consistent, overwhelming, and almost impossible to deny. And there are almost certainly recruiters who use "just asking questions" to try to recruit people. Nevertheless, "shut up and stop asking" isn't the answer. Instead, the answer is to show evidence, in overwhelming amounts. This may not silence the recruiter, but the recruiter isn't the target of your evidence. The recruitee is.)
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Replying to myself, because I'm too late to edit: You said "tolerating fascists" rather than "being a fascist". But it's still an enormous shift from "I question whether Jews were killed" to "It's OK that you want to kill Jews".