Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

one thing which this entire conversation is ignoring is the possibility that people can in fact change. would EB still write for The American Conservative now? what if she was antagonistic to certain progressive principles before but has relaxed her views? should it not be seen as a triumph if a former conservative turns Good; should we not celebrate the prodigal returned?

not saying she HAS changed, more gesturing to the possibility of it and therefore the potentially uncharitable nature of 'check the history', as though a person is a fully carved block as soon as they establish themselves in the public eye

thank you for the links, ufo, that does change things considerably imo. The Week is not an obscure publication by any means, and that piece clearly suggests that abortion should be illegal. Softening that to "Catholic social values" is disturbing.

The pro-life leftist position maintains that human life is so significant, so inherently valuable, so irreplaceable that it should be the central subject of political concern. This view requires, therefore, that since we care enough about the outcome of pregnancy to insist against abortion, then we must continue to care about the outcome when abortion is no longer a legal option.

xp well, if she's since retracted this view publicly, sure

i'm not sure if that's exactly what she was advocating there though you can certainly read it that way (it's a little vague) and i'd honestly forgotten about that part of it. regardless though for quite some time her views have been 'abortion shouldn't be criminalised just unwanted pregnancies reduced through better welfare for parents'. by 'before she had the platform' i meant having risen to the prominence she has now since she became a wapo columnist in 2017 and then nyt columnist last year.

people can still like her soc-dem opinion pieces if they want but i did want to make it clear to those who were confused as to why she is so criticised just what the issues were

mh: there is no reason why this has to be about her specifically but why am i (or any other critic that none of these people need to even hear about to be defended from) represented as holding all the cards here? why not look at how things actually stand right now instead of what they might look like in some sort of slippery slope dystopia if i get what is assumed to be my way?

there is a strange kind of substitutionism going on here when one relatively prominent person is taken to symbolically represent non-conformists in general and it's bizarre to say the least how the demands for conformity are being represented and who they're being attributed to in this discourse. considering (yet again) the glaring asymmetries of social and other kinds of capital here

This is bullshit. You are claiming the right to be uncharitable to your opponents and tag them with nefarious innuendo. I am saying this is a bad way to be, regardless of how influential it is as a way of being. Not everything is a meta power analysis.

actually it is

Thank you to ufo for providing the links here; as a Catholic the insistence of atheists (mainly men lbr) shielding EB from criticism because she’s Catholic is deeply odd. Her views aren’t just to the right of me on this matter, they’re to the right of 2/3 of modern Ireland. And far from the views making her unacceptable to the right, the opposite is true. People who criticise her on twitter get harassed endlessly by all her red-brown fans, she is very much in favour with a certain swathe of that audience and her views are the reason why.

ugh.

I’m not speaking to LB here (I absolutely have no horse in this race, etc) but the entire idea of reproductive rights as a wedge issue in the US was nearly completely defined by cynical strategists and opportunistic religious leaders who thought yoking their church to a political movement would further their goals. Or in the case of more socially-conservative Catholics, a way to peel off voters from a historically democratic party voting block.

We’ve seen social issues get peeled away from the platform of that block, but their strategy worked and as soon as you mention certain reproductive health organizations the revulsion from the majority of non-religious, socially liberal republicans, isn’t a moral one, it’s a distinct reaction to what they see as partisan institutions

I have no idea what the solution is, but it’s not defining social issues as distinctively along party lines

I agree with mh

(that ugh was to prior posts and not gyac most definitely)

Who is taking EB to symbolically represent the entire Left? One of our general side got snuck into the NYT sure but not even their most pigshit corpo-lib readership would take her to symbolise the entire Left. She doesn't do enough televised debates for a start. (Owen Jones otoh lol)

fwiw scoping this out a couple decades might be useful because I can’t even begin to pretend to understand the modern democratic catholic base, especially those like LB who converted in 2014 (!)

Mate, you’ve made it clear you simp for her, it’s ok

Not everything is a meta power analysis.

― treeship

actually it is

― Left

this explains a lot

(And that was not at mh either)

I'm just joining in the fun

Must be nice for it to be an abstract matter for you.

xp probably pointlessly xposted by now, sorry

I found the vagueness to be clearly deliberate. I don't think you can read that piece and not conclude that she thinks abortion should be illegal, even if that obviously isn't her area of political concern. To me it read as: pro-life conservatives are right about the immorality and therefore illegality of abortion ("While their arguments are in the right spirit"; "I find the usual right-wing anti-abortion approach underwhelming and incomplete," i.e., not wrong just lopsided), but they're wrong in pursuing penality as the primary social mechanism for reducing demand.

To be clear, I agree with her about all the social programs the US should have to help parents. Where I live, there is universal health care, parental leave is 15 months, and daycare is heavily subsidized. These programs are massively beneficial to everyone and needn't be justified with arguments about restricting reproductive autonomy.

