Thoughts from Sarah Hoyt on the ideological incoherence (and, as always, psychological projection) of the left:
All I was doing was pointing out he had no proof of his statement and in fact, there was plenty of proof to the contrary. Where it got interesting was his tactic in the argument. He started by calling me a snowflake and saying I was obviously hurt by what he said. I told him I wasn’t in the least hurt, just amused at his lack of reasoning, and furnished him with another half dozen names of great/rich writers. He tried to call me snowflake again, and then told me to go copulate with myself but in more common words. When that failed, he said he was deleting the thread because he’d obviously hurt people. Note that in none of this had he hurt me, not even with the profanity, nor had I or any of the people who agreed with me on that thread implied we were hurt. Somewhere between amused and appalled is not hurt.
I was discussing this argument with a friend later, and he said I was making the mistake of interpreting the words as words. Or of thinking any kind of thought was behind first calling me snowflake, and then saying he’d hurt people’s feelings.
He said that the whole thing was more a reaction on the level of “when I’m called snowflake it hurts me, so I’ll call her snowflake and that will hurt her” and when we didn’t cave to his argument, he couldn’t figure out how to get out of it other than apologizing for hurting our feelings.
He – he’s an academic – pointed out this is the whole point of post-modern analysis, be it of literature or society: words have no meaning and can be assigned arbitrary meanings according to the emotions they elicit.
He says that’s why the left is more and more resorting to shouting random slogans and words until it gets them the reaction they want. Not because they don’t know the meanings of words, but because they reject the idea that words have inherent meanings.
Like “pedophilia.” Or “liberal.”
For me the common lefty retort is “you sound angry”, when I’m usually amused. Projection seems a likely motivation there, too.
Or, “You are just being paranoid.” Same tactic their comrades used in the USSR before sending people to re-education camps. Turns out most of the claims about the influence of the USSR in our country were correct but our friends to the left continue on in denial.
This is a great point that I’ve been thinking about lately. It is getting very common now for lefty talking heads to get half a dozen things wrong in a single sentence while presenting it as absolute truth. To counter the false assertions just gets you into a tar pit where being rational is a disadvantage.
The only counter I can think of is to just count the falsehoods and say “you just made five false assertions. Which one would like me to respond to?” Followed by, “I don’t debate idiots.” Then sit there and don’t say a word. Staring at them is optional.
One point I’ve noted is the left uses a lot of words with majorly different meanings than they have for American conservatives / libertarians. For example, many in the latter group use ‘capitalism’ to be synonymous with ‘free market’. But to people on the left is means something similar to cronyism or feudalism.
And talk to the left about free markets and rule of law, the concepts are as real to them as unicorns. Maybe a bit less real.
They’ve weaponized rule of law. “Applies to thee, but not to me!”
I have seen two opinions on the rule of law from lefties lately.
1) We can’t let Republicans nominate judges that make rulings based on the Constitution.
2) If we can’t get in judges to rule based on our ideology, at least Republicans will nominate someone who follows the constitution.
The masks are starting to come off.
And talk to the left about free markets and rule of law, the concepts are as real to them as unicorns. Maybe a bit less real.
Otherkin, furries, and transhumans all point to you being correct. Just wait until technology enables modifications other than pointy ears and elaborate makeup.
You hit on a good point. It isn’t that words have no meaning but that the meaning of words is changed to suit their ideological whims. Look at any word with man or black in it. Or look at how we used to have different concepts of what marriage was but now we can only have one. That the actual meaning of words doesn’t align with their emotional interpretation means that the facts are wrong.
Controlling language is how they control the population. It is a way to generate enthusiasm hurdles and demonstrate in/out group devotion. It is also never endingbecause its the idea of continuous revolution.
The big secret behind “PC” language laws isn’t that any word is actually bad. It isn’t just that they change the meaning of words from what other people think they mean. It isn’t even really about the words in most cases. It is about the people that use them. If the out group uses a word, then it must denote racism, somethingphobia, or whatever clash of identities they want to create. It doesn’t matter what the words mean or intent, if the out group uses it, then the word can’t be legitimate because the out group is not legitimate.
It takes advantage of the good natures of many people because they aren’t what the totalitarian in group says they are, the out group will change their language. But that doesn’t work because when the out group follows the in group, they still need to have an out group. Applying the rules of continuous revolution, the words are changed. Now, the laggards in changing language are back to being unhumans.
The PC language authoritarians are like hipsters always rushing to adopt new words and definitions in order to set themselves apart from the out group. This is why people of color is now no longer a bigoted thing to say despite the origins of that phrase being portrayed as bigoted by the PC people. There are endless examples.
I think it can mostly be summed up by the FBI changing words in documents that sound similar but have entirely different ramifications. It’s all about getting advantage (or avoiding a felony) and sometimes gets them in trouble when they claim they are one thing one day and something else the next depending on who they are talking to.
Lynch telling Comey to refer to it as a ‘matter’ is just SOP.