Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

I thought this was good in delineating the difference between twitter users/overusers and the rest of the world: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/illiberalism-cancel-culture-free-speech-internet-ugh.html

simon your posts are otm. apologize and move on, there’s always next time, etc. the mortification is a waste of time and energy, mainly that of trans and nb ppl

nod, that's sensible

Having to immediately set aside my own feelings, my hurt, and attend to their needs even though they were the ones who hurt me, in practice, denies me the opportunity to process and acknowledge the impact of what has happened to me. I get the feeling that they are _very_ interested in "restorative justice", and that restorative justice, to them, means restoring themselves to their rightful role at the moral center of the community, the pole around whom all Others revolve.

They're probably just really afraid of being (or being seen to be) bad people! I suffer from it too; it's natural. It's why I sometimes fly off the handle when my insecurities are provoked in just the right way. You don't owe them anything except arguably continuing friendship, and you shouldn't regard their apologies as overly demanding anything of you, unless of course they go on and on and on way beyond you saying something simple like 'it's fine, don't do it again'. They're not trying to hurt you - at least, you have to have faith that this is the case.

The way you elide straight from this to them restoring themselves to their rightful role at the moral centre of the community feels like something of an (understandable) paranoid projection (and an unhelpful pun on the phrase 'restorative justice'). They are not trying to Other you, or at least, you cannot be friends with anyone who would do that (and a few breaths later you claim indeed that your friends are your sole safeguard from the world's evils)! Obviously I've not met them so I don't know which of them if any regard themselves as moral centres but it strikes me as likelier that, like me, they have developed a distaste for being found guilty of Being Bad; wanting to be Not Bad is not the same as believing oneself to be Always Good or Right; in fact, it rather contradicts it, as were the latter the case it would surely preclude the possibility of the former.

And for liberals, the written proof of this virtue, the imprimatur under which they operate, are the laws. Laws, to them, are not guidelines under which we may learn to become more just, but justice itself, flawless ideals which we can only strive to imitate more perfectly. They are, foundationally, People of the Book.

I'm talking about myself here, my former self. The way I was raised, what I used to believe. I believed that we - the United States of America, and liberal democracies in general - were a nation of laws, not merely a nation of men (in the archaic, non-gendered sense. I loved that sort of language; it seemed elevated, elegant.) It was not enough for me to trust in mere people. Inconsistent, superstitious, violent - the prospect of not having recourse to the law horrified me.

Today I do not trust in the law. Today I believe that "the law" is whatever you can get away with. I do not believe the law protects me. I do not believe the law was created to protect me. I believe it was created to protect people like the person I once thought I was. When I was that person, I believed everybody else was just like I was, that those laws applied equally to everybody else just like they applied to me, and I was so fucking wrong about that.

Laws are imperfect rules enforced imperfectly by often malign or disingenuous forces and I am suspicious of American law enforcement in general (UK is not perfect either; most countries probably have significant problems in this field), but you appear to align liberal thought with law most precisely. I would strongly dispute whether this theory is borne out by the history of liberal thought and praxis; it feels to me that, while liberalism is by definition a process that lags behind the cultural avant-garde by a few steps as it synthesises new information (hence why full trans acceptance is lamentably not quite yet the mainstream liberal position - and I said yet), it is nonetheless a process that seeks to remedy inequalities and imperfect freedoms through a combination of legal or political evolution and cultural exchange. To claim that liberal dogma creates a 'terminal fulfilment' and then ignores the issue thereafter is to completely ignore the last two hundred years of post-Enlightenment liberal progress and development.

I think a fundamental problem in this is still that I mean something slightly different by 'liberal' than many of you. I am not a Clinton; I am not an NPR reactionary or a free-marketeer. I'm a leftist who is also a liberal in the sense that I think working towards individual freedom creates more acceptable conditions for living than any alternative I've heard. I suppose I am reclaiming the term to an extent; I certainly don't think it deserves to be trashed as comprehensively as it is on ILX.

Speaking of which, what are your alternatives, my fine anti-liberal friends? I never do hear how we're going to bring about full communism, or what price there is to pay. Will your life and the lives of those you care about be made better by liberals like Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn, or by an armed struggle in which you'll probably die?

Maybe this is obvious but the use of "liberal" to mean "people like Nancy Pelosi as opposed to people like Bernie Sanders or AOC, who are not liberals" is pretty restricted to left-centric online spaces. In general US political discourse, Nancy Pelosi is liberal and Bernie Sanders is more liberal.

