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Originally Posted by Toy Soldier
Gender and general identity philosophy, race issues, issues relating to and interwoven with mental health (slightly more complex and highly related to identity politics)... to give specific examples... but it’s broader than that.
As a summing up, it’s whenever and wherever someone is deciding what “feels right” and then creating the intellectual structures to prove that it is in fact right after the fact. Deciding on the conclusion and then developing the thinking to fit the conclusion rather than the other way around. Then the secondary aspect where it becomes about group identity; it becomes not even about deciding what feels right as a starting point, but rather “accepting the group consensus on what is right” and going from there. It doesn’t apply to everyone who holds any opinion or set of opinions obviously but it is easy to spot because people immediately fall apart when asked to elaborate. They can’t offer any real advice on reaching their conclusion because they didn’t reach the conclusion for themselves, so the result is frustrated (often young) people insisting “what I think is right, you just think as I think!” Whilst being totally unable to tackle the “why?”.
Again that’s where my thoughts on it get complicated. Often the conclusions are perfectly sound and reasonable. But the aggression that comes with frustration at being unable to justify those conclusions when pushed is significant and offputting . So people have to be categorised, and some people are right, and some are wrong, and they are the enemy.
It’s not a partisan left-right issue it applies across the board. A gammon is no better-reasoned than a woke. But the key point is that both are fundamentally positive that they are RIGHT, based mostly on things they have been told rather than their own reasoning, and being asked for their reasoning is deemed an offensive challenge and will most likely see you labelled as [something] and others warned that you are [something].
But yeah basically my observation (worry?) is that I see a lot of the same types of people with the same types of thinking (or lack of thinking) right across the political spectrum, and that is the real problem. That is the massive well of emotion-driven crude oil that the politicians are more than happy to exploit.
The major differences are that the driving factor on the left is the concept of moralism and group-wellbeing whereas the right tends towards impulses for selfishness and individualism.
I’d argue that that’s why the right finds it so much easier to “get the numbers” too... at the base level, humans are instinctually driven towards selfish gains; the survival of self first and foremost and then small groups with close ties. Genuine concern “for mankind” or larger groups isn’t something that comes to people easily and actually REQUIRES a deeper level of philosophical and introspective thought. Divide and conquer is part of it but divide and conquer isn’t even difficult when all you actually have to do is distract and people will automatically tend towards self-interest.
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There are definitely areas of both agreement and disagreement here, but I'm going to say we need to break them down further. For example, what is the moral absolute you think is objectional when it comes to racial equality, and what thinking argument needs to be made to justify it? Because for me, that's a pretty surface level issue, it also ignores the fact that these arguments have been back and forth for centuries, and all the previous eugenicist arguments have been completely debunked.
We do find agreement when it comes to gender especially. I rarely ever comment myself in those threads (as an example) because I'm still trying to work out where my own positions on the subject fall. I know what my positions are, but it's where my positions lead where my issues are revealed. For example, I'm for transgender equality, but I don't think they should be taking part in sports, but then exclusion from sports, especially within schools is also pretty damaging imo, but sports are also exclusionary for someone with the wrong body size, or an odour issue. I just haven't seen any satisfying arguments for how these additional issues are resolved, and I do think there is a certain left wing orthodoxy here so i do take your point. Just for a bit of context though, people didn't just start banging out about these rights for a laugh, it was in response to the "blokes in women's bathrooms" brigade. Which of course was a fully thought out, fully reasoned, intellectual discipline.
Same as antifa, which is actually a good example, because if you got 5 lefties in a room, I'd be amazed if you only received one opinion, but to the wider point, antifa didn't just spring up for a laugh, it was in response to the increasing popularity of neo-nazis and fascism, which now holds power over one of the 2 parties in America.
I do think there are issues where morality exists and where simple right and wrong are in combat, but cognitive dissonance is a thing for a reason, and I do think you've both-sides this a little too far.
Finally, I'd just like to thank you for taking part in a good faith discussion, an increasingly and depressingly rare thing these days on here.