So, I've been thinking about what I said in my previous post, and the post I made almost a month ago about people fearing the downfall of democracy, and I think I kind of came to a new realization of why I dislike the left's approach to fighting racism and blah blah blah..
It's essentially because I don't truly believe culture wars work through the methods they're trying to make them work though.
As I've noted before, the SJW left is a lot like the religious right. They seem to want to impose their cultural views by force. They want to teach their ideas in schools, they want to punish people who don't support their ideas. They don't believe in free speech or freedom of expression. If you're racist, you're a bad person, and bad people need to be punished to stop them from being bad. It's an extremely authoritarian mindset and rubs me the wrong way on multiple levels.
You know, after I left the religious right in 2012, I went through a period where I was a bit of an anti culture warrior too. I believed that religion was one of the major things wrong with the world, and that if no one was religious, we would be able to have more reasonable discussions about things and progress as a society. I no longer believe that. 2016 onward have kind of beaten that out of me, as I watched the "intellectually superior" political left devolve into the same kinds of tribalism I expected from the right, and for the right to start finally breaking away from religion and back toward a more secular form of "fascism" under Donald Trump. Not to say we completely got rid of the religious aspects, but I kind of realize that if we solved the issues and made everyone not religious any more, it wouldn't solve the problems.
Also, I always tried to avoid using the same kinds of tactics SJWs do in trying to promote my ideas. The last thing I wanted to do was to galvanize the religious right against me on the basis that I want to "persecute" them. No. I might have thought their views were wrong and downright harmful to society, but I understood that they had a right to hold them, and that if I took away their right to do so, I would be the bad guy, and they would rightfully lash out against me.
Now, that isn't to say I'm not willing to step in at times and preserve the rights of OTHERS when they come in conflict with peoples' religious rights (ie, yes, you have to provide employees with birth control as part of your health insurance, yes, you have to bake gay people a wedding cake, yes, you have to get vaccinated to ensure that people don't die from being exposed to your cooties). But, I'm not going to do so lightly. I'm not gonna act like I'm trying to actively stamp those ideas out of existence,. That IS persecution, and that is wrong.
Racism, by the way, always felt under the same kinds of ideas that religion did for me at this time. Racism is a harmful view, but people have a right to be racist. And express racist views. And while I don't like those views, I believe that preserving peoples' right to be racist is a necessary component of free speech. I mean, if you really support free speech, you have to support the right if people you don't like to express their views publicly, without retaliation.
That said, it really frustrates me to see the left in such an authoritarian way. And I can honestly say, I don't believe this approach would be harmful. Okay, so imagine you are like a fudnamentalist christian, and the left tries to push organized efforts to ban discussion of religion. Say you can't discuss those ideas on social media or you get banned. Say you cant express them publicly or you have people calling up your employer to get you fired, or you're trying to otherwise punish people for having these views.
Are you going to change your mind? Think about it, think of whatever views you hold dear, are you going to change your mind, if someone tries to forcefully stop you from having such views? No. At best, you might force those ideas underground. But you're not gonna eliminate them. You're just being an authoritarian ###hole who punishes people for having those views.
At worst, what might happen is such attempts to censor views might cause you to backlash and find solace with others who think like you, causing them to polarize themselves against you and organize, becoming a potentially dangerous counter force to your side of the aisle.
Well, congratulations, that's what you guys (SJWs) are doing with racists. You're not really making people less racist in trying such authoritarian tactics to force racism, you're polarizing people against you. You're driving them to Donald Trump. And places like voat instead of reddit. All this deplatforming nonsense just drives people deeper into their own echo chambers where they tend to develop their own alternative networks and social structures, which will just amplify those views. Being not represented in mainstream corporate media forced them to make their own corporate media in the form of Fox News, and more recently Newsmax, OAN, and the blaze. And honestly? I think a lot of fence sitters are so turned off by a lot of the behavior the left engages in that people who would otherwise be moderate, become more extreme. Because they dislike the left trying to repress them. They might not even have hardcore racist views themselves, but, they don't like being told what to do so they end up turning against the left as a result.
I even saw a meme today where the SJWs went full stupid where they said "when you expose a racist student, you stop them from attending a university that will allow them to become a racist healthcare worker, teacher, lawyer, real estate developer, politicians, etc."
There is so much wrong with this statement.
First of all, you're talking teenagers and young adults who were indoctrinated by really bad influences in their youth. I see racism a lot like I see fundamentalist religion, as I keep pointing out. it's not really something that people get in a vacuum, or that they're going to always hold, etc. it's indoctrination. That said, what breaks indoctrination? Uh, going to college. Forcing people to confront views they otherwise wouldn't. Challenge them intellectually. So, by kicking out racist students, you're stopping them from learning, which means they will continue to be racist. Congratulations, you played yourselves.