They're probably just really afraid of being (or being seen to be) bad people!

That’s .,, the point she’s making

Wondering what Jeremy Corbyn's reaction would if you called him a liberal to his face.

But then that elides straight to "they want to make themselves the moral centres of the universe" xp

He'd be polite, of course.

Corbyn is a social democrat, yes? Social democracy is a venerable part of the liberal tradition, no?

Jeremy Corbyn is a Socialist, not a liberal.

Tony Blair is a liberal.

What exactly *is* a 'socialist'? That term is no less capacious than 'liberal'.

Of course 'creepy liberalism' surely does exist as well, especially at the libertarian/expansionist end of the liberal spectrum (hi there, Tony Blair!), but it can be differentiated from other forms of liberalism without sacrificing too many leftist points, surely?

Would you not say Corbyn is a social liberal? He believes in, for example, LGBT rights a lot more than most politicians - it's one of the reasons I like him so much.

having a mare here, certain user

Boris Johnson is a 'social liberal', so what?

xp said other user without contributing anything to the discussion

Who isn't a social liberal apart from some Sir Bufton Tuftons on the Tory backbenches and Tim Farron?

Shall we look up Johnson's voting record on issues of freedom, such as for immigrants, LGBT people or the poor? Somehow I feel his liberal credentials will shrivel a little

The poor don't count for 'social liberals'

No, they don't count for creepy libertarians (who always turn out to be reactionaries of some stripe anyway). I won't allow the entire liberal tradition to be done over like this.

any def of liberalism that excludes mainstream social democrats like corbyn and bernie is way more narrow than what i was talking about

Would you not say Corbyn is a social liberal? He believes in, for example, LGBT rights a lot more than most politicians - it's one of the reasons I like him so much.

― imago, Monday, July 13, 2020 11:02 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

being in favour of lgbt rights is not an invention of "liberalism".

?

I think this has been linked to on ilx before, but this article is pretty convincing imo - arguing that Corbyn is a better liberal than the supposed 'liberal' centrists he is sometimes unfavorably compared to

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/12/jeremy-corbyn-defender-of-liberalism

Speaking of which, what are your alternatives, my fine anti-liberal friends? I never do hear how we're going to bring about full communism, or what price there is to pay

I'm not a liberal, but that doesn't make me a communist. No interest in that either

what year is this

Sheffield Liberal vs Sheffield Communist (KO 7.30pm)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srh97TbXN8A

xp

I think this has been linked to on ilx before, but this article is pretty convincing imo - arguing that Corbyn is a better liberal than the supposed 'liberal' centrists he is sometimes unfavorably compared to

I'm sure he is but I'm also sure he would bristle at being called a liberal.

tbf Oxford vs Wycombe is like a battle between two distinct forms of conservative liberalism

Points deductions are the preserve of authoritians and wokescolds both. Its a conundrum

I'm not a liberal, but that doesn't make me a communist. No interest in that either

This is it pretty much, don't call me a liberal, even if it's for the possibly feeble reason that my entire life we've had a shitty party of that or similar name that exists largely to give a home to 'nice' Tories.

Dude, party names mean fuck-all. Have you seen Australia's Liberal Party??!

That said, the Lib Dems are assuredly liberals, yeah - some (most?) of them pretty creepy

Did you miss the discussion on why 'liberal' means different things in the US and the UK?

I didn't miss where ogmor added an extra couple of definitions which I subscribe to more than either of the initial faulty offerings

Which means it can be a good time to let the tight grasp of identification and subsription go a little bit. You can still wear the jersey but it doesn't have to be quite so tight

Ogmor is generally right about most things but, in this case, I can't remember what he actually said.

xp Well, indeed. I can define myself as a liberal leftist and you can define me as whatever but what matters are my (and your) beliefs about how society should operate, and how these beliefs modify when placed beside one another

uk pol profs will talk about the liberal left to mean yr progressive left that supports identity politics and so on

― rumpy riser (ogmor), Monday, 13 July 2020 13:23 (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I also think liberal has less pejorative sting amongst some religious ppl for whom it's the de facto opposite to fundamentalist

― rumpy riser (ogmor), Monday, 13 July 2020 13:41 (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not seeing a slam dunk of any description there tbh.

it doesn't need to be a slam dunk, it can just feel more right

you can define me as whatever

I've never defined you as anything! Its best not to get too caught up in labels, other than as generalities

When I see the words liberal and religious in the same sentence I can only think of one name - Tim Farron (LOL).

the creepiest

"What I took from Kate's post is not that she doesn't want to apologize but that it feels to her like when people apologize for misgendering her they're actually asking for some sort of absolution from something much bigger, they're asking her to pronounce them Good Persons.

