While this is an ideal to fight for, it's also so far removed from our current reality that I don't see how acting as though it were already the case would be productive. Just as an obvious...
Liberalism is not just a set of rules. There’s a spirit to it. A spirit that believes that there are whole spheres of human life that lie beyond ideology — friendship, art, love, sex, scholarship, family.
While this is an ideal to fight for, it's also so far removed from our current reality that I don't see how acting as though it were already the case would be productive. Just as an obvious example, LGBT+ people have been and are to this day negatively impacted by ideology in each and every one of these areas. Of course, this is by decidedly illiberal ideologies, but I think that by placing relationships in these areas beyond ideological reproach, advocates of social progress would hamper themselves, and end up suffering from the paradox of tolerance.
He has some good points. I would tend to agree that “America is a white supremacist nation” is an exaggeration (it’s certainly systemically racist, though). Unfortunately his good points are...
He has some good points. I would tend to agree that “America is a white supremacist nation” is an exaggeration (it’s certainly systemically racist, though). Unfortunately his good points are nearly completely drowned out by absolute nonsense. He makes very few references to real events when saying things like
We have human-resources departments that have adopted this ideology whole and are imposing it as a condition for employment.
No doubt, but as of today I would say that it’s a country with a massive hangover from that starting point. I would argue that to say it’s still explicitly “white-supremacist” is to ignore the...
No doubt, but as of today I would say that it’s a country with a massive hangover from that starting point. I would argue that to say it’s still explicitly “white-supremacist” is to ignore the progress of the last 150 years (slow and unsteady though it is).
I’m not suggesting it’s there yet, but it’s undeniably better to be black in America today than it was in 1920, or 1820, or 1720. Of course progress is rarely linear no matter the measure or the timeframe of said measure, so there are dips, like the words and actions current President.
I just want to acknowledge how grossly understated the word “dips” is in that last sentence. I don’t want to trivialise the experience of other people. It’s 7.30am where I am, and it was only word I could find.
Edit: I realise I didn’t really say part of what I wanted to. Systemically racist, yes. But a white supremacist country would not have universal suffrage, minority-owned businesses, minority leaders, or an immigration policy/trend that shows latinos outnumbering whites in the near future. Though I guess that last one could be true depending on the structure of society.
It's Andrew Sullivan... it kinda goes without saying he's out of touch with reality, since he time and time again finds himself on the wrong side of history. He's basically the older, only...
I am just gonna give up here and just say that I don't believe that the author's view is based in reality.
It's Andrew Sullivan... it kinda goes without saying he's out of touch with reality, since he time and time again finds himself on the wrong side of history. He's basically the older, only slightly less obnoxious version of Milo Yiannopoulos. He has in the past published excerpts from The Bell Curve (AKA the big book of "scientific" racism) and thinks it "is a subject worth exploring". He staunchly supported the War in Iraq, and War on Terror, though much like Hitchens, at least he realized he was wrong afterwards as well. And recently he has also started taking some rather strong anti-immigration stances as well. About the only thing I somewhat agree with him on is LGBT rights as far as marriage equality goes (which he supports), but even there he is backwards in most other respects, since he opposes hate crimes laws (which he claims violate free speech), anti-discrimination laws (which he thinks are pointless), and his views on transgender rights are borderline TERF-ish as well.
Yes, it is precisely a matter of Haven't bothered with Sullivan for years, largely due to the issues /u/cfabbro mentioned above. In a way, it's almost reassuring to see that he's remained true to...
out of touch conservative white guys getting overpaid columns at media outlets.
Haven't bothered with Sullivan for years, largely due to the issues /u/cfabbro mentioned above. In a way, it's almost reassuring to see that he's remained true to form, and that the old Emerson quote about "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" is still apropos in Sullivan's case.
At least Matt Taibbi made the effort to document a specific case where he felt anti-racist zealotry was having untoward consequences; this article is just Sullivan referencing himself, other paid pundits, and some questionably characterised statistics offered without context.
Sullivan is pretty infamous in the LGBT community (at least amongst my age group). Him and Dan Savage were pretty much the LGBT political icons of the 2000s. Dan on the left, and Sullivan on the...
Sullivan is pretty infamous in the LGBT community (at least amongst my age group). Him and Dan Savage were pretty much the LGBT political icons of the 2000s. Dan on the left, and Sullivan on the right... which is why Sullivan is generally not well liked.
While this is an ideal to fight for, it's also so far removed from our current reality that I don't see how acting as though it were already the case would be productive. Just as an obvious example, LGBT+ people have been and are to this day negatively impacted by ideology in each and every one of these areas. Of course, this is by decidedly illiberal ideologies, but I think that by placing relationships in these areas beyond ideological reproach, advocates of social progress would hamper themselves, and end up suffering from the paradox of tolerance.
He has some good points. I would tend to agree that “America is a white supremacist nation” is an exaggeration (it’s certainly systemically racist, though). Unfortunately his good points are nearly completely drowned out by absolute nonsense. He makes very few references to real events when saying things like
No doubt, but as of today I would say that it’s a country with a massive hangover from that starting point. I would argue that to say it’s still explicitly “white-supremacist” is to ignore the progress of the last 150 years (slow and unsteady though it is).
I’m not suggesting it’s there yet, but it’s undeniably better to be black in America today than it was in 1920, or 1820, or 1720. Of course progress is rarely linear no matter the measure or the timeframe of said measure, so there are dips, like the words and actions current President.
I just want to acknowledge how grossly understated the word “dips” is in that last sentence. I don’t want to trivialise the experience of other people. It’s 7.30am where I am, and it was only word I could find.
Edit: I realise I didn’t really say part of what I wanted to. Systemically racist, yes. But a white supremacist country would not have universal suffrage, minority-owned businesses, minority leaders, or an immigration policy/trend that shows latinos outnumbering whites in the near future. Though I guess that last one could be true depending on the structure of society.
It's Andrew Sullivan... it kinda goes without saying he's out of touch with reality, since he time and time again finds himself on the wrong side of history. He's basically the older, only slightly less obnoxious version of Milo Yiannopoulos. He has in the past published excerpts from The Bell Curve (AKA the big book of "scientific" racism) and thinks it "is a subject worth exploring". He staunchly supported the War in Iraq, and War on Terror, though much like Hitchens, at least he realized he was wrong afterwards as well. And recently he has also started taking some rather strong anti-immigration stances as well. About the only thing I somewhat agree with him on is LGBT rights as far as marriage equality goes (which he supports), but even there he is backwards in most other respects, since he opposes hate crimes laws (which he claims violate free speech), anti-discrimination laws (which he thinks are pointless), and his views on transgender rights are borderline TERF-ish as well.
Yes, it is precisely a matter of
Haven't bothered with Sullivan for years, largely due to the issues /u/cfabbro mentioned above. In a way, it's almost reassuring to see that he's remained true to form, and that the old Emerson quote about "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" is still apropos in Sullivan's case.
At least Matt Taibbi made the effort to document a specific case where he felt anti-racist zealotry was having untoward consequences; this article is just Sullivan referencing himself, other paid pundits, and some questionably characterised statistics offered without context.
Sullivan is pretty infamous in the LGBT community (at least amongst my age group). Him and Dan Savage were pretty much the LGBT political icons of the 2000s. Dan on the left, and Sullivan on the right... which is why Sullivan is generally not well liked.