Second of all, will the person kicked out of college actually change their tune by being kicked out? Hell no, you just made an enemy for life. We already have an anti intellectual problem in this country, where the right doesn't trust educational institutions, and this problem will just reinforce it and make it worse.
Third, they're gonna have to get a job anyway. You just forced them down the income and prestige ladder, basically to punish them. You do realize people need to work in society and this is coercion right? of course you do, you're trying to make it where they can't get a job and instead impose economic violence on them for having crappy views. But say they do get a job. Well, now your fast food worker is gonna be racist. Or your car mechanic. Or any other blue collar type job. And we all know white blue collar workers lean toward trumpism on the whole, so, once again, congratulations at just reinforcing that.
So, what's my solution? Well, to a large extent I don't have one. I understand these ideas are here to stay, and I believe in working around them in order to minimize their damage. The thing about forcing a culture war is it doesn't work, and creates a backlash, while violating core principles we hold as a nation. We have to be tolerant of others, even those who are intolerant (yes, I hate the paradox of tolerance and believe it to be a hypocritical and harmful ideal). We gotta live with the fact that people will have crappy views. And if we want to encourage people to get out of those views, we need to do what new atheists believe we gotta do with religion. We gotta educate people. Instead of trying to punish racist people in college with kicking them out, why not subject them to mandatory critical race theory type classes? This is on the college level of course. Make them take credits in sociology to graduate. Ultimately, I believe the solution to the race issues is to deprogram people indoctrinated into that crap. And that relies on education, and engaging people in order to try to change their mind.
But we should NEVER EVER try to go the punitive route of trying to deplatform them and take away their rights.
I guess a final reason I dislike culture war stuff is because I see it as a lot of effort for not a lot of return. The main role of politics should be to implement POLICY. We vote for leaders not to virtue signal about identity politics, but to pass policies that solve issues. And while I guess idpol can be important in politicking around these issues, ultimately, what matters is POLICY. And that said, when i look at politics, while I might make intellectual cases for shifting our values on things (I do it a lot with the anti work stuff), ultimately, I back up my values with policies. UBI, medicare for all, free college. All things that would make people much better off in an immediate and straightforward way. I feel like the left goes more for ideas that arent really felt by much of the population, and then they lose them as they end up being divisive. Nah, i'd rather go straight to solving problems.
On a policy level, I believe the best approach to racism is defensive. We preserve the rights of those who are underprivileged. We pass policies protesting people from discrimination, along with the basic color blind economic policies that benefit everyone, but in reality will benefit POC a lot more because, you know, poverty and lack of material security.
I'm not gonna try to impose piecemeal policies with like a 30% approval rating that are divisive like racial quotas, or affirmative action, or reparations. We don't want to get in a battle where we're called out for taking opportunity away from whites to give to other people. That's dumb, that's how you lose people. You make it cost your typical average joe something and they'll turn against it. Because ultimately, most people care primarily about themselves and their own situation. Again, SJWs try to force people to care, and even sacrifice their own priorities on the altar of white liberal guilt, and that doesnt work.
People might not like my enlightened centrism and moderation on this topic. I tell them tough crap. I am a bit of a centrist on these issues these days. Maybe center left as I acknowledge the issues to some extent, but yeah, i'm not really die hard on solving it at all costs. Because I kind of believe the costs of doing so aren't worth it. If we force people to not be racist, they lose their freedom of speech and expression, opening the door for more attacks against other ideologies we don't like. Not to mention creating a polarizing counter movement which isn't good for the country. If we try to force people to give up something to solve the problem, the majority of people will turn against it.
The thing that gives my ideas strength, IMO, is that they're universal, and I can make a case to a majority of people that they will benefit from them. I can even calculate how much better off people will be under my UBI plan than they are now in a lot of instances. And those who do pay into the system are not just a minority, but they're arguably the most demonstrably materially best off among us. As you make more money, you pay more in taxes, and the top 20% pays in net. 70-80% benefit, 20-30% pay. That's fair, under utilitarian principles.
And yeah. I know, I'm starting to ramble now. But that's how I see things. All things considered, I don't believe the left can win a fight against racism as they are. They're just going to end up driving it if anything and make the problem worse as their methods are heavy handed and polarizing. The downside of trying to cast racists out of polite society is that you're just concentrating them all in one place and making them a political force to be reckoned with. Which NO ONE wants. So stop it. You guys might not want to hear it, but you gotta live with these people. The goal is to educate them and minimize the impacts of their harmful views, not take the bull by the horns only to get bucked.
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