Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

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?

yeah, finding solace in the writings of augustine, as bruenig describes, as the idea that human moral decision-making has a mysterious and transcendent importance, is exactly like believing your dog can predict the future

Why the fuck would I care if my boss thinks his dog is psychic?

If your response to that discovery isn’t “who cares,” something is broken inside you.

If your boss is insane, it has a direct impact on your working environment.

I guess the problem for me is that I've changed my own beliefs over the course of my life enough to not think I know how the world works. I'm suspicious of epistemologies grounded exclusively in rationality and scientific objectivity, which are ideas that are just as cultural as religion and have also done immense shitloads of harm—plus anecdotally, hardcore rationalist atheists are often arrogant dickheads. TBC, I'm not saying religion and science are equivalent or even analogical, though when I took an astronomy course in college and learned about dark matter, I came close. Despite being raised by hardcore atheists, I'm sure I engage in my own forms of magical thinking, so I'd rather just be humble about people's worldviews when they don't impinge on me ("who cares") while also recognizing I'm not going to be able to talk a meaningful number of believers out of their religious beliefs ("how futile").

No, your boss demanding that you take part in his shamanic Labrador rituals in order to maximize efficiency would directly impact your working environment.

Your boss getting his star charts read every week by Madame Kurowitz has no impact on you.

love too invent imaginary hypothetical bosses to take issue with

Such a bizarre line - do you get to butt in to strangers and workmates' private lives in other ways? Find out that the guy in the cubicle across from you is having all kinds of unprotected anonymous sex - well, if he gets antibiotic-resistant throat gonorrhea he'll miss work and that will "directly impact your working environment" so you better say something...

To address the boss analogy directly, I don't agree that one individual's delusion is comparable to a shared religious tradition for lots of reasons. Obviously the line gets hard to draw when you look at cults or even relatively recently developed religions like Mormonism. I'd be curious to know how people who study religious cultures make those distinctions, but I believe all kinds of things I can't, personally, prove, and I'm quite sure you do too. For example, I believe my cat loves me—does that make me insane?

when they don't impinge on me

This is the key. I'm with you for the most part. Your god says you can't do X, Y or Z? Fine, whatever. Your god says I can't do X, Y or Z? Fuck you. That's why my examples have been limited to bosses, political leaders, etc. What a "peer" (broadly defined) thinks or does has no real effect on me. What someone in a position of authority thinks or does can absolutely have an effect on me, whether I want it to or not.

Ahh okay. For me, the problem there isn't about belief or thinking per se, it's about power and rights. I definitely do care if a boss's religious belief--of whatever tradition--means they use their authority to make sure the company health insurance won't cover birth control. I also would be opposed to an atheist boss who refused to let workers wear religious symbols, etc.

I'm not sure that anyone is going to argue that people should be able to impose their religious views on others or should avoid criticism if they try.

At the same time, 'i don't want a religious person to have any authority over me because they're likely to use it to impose their religious views' is not a particularly tenable position.

And the “best friend in the sky, lol” rhetoric is childish. Marx’s critique of religion was better because he at least acknowledged that religion was serving a psychological need, a sense of craving and a felt lack.

People aren’t religious because they are “too dumb” to understand why creationism is implausible. They’re looking for a framework to understand and guide their own lives.