Whatever errors of orthodoxy or dogmatism are present in Left discourse at the moment, at least the underlying drives are towards mutually valid truths, equity, and just redress of historical...
Whatever errors of orthodoxy or dogmatism are present in Left discourse at the moment, at least the underlying drives are towards mutually valid truths, equity, and just redress of historical wrongs.
Quillette makes truth claims, but they inevitably bend towards reinforcement of existing race, gender, and class-based power structures, positing "natural law" arguments for expanding them.
Quillette was founded in 2015 by Claire Lehmann, an Australian who in 2017 also served as an on-air contributor to the Canadian far-right, anti-Muslim network Rebel Media, where she once delivered a “report” titled “How feminism has fuelled obesity crisis.” Her Rebel Media colleagues included white nationalist Faith Goldy—who was fired shortly after participating in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—and Gavin McInnes, founder of the “Western chauvinist” group the Proud Boys, which rewards its members for committing violence against leftists.
While Lehmann calls Quillette “independent,” “centrist,” and even “a community of liberal humanists,” the publication showcases racist pseudoscience purporting to show that people of color are intellectually and morally inferior to whites. Many of the writers of its race pieces are proponents of the Human Biodiversity Movement (HBD), a euphemistic name for a campaign to advance scientific racism launched in 1996 by Steve Sailer, a blogger for the white supremacist website VDare.
Suborning public intellectuals, by giving them a platform to broadcast their grievances at losing power and suffering accountability, is just more impetus for rightwards movement of the Overton Window.
Lehmann told Politico that Quillette’s goal is “to broaden the Overton window”—that is to say, expand the limits of acceptable discourse. She didn’t stipulate that she wants these limits broadened only to the right, but she didn’t have to. Writing in Quillette, Lehmann said the Overton window should be shifted so that people can more openly denounce “immigration,” for example by trumpeting the Muslim heritage of sex-crime suspects.
Great comment. Sometimes I find difficult to believe and to accept that there are still racist and classist people. And the thing is: I feel like poor people are going against their own well-being...
Great comment.
Sometimes I find difficult to believe and to accept that there are still racist and classist people.
And the thing is:
I feel like poor people are going against their own well-being by voting or supporting right wing politicians but they are so sure about their beliefs that sometimes I question myself.
Power goes to the best and loudest storyteller. People don't make decisions on the basis of their lived experience so much as the explanatory framework for that experience. Whatever coherent,...
Power goes to the best and loudest storyteller.
People don't make decisions on the basis of their lived experience so much as the explanatory framework for that experience. Whatever coherent, plausible, and emotionally satisfying explanation hits first, that's the liferaft people cling to until it proves impossibly unstable. And when masses of people find themselves adrift at the same time, like after the most recent recession, they're desperately seeking a new story to construct their lives around.
Neoliberalism's stories failed, socialism isn't acceptable given generations of negative storytelling (propagandizing), but racism, classism, and sexism stories have been endlessly circulated (if only in whispers).
A new generation of ambitious, moneyed autocrats is knitting together emotionally satisfying fables of natural or god-given race, gender, and class hierarchy which just happen to grant them legitimacy and power - that's how the process works.
This is the greatest achievement of them all. If you can convince people that they're better off worse than now then you've won. The paralyzing pure disbelief from the unconvinced and other side...
I feel like poor people are going against their own well-being by voting or supporting right wing politicians but they are so sure about their beliefs that sometimes I question myself.
This is the greatest achievement of them all. If you can convince people that they're better off worse than now then you've won. The paralyzing pure disbelief from the unconvinced and other side of the spectrum will be enough to fuel the irrational thoughts even more. It's a perfect plan until we learn to look past it and focus on the glass floor they're standing on isn't as thick as they say. Every shout, every provoking headline, every thing these people are trying to do or say is a ploy to make you loose yourself in your emotions and fear. Next time you feel that emotion coming take a deep breath on look past the source and through the smokescreen. Laugh.
But if we have opposing views, it seems to me that one of us is wrong. We are convinced than they are wrong and viceversa. What if we are the ones wrong?
But if we have opposing views, it seems to me that one of us is wrong.
We are convinced than they are wrong and viceversa.
What if we are the ones wrong?
There certainly are cases where "we" could be wrong but that's not my point. They way these top people is trying to manipulate us is so wrong that their end goal is non valid in my book. If you...
There certainly are cases where "we" could be wrong but that's not my point. They way these top people is trying to manipulate us is so wrong that their end goal is non valid in my book. If you are willing to go that far in your manipulation you don't deserve my attention.
Step out of that echo chamber once in a while! I'm kidding of course, but it's surprisingly common. I know a couple of older people who, when mad, turn to that sort of stuff as their ranting...
Sometimes I find difficult to believe and to accept that there are still racist and classist people
Step out of that echo chamber once in a while!
I'm kidding of course, but it's surprisingly common. I know a couple of older people who, when mad, turn to that sort of stuff as their ranting material of choice.