The matter of abortion is extremely concrete for me: it should be legal and freely available to all at all times. The matter of whether EB is a bad person whom we shouldn't listen to or read the work of is a completely separate matter, and sure, probably quite an abstract one, as I neither particularly stan nor condemn

She does seem quite nice tho ngl

xxp i agree with your interpretation, it’s why I don’t consider her a person worth reading. But then my politics are shaped by my life and my upbringing, not abstract notions like “seems nice”.

thanks for the links, ufo.

as someone who partially credits unapologetic Atheism (pre-IDW assholes) with the initial break from my very conservative, evangelical-adjacent upbringing and spent most of my 30s as a semi-ironic anti-natalist (fuckthemkids.jpg), I’ve long been suspicious of the (mostly) online trad-cath types ive run across. I think I softened somewhat in the last few years, primarily in the interest of coalition-building. my ex was heavily involved in the MidSouth Peace & Justice Center (https://midsouthpeace.org/about-us/), who are some rad folks, and initially started by lefty Catholics in Memphis. and yeah, some—mostly the OGs—were nominally pro-life, but were in touch w reality enough to know that’s simply untenable as a matter of policy.

my unsolicited advice to those who travel in these circles (and I doubt theyre are any here, even lurking) is maybe keep it to yourself until we have a robust, cradle-to-the-grave welfare state, on par with the most luxurious Nordic model available.

and even then, just maybe fuck off and have your 7 kids and enjoy it. abortion free and on demand forever.

I'm glad you brought up anti-natalism because that's also fueling this to some extent

maybe keep it to yourself until we have a robust, cradle-to-the-grave welfare state, on par with the most luxurious Nordic model available

I agree w this

Skipping back a little, I was curious about this bit:

i am for the margins and the lumpen more than anything

Understandable desires, of course, but do you favor this leaning out of moral or strategic reasons?

I can try to rationalise it in either of those terms but it's just an emotional impulse

What in fucking god's name would inspire someone to convert to Catholicism.

Holy Ghost innit

Need for ritual? Fed up with what passes for American Protestantism, especially the Evangelical strain?

I woulda thought if you were getting off the Evangelical express the stop would be Agnosticism if not all the way to Atheism Town.

Not... ooh look this one is overbearing and hypocritical as well, but they also have gold chalices and stain glass windows and Latin bits.

It’s something she has written about at length.

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/07/25/how-augustines-confessions-and-left-politics-inspired-my-conversion-catholicism

Catholicism knocks protestantism into a cocked hat to be fair

What in fucking god's name would inspire someone to convert to Catholicism.

― in twelve parts (lamonti), Wednesday, May 19, 2021 2:15 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

So religious tolerance is just not a thing anymore?

I woulda thought if you were getting off the Evangelical express the stop would be Agnosticism if not all the way to Atheism Town.

She still had a strong faith in God?

I get why she might be a poor or at least idiosyncratic ambassador for the Left and the frustrations that causes. But it just seems absolutely intolerant to mock her for not being an atheist. Everyone has to find their own way to grapple with the mystery of existence.

So religious tolerance is just not a thing anymore?

Oh for fuck's sake. "Religious tolerance" does not mean "nobody can ever say anything bad about religion, or make fun of someone for being religious, ever, because that's just mean and intolerant."

"Religious tolerance" is a lot like censorship; it requires governmental imprimatur to be a thing. France's hijab ban = religious intolerance. Me laughing at you for believing in Jesus = not religious intolerance.

it is mean tho tbf

again not to be capn whatever but it seems pretty blatant to me she takes extra flak for being a god-fearer and kid haver because ppl have baggage/hangups about both of those things

yeah my totally unsolicited probably wrong advice to Lefty Christians (partic catholics I mean foh) is to walk it off.

good on you for reclaiming the actual Good Things Christ taught and making space for religious folks on the Left, but folks are going to dunk and, well, for good reason.

if you're going around mocking ppl purely for being jesus likers you really are just an asshole

and ftr that’s not to say Catholicism is in any way worse than any other brand.

Protestantism American-style is an unmitigated scourge.

if you're going around mocking ppl purely for being jesus likers

if you're going around mocking ppl purely for being jesus likers you really are just an asshole

Well, you shouldn't do it out loud. You should just smile politely, like when someone reads you a horoscope. At least, until it becomes a serious issue, like they're making laws based on how they think their imaginary friend in the sky would want other people to behave. Then mockery is the absolute minimum response.

hm

pretty reductive imo. I’m know there are very loud online atheists bros who get off on this but in my experience most ppl have pretty nuanced and legitimate issues with religion

as a lapsed catholic I have mine too but there's no question the nu-atheist superiority element is still around just in slightly different forms and largely not talked about that much (that I've seen), ppl who hate bill maher but are basically just as smug

I'm not sure 'it's only religious intolerance if the government is doing it' is a message that will resonate with many of France's Muslims, tbh.

it can be tough to sort out the earnest grievances from the people who just like to have "safe" targets for their misogyny and resentment tbh

A genuinely leftist critique of catholicism would focus on the Church as a (world historically appalling) institution and seat of power, not what individual Catholics think about God. As we've already discussed, I think that calculus should change for public figures with a platform when their "individual beliefs" include advocating for ideas that are detrimental to people's lives, as well as the left's political/social goals, like "homosexuality is a sin," "gender is determined by biology," etc. but not "Jesus was the son of god". Who cares and how futile

Who cares and how futile

Do you extend this to anyone who believes something that you think is nonsensical and absurd? Like if a grown adult — your boss, say — tells you that he believes his dog can predict the future, and tells him which shoes to wear on a given day because wearing those shoes will bring him success in business, do you just say "Who cares"? Or do you privilege religious belief, setting it apart from other types of magical thinking? If the latter, why?