Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

Sorry for the crosstalk, breaking this up into multiple posts. So I am... someone who Intersectionalists could make a hearty alphabet soup out of (though I'd prefer if they didn't). I've been bullied, harassed, intimidated. I will never not be afraid of bullies.

But before all of that, In my earliest memories, I was persecuted by an oppressive regime.

The thing that scares me about Intersectionalism, going back to that 1-2-3 post of j.'s and the 3 bit in particular. Is what is going to happen to the 'different' people who just fall between the cracks, the socially inept, the nerds and weirdos, the benevolent eccentrics who do not have identity groups to advocate for their needs. Who currently are permitted, ultimately -if perhaps not easily or painlessly- to go their own way without persecution, when we are no longer "individuals". When the demands for solidarity, for... what did the Harper's letter call it? "Ideological conformity"? have eclipsed our individuality. The freedom to not belong.

And I am hoping to be reassured that this concern is illegitimate.

― Deflatormouse, Monday, 13 July 2020 10:00 (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

genuinely, apologies for riding roughshod over your valuable train of thought with my own personal bs

coalition of weirdos unite :)

he was hacked by an asteroid

i have a sinking feeling that people are using 'liberal' to mean extremely different things again, depending on whether they are posting in the UK/europe (liberal=free-marketeer) or in the US (nominally left-of-center NPR-style political views)

kate's central point, that the 'rational public sphere' of which the internet (discord, ilx, what have you) is supposedly the apotheosis ('nobody knows you're a dog') has since its inception been a way of silencing and ignoring voices and bodies that have a 'positivity' - a positivity carefully cultivated through propaganda, commercial exchange, cultural production, etc - that marks them out as non-standard. this goes back to habermas (and probably further). it's just not enough to posit a public sphere in which status distinctions can simply be bracketed and set aside and now we're equal - because positing isn't enough to make it so. it frankly works as an alibi rather than a liberation project.

gyac - I don't know of that twitter thread. I'm referring to the Observer running their tactical options the weekend before and LJ going on about tactical voting, that kind of thing, despite voting for Corbyn with a heavy heart. The cunt couldn't wait for him to go.

I think it's very similar in the way liberals just wreck shit when they think they are being clever with debating tactics or apps etc.

i always supported corbyn and my vote was not with a heavy heart. i talked about tactical voting in precisely one constituency where the lib dems were clearly 2nd behind the tories in polling

i had misgivings about some of corbyn's presentation, which was at times weak, but i overwhelmingly agreed with his policy platform and thought he seemed like a stand-up human being

it is possible to be a liberal and in favour of corbyn. coherent even. corbyn was pushign a classic social democrat platform - in other words, left-liberal

btw i meant the alibi part went back to habermas (at least) not the silencing, obv!!

"i always supported corbyn and my vote was not with a heavy heart"

Put this show on for somebody else LJ.

Alphie would you ever cop yourself on, it adds less than nothing to the thread and we already have a thread to mess up with this.

LJ posted a thick as pigshit post on All Lives Matter, you picked up on it too, but yes I know nobody wants to read a tantrum from the only clever liberal.

A liberal might and probably should think that all lives matter, but it's coded by now as revanchist anti-BLM language, so no liberal aware of this would be wise to say it, especially as a slogan.

are you adding 'wilfully obtuse as fuck' to your charge sheet m8

Yeah that one! xp

Stopping posting it, it doesn't get any better

perhaps you will kindly explain to the gathered crowd what is thick as pigshit about it

All done m8

White people are exhausting

Lol

need an opposite of "flag"

NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE, DAN

MY POSTS ABOUT NEOPRAGMATISM ARE 100% CHILL

and 25% grammatically sound

white people have exhausted me this year

Also not wise to assume everyone is white.

i have a sinking feeling that people are using 'liberal' to mean extremely different things again, depending on whether they are posting in the UK/europe (liberal=free-marketeer) or in the US (nominally left-of-center NPR-style political views)

UK (liberal = smug middle class centrist who pretends to believe the left and the right are as bad each other while climbing into bed with the right at the drop of a hat)

Thanks for the post about Derrida, treeship. I admit that I haven't read as much theory, in particular Derrida, as I would like, but that's neither here nor there.