I've sampled a few of the early articles, and ran the hell away when I saw the same old Bell Curve statistically meaningless and pseudoscientific crap in new dressing. I found the project...
I've sampled a few of the early articles, and ran the hell away when I saw the same old Bell Curve statistically meaningless and pseudoscientific crap in new dressing.
I found the project reminiscent of the old Fusion Magazine, the outlet of the now nearly forgotten U.S. Larouchite movement. Fusion got a few reputable scientists on board at the outset, then veered off in directions none of them would have countenanced, coasting on the early injection of respectability.
There's a more comprehensive list of noxious activity here.
There are also similarities to the current period of Reason Magazine, the ostensibly libertarian intellectual "free minds and free markets" publication funded with Koch brothers' money.
There have always been heterodox third-way movements claiming that they now have the intellectual high ground the other political poles abandoned. Often, the movements aren't organic, but quietly funded and
steered by established wealth to manipulate the political conversation, as with Reason Foundation's libertarianism, "radical centrism", and more recently, "heterodoxscience".
While Quillette claims to be funded by small donor contributions, there's a clear background attempt to replicate the success of the Koch's mainstreaming of free-market fundamentalism and anti-environmentalism. Only this time, it's for mainstreaming white male supremacy and anti-democracy.
Whatever errors of orthodoxy or dogmatism are present in Left discourse at the moment, at least the underlying drives are towards mutually valid truths, equity, and just redress of historical wrongs.
Quillette makes truth claims, but they inevitably bend towards reinforcement of existing race, gender, and class-based power structures, positing "natural law" arguments for expanding them.
Suborning public intellectuals, by giving them a platform to broadcast their grievances at losing power and suffering accountability, is just more impetus for rightwards movement of the Overton Window.
Great comment.
Sometimes I find difficult to believe and to accept that there are still racist and classist people.
And the thing is:
I feel like poor people are going against their own well-being by voting or supporting right wing politicians but they are so sure about their beliefs that sometimes I question myself.
Power goes to the best and loudest storyteller.
People don't make decisions on the basis of their lived experience so much as the explanatory framework for that experience. Whatever coherent, plausible, and emotionally satisfying explanation hits first, that's the liferaft people cling to until it proves impossibly unstable. And when masses of people find themselves adrift at the same time, like after the most recent recession, they're desperately seeking a new story to construct their lives around.
Neoliberalism's stories failed, socialism isn't acceptable given generations of negative storytelling (propagandizing), but racism, classism, and sexism stories have been endlessly circulated (if only in whispers).
A new generation of ambitious, moneyed autocrats is knitting together emotionally satisfying fables of natural or god-given race, gender, and class hierarchy which just happen to grant them legitimacy and power - that's how the process works.
That’s an interesting view of things.
It sounds like a reasonable explanation.
This is the greatest achievement of them all. If you can convince people that they're better off worse than now then you've won. The paralyzing pure disbelief from the unconvinced and other side of the spectrum will be enough to fuel the irrational thoughts even more. It's a perfect plan until we learn to look past it and focus on the glass floor they're standing on isn't as thick as they say. Every shout, every provoking headline, every thing these people are trying to do or say is a ploy to make you loose yourself in your emotions and fear. Next time you feel that emotion coming take a deep breath on look past the source and through the smokescreen. Laugh.
But if we have opposing views, it seems to me that one of us is wrong.
We are convinced than they are wrong and viceversa.
What if we are the ones wrong?
There certainly are cases where "we" could be wrong but that's not my point. They way these top people is trying to manipulate us is so wrong that their end goal is non valid in my book. If you are willing to go that far in your manipulation you don't deserve my attention.
Step out of that echo chamber once in a while!
I'm kidding of course, but it's surprisingly common. I know a couple of older people who, when mad, turn to that sort of stuff as their ranting material of choice.
Do you read many of their articles?
I've sampled a few of the early articles, and ran the hell away when I saw the same old Bell Curve statistically meaningless and pseudoscientific crap in new dressing.
I found the project reminiscent of the old Fusion Magazine, the outlet of the now nearly forgotten U.S. Larouchite movement. Fusion got a few reputable scientists on board at the outset, then veered off in directions none of them would have countenanced, coasting on the early injection of respectability.
There's a more comprehensive list of noxious activity here.
There are also similarities to the current period of Reason Magazine, the ostensibly libertarian intellectual "free minds and free markets" publication funded with Koch brothers' money.
There have always been heterodox third-way movements claiming that they now have the intellectual high ground the other political poles abandoned. Often, the movements aren't organic, but quietly funded and
steered by established wealth to manipulate the political conversation, as with Reason Foundation's libertarianism, "radical centrism", and more recently, "heterodox science".
While Quillette claims to be funded by small donor contributions, there's a clear background attempt to replicate the success of the Koch's mainstreaming of free-market fundamentalism and anti-environmentalism. Only this time, it's for mainstreaming white male supremacy and anti-democracy.
Man that's embarrassing for Sunstein that he wrote for Quillette. The founder is an alumni of Rebel Media, Cass, for fuck sake.