mallowdram, in a flagged dead post, noted: > Logic is inapplicable here. Politics is arbitrary, and labels/categories are worse than arbitrary, they are random

mallowdram, in a flagged dead post, noted: > Logic is inapplicable here. Politics is arbitrary, and labels/categories are worse than arbitrary, they are random. Broadly speaking, at some level, I agree with them. There is no machine that will flash an indicator when pointed at a “fascist”. Yet certain intelligent people are always willing to use pure reason to confront a world that does not admit such scientific classification. The retort is always, “You know one when you see one.” The is a definite humility that is lacking in such debate, as if everyone shares a logically necessary psychological reality. None of these thinking persons, of any stripe, are prepared to do the work of articulating, with nuance, where the logical consequences of another contradict their own, and more tellingly, where interpretations of words/labels/categories are themselves foundational in arguments. People, myself certainly included, are not free with their energies teasing these details out, and are instead more than ready to indicate, in laborious, technical detail, why they are right. This is a very sick time in shared discourse. I want people to pause and ask if this intellectual turmoil is indeed useful in the present moment or is irrational behaviour forced by economic, social, and environmental anxieties of our time.