I'd broadly write that I actually agree with much of what you wrote, but that at this juncture, I am willing and in fact wanting to be away with the language of "western liberal democracy" as signpost because of those very real, deadly histories that continue to result from its promulgation. In my estimation, the limited humanism of western liberal democracy-- limited because of those violences and also limited due to the most obvious fact that people are still arguing over whether trans and black lives matter-- is what I hold onto most, but as an ideal that could be expanded. That is, I believe the biggest problem with western liberal democracy is that it's placed too many people outside the realm of the human, thus irrevocably delegitimizing itself; given where we are, one possible way of expanding the human community might be doing away with vaunted ideals unacted upon or ignored in western liberal democracy, and instead moving toward verbiage that actually makes sense. In that way, much of what I think I object to is the reliance on terms in which the cleavage between the signifier and signified is so deep and troubling that it poisons the sign, which in this case is being used to promulgate a massive con that is actively killing people. It's the con that I am opposed to-- not necessarily the vaunted ideals that might actually result from a true western liberal democracy.

Haven't had coffee, sorry if that was mush.

Yeah, I didn't think Thatcher was considered a liberal in the UK (except maybe in the academic sense in which she and Reagan are both 'neoliberal')?

xp

I don't understand half this stuff

trans women are women

otm

hard agree with both statements

Yeah, I didn't think Thatcher was considered a liberal in the UK (except maybe in the academic sense in which she and Reagan are both 'neoliberal')?

A 'classic Liberal' maybe. Non-classic liberals in the UK are just squeamish Tories.

Jordan Peterson calls himself a classic liberal too. I think most English speakers use "liberal" to mean "vaguely centre-left" in everyday lay usage at this point? Maybe Aus/NZ are different?

This 'classical liberal' thing is something of a reprise no, only really back in use over the last 8-12 years or so? And something of an affectation

ums otm. People that want to make this complicated have an agenda.

This 'classical liberal' thing is something of a reprise no, only really back in use over the last 8-12 years or so? And something of an affectation

Libertarians have been saying it as long as I can remember.

Thats true, but wasn't there something of a branding exercise a decade or so back, when this term started to come back into vogue?

maybe as a replacement for 'Libertarian' because they wanted to look more intellectual?

And with a more respectable historical basis than Ayn Rand.

The US/Uk divide Tracer Hand referred to is further complicated by the fact that US popcult influences people all over, so the defintion of "liberal" that LJ-who-is-British is working with is clearly the American one.

The American one is talking over. Sadly.

Jordan Peterson calls himself a classic liberal too. I think most English speakers use "liberal" to mean "vaguely centre-left" in everyday lay usage at this point? Maybe Aus/NZ are different?

in australia ‘liberal’ does mean ‘vaguely centre-left’ but ‘Liberal’ (‘big-L Liberal’) specifically means ‘corrupt paedophile-defending homophobic white supremacist’

The American one is talking over. Sadly.

I almost feel the opposite? In the 80s and 90s, "liberal" seemed to mean "leftist" in the US - didn't Bill Clinton want to distance himself from the term? Canadian leftists still identified as socialists or social democrats so I thought of liberals as wishy-washy moderates (or crypto-conservative from a hard-left pov); I thought the UK was approx similar. But the US left wants to distance itself from liberalism now, for the opposite reason as before, since they identify it with excessive moderation and complacency.

People that want to make this complicated have an agenda.

I don't buy this either tbh

Doesn't wanting to distance itself from it prove the definition is prevalent enough to do so?

The American one is talking over. Sadly.
I almost feel the opposite?

It's both! US popcult brings it to younger people all over the world, especially those who aren't very deep into politics; the resurrection of left wing politics in the US means Americans start to use the UK/European/basically most of the world afaict definition.

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

Doesn't wanting to distance itself from it prove the definition is prevalent enough to do so?

Yes, that's my point. As a moderate, B Clinton wanted to distance himself from a then-prevalent understanding of "liberal" as "leftist"/"radical" in 1990s US. As leftists, supporters of Bernie Sanders and AOC want to distance themselves from a currently-prevalent understanding of "liberal" as "Establishment moderate".xp

I thought the UK was approx similar.

Not approx., exactly.

ogmor otm