2 ms·

Banning things isn’t illiberal; liberalism doesn’t mean unlimited tolerance for everything, and all liberals have and enforce their own taboos. It’s baffling th

Banning things isn’t illiberal; liberalism doesn’t mean unlimited tolerance for everything, and all liberals have and enforce their own taboos. It’s baffling that people seem to think that liberalism means “the only rule is that there are no rules”. Edit: that said, the “right” in America has been very meek in its “bans” compared with the left. You’re talking about politicians running on promises to remove books from local schools, winning on that platform, and following through. And then usually it gets overturned by some judge and quietly goes away. Meanwhile, we’ve seen for years school boards making decisions to remove books based on “left”ish principles and receiving little national backlash, even in ruby-red districts. No massive furor, no “this-is-a-threat-to-our-democracy” handwringing, maybe a write up in some rag like Breitbart or an episode of Tucker Carlson. It doesn’t get overturned, and people just accept it because they have no other choice. Which of these is less liberal?

GloomyBoots 3y ago
I should add that this is only focusing on hard power. Where the “left” really shines is in using its networks to exert a lot of soft power. The state plays its part, as do corporations, NGOs, media outlets, academic institutions, doxxing and harassment rings. All part of the same structure working to manufacture consent. I remember when transgenderism became a hot-button issue so quickly that most “liberals” in the colloquial sense were caught completely off guard. There was maybe a year where every voice of authority was proclaiming the new truth, but people weren’t yet ready. It was too much, too quickly, and a lot of these people resisted. But once it became clear that if you dissented on this, you weren’t allowed in the club anymore, many gave in. It did give rise to TERFs and other splinter movements, which is why such a hard push is so dangerous. But back to these networks, that’s how “left” power works. And “right” power consists of reactionary half-measures like “don’t push this on kids until they’re eight.” Again, I agree that there’s no left in America. But that’s increasingly true globally, especially among very-online political wonks. If Marx rose from the dead today, the entire left would condemn him as a crypto-fascist. And the right is much the same. It can’t conceive of itself as anything more than the half-hearted preserver of yesterday’s lies. It doesn’t have the vision or the will to be truly “right” in any historically normal sense of the word.

GloomyBoots 3y ago

I should add that this is only focusing on hard power. Where the “left” really shines is in using its networks to exert a lot of soft power. The state plays its part, as do corporations, NGOs, media outlets, academic institutions, doxxing and harassment rings. All part of the same structure working to manufacture consent. I remember when transgenderism became a hot-button issue so quickly that most “liberals” in the colloquial sense were caught completely off guard. There was maybe a year where every voice of authority was proclaiming the new truth, but people weren’t yet ready. It was too much, too quickly, and a lot of these people resisted. But once it became clear that if you dissented on this, you weren’t allowed in the club anymore, many gave in. It did give rise to TERFs and other splinter movements, which is why such a hard push is so dangerous. But back to these networks, that’s how “left” power works. And “right” power consists of reactionary half-measures like “don’t push this on kids until they’re eight.” Again, I agree that there’s no left in America. But that’s increasingly true globally, especially among very-online political wonks. If Marx rose from the dead today, the entire left would condemn him as a crypto-fascist. And the right is much the same. It can’t conceive of itself as anything more than the half-hearted preserver of yesterday’s lies. It doesn’t have the vision or the will to be truly “right” in any historically normal sense of the word.