― Daniel_Rf"

yeah, i meant to make that more explicit in that last post but i forgot. when i fuck up, which i do, often, what i try to do is accept responsibility, apologise to anybody i've hurt, accept the consequences, and move on. what i was trying to convey is that misgendering someone is a normal and common thing to do, it's something i still do all the fucking time, and of course i feel bad about doing it, but feeling ashamed of my mistakes, i've found, doesn't really help me to fix them, is more likely to send my spiraling into self-judgment, into the notion that i am a Bad Person, like lj says.

"They're probably just really afraid of being (or being seen to be) bad people! I suffer from it too; it's natural. It's why I sometimes fly off the handle when my insecurities are provoked in just the right way

― imago"

this is good. this is really insightful and thoughtful and i totally agree with it. the bit after this that i didn't quote, i feel like you kind of go into problem-solving, which i wasn't asking for and i don't need. i have problems, i do the best i can with them, which includes asking for help from other people when i need it, and i don't really think i did that in my last post.

i know very well, very well indeed, that fear of being Bad, and it was not healthy for me. i lived in constant fear of judgement, holding myself to impossible standards, never allowing myself to make a mistake or running away from the mistakes i did make.

re: your thought on my use of the word "liberal" - i think those are, again, some really good perspectives, thoughtful, and in some respects valid. i did, on consideration, go a little bit into polemic mode there, and i try not to do that. so thank you for holding me accountable for that.

to the extent that liberalism can admit to its inadequacies rather than seeking to exculpate them, well, to that extent i would agree with you that liberalism hasn't failed, but the whole history of liberalism is so dogged by that drive to exculpate that sometimes i find it hard to not see it as all-encompassing.

a song that i find really personally inspiring to me, even though it's not about me, not about my struggle, is nina simone's "mississippi goddamn". i can relate to the frustration she voices. and that was what, fifty years ago? and have things gotten better for people of color in america? for fifty years liberals in america have counseled patience, tolerance, and at the risk of being called "paranoid" again it really seems to have benefited said liberals a lot more than it's benefited the people they have so counseled.

i have a really, really, really hard time trusting liberals. i feel like when they make promises, and lately they're not even really adequate _promises_ anymore, that either they are lying to me or they are lying to themselves, and it really doesn't matter to me which.

and then you close off by going into this whole thing here:

"Speaking of which, what are your alternatives, my fine anti-liberal friends? I never do hear how we're going to bring about full communism, or what price there is to pay. Will your life and the lives of those you care about be made better by liberals like Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn, or by an armed struggle in which you'll probably die?

― imago"

i mean, this is what i fucking mean by invoking fear of the other. it's not enough for liberals to point out an injustice, a wrong, a failure. we have no right, no standing, to complain about a problem unless we also bring to them, tied up in a neat little bow, an infallible solution. from my youth i have heard this lousy defense of capitalist democracy - "yeah, it sucks, but everything else is worse. i mean, have you seen the other guy?"

how much worse do things have to fucking get, lj? look, i'm white, all of this shit is theoretically being done for my goddamn benefit, and i'm fucking miserable. everybody around me is half-mad with anguish and fear. and that's your answer? it could be worse? lj i've already got a perfect score on the GAD-7, you can't make me more afraid than i already am!

and please, please, please, quit with the tokenizing, quit using people who as far as i know have never written you a personal letter of recommendation to support your disingenuous misrepresentations. that last sentence of yours? that is terrible. absolutely terrible! it doesn't make you look better and it makes it really hard for me treat you with the kindness and respect you deserve.

(in many cases "half-mad" is putting it charitably, tbqh)

i will cop to slipping into disgruntled polemic at the end there; sorry about that. obviously there are a shitload of terrible problems with society in the US, UK and many other places, and it isn't really my place to bumptiously ask how people plan to solve them given how borderline impossible they've proven to solve over many generations; it's flippant and not needed

but then again, we are going to need solutions. maybe not armed ones. that was silly of me. but i do want to talk solutions!

Not being nice to liberals is part of the solution