Fool’s World Map: ‘Stultorum Infinitus est Nemerus’ G201:1/43. Source.
I was reading a post at Pharyngula about the “Intellectual Dark Web” idiots, and came to an abrupt halt over these sentences:
There is also an irritating but genuine grain of truth deep beneath the layers of whining. Campus leftists and their allies in the media are often no more open to alternative perspectives than the New Republic white male elite of two decades ago; they can behave badly too.
This was my comment in response:
I came to a screeching halt in front of this disgusting apologia. The rest isn’t worth my time. This is utter bullshit, there’s no “irritating, genuine grain of truth” there at all. “Alternative Views” is nuspeak for the same old evil bigotry and discrimination that people keep trying to resurrect. Sticking an “alt” in front of these old chestnuts doesn’t change a fucking thing. I can’t even say just how much I’ve come to loathe the word alternate, thanks to all the immoral, evil, toxic assholes embracing it, as if it heralded new ideas. All the whining is because people recognize their crap for what it is, and they aren’t interested in hearing it, or providing a venue for it. It’s about damned time, too.
Let them fucking whine, but don’t be trying to sell their shit as some sterling truth that’s truly new. Farrell should be smacked for writing such idiocy.
This is an ask, an ask to consider their brave, “new” views, which are exactly the same as the very old views, which place almost all people firmly in the inferior camp for one reason or another. It’s pushing the colonial mindset with its genocidal bigotry, the same old fucking bullshit people have been fighting against for much of history. There are always more smug bigots than there are thinking, accepting people, because bigotry is easy. We all live within frameworks of institutional and systemic racism of some sort, here in Ustates, it is the framework, and has been from the start. Just getting some people to even see that framework is a serious, brain-breaking chore. That framework makes it very easy to slide into bigotry, it’s a very comfortable fit for many people, and some of them just insist on justifying their “alternative, radical” views. Those views are not alt-anything, they are as old as the hills, and firmly status quo mainstream. They are not radical, they stink of the banality of evil.
These are people who are waving the Persecution Banner, while pulling down obscene amounts of money, most of it from bigoted fans who are stuffed full of aggrieved entitlement. These are people who are so damn desperate for power, they will say anything, and do anything for a chance at real power. I suspect at least some of them are laughing their arses off on the way to the bank every month, but this does not make them less harmful. They embrace obscurantism while smiling and claiming “science” backs them up. They want to be seen as great leaders, carrying the one and only torch of knowledge, only they understand enlightenment, and that enlightenment is in silencing and oppressing those deemed inferior, dismissing the hordes of the great unwashed with a faint wave of a hand. Bring up the days of the gentry to them, and you’d no doubt hear a chorus of wistful sighs.
It’s all bullshit. It’s not even alternative bullshit, just the same old centuries long song. There is not one alternate thing about it, not one truly new view, not even a hint of originality. These are people who long for the bad old days, and cry at every opportunity because they can’t have that.
Bullshit. Piles and piles of bullshit.
Amen. Heard all that shit once I started paying attention to politics, back in the early 1960’s. That’s why I don’t need to listen to the present assholes. Heard all their shit almost 60 years ago. Nothing new is said if I do bother to listen.
Recently I’ve been reflecting on the fact that discussions about racism bring up people crying, “What about the whitez?”, just like how discussions about misogyny bring on, “What about the menz?” And the people doing this usually swear up and down that they’re not racist or sexist or whatever, that they’re just concerned because we’ve become so politically correct that white people and men (and cis people and straight people and Christians, etc.) just can’t do any darn thing without the P.C. Police™ whisking away their free speech in the blink of an eye. I just don’t buy that they’re on my side in any meaningful sense or that their position is the result of thoughtful commitment to freedom of speech.
Joseph Zowghi @2:
Oh, they are committed to freedom of speech. Freedom of THEIR speech at the expense of everyone else’s speech. They want the freedom to spout their bullshit without consequences. Real freedom of speech doesn’t work like that, but they try to twist it to fit their narrative.
Johnson catman:
Word.
It’s funny: I think the point the author is trying to make is that the fleck of ļegitimacy’ to their hurt feelings is because they have lost the lofty intellectually ‘superior’ positions they were expecting, with everyone quietly nodding along in agreement (that is, they are not receiving the accolades they believe they are entitled to -- wait, no… they’re receiving accolades but they take issue with disagreement, because… eh, never mind, basically they’re crying about a loss in status (not, you know, actual discrimination)). Yet the author conveniently omits why people aren’t quietly nodding along in agreement, but vehemently and loudly opposing their ‘facts’, so even that one “irritating but genuine grain of truth” is based in lies and ugliness and not worth the energy to comfort the so-hurt feelings of the IDW. Is the author expecting pearls to develop out of this distasteful garbage? Yeah, no.
So a bunch of cis-white, privileged people’s feelings are hurt. Boo fucking hoo. And all your alternative perspectives, too.
Yeah, I want to see one genuinely novel idea. They like to call their ideas “dangerous” and I agree because we have seen the fucking misery they lead to.
Of course, it’s not like us genuine lefties don’t have disagreements and, yeah, alternative views. The difference is that those alternative views usually don’t start with the idea that one group of humans should be treated as inferior. We can happily disagree on whether it’s better to hand poor parents an additional 50 bucks a month in cash or simply make school lunches free. Because none of this starts with the assumption that poor kids don’t deserve food.