tw25261371

> It has tilted many democracies towards right-wing populism and fascism.

"Left-wing populism: OK. The right-wing flavor: not so much," is what I read out of pieces like this. That reading tends to be confirmed when you look at any given author's other recent takes, esp. on social media, to try to get a sense for their total perspective, including where their blindspots are. Outside of the obvious concerns, the thing that bugs me most is that because this and similar pieces are (correctly) thought of as a "left" call-to-action, and the left in the US has been associated with the tag "liberal", then people have become used to using the terms interchangeably, and they continue to do so, even when the new mainstream left's philosophy is rooted in fundamentally illiberal desire to quash. I recently listened to a Glenn Greenwald interview where, even in the midst of a long, impassioned argument regarding his departure at The Intercept, he slipped into going along with the misapplied "Liberal" label when what he was referring to was the left. This ultimately leads to more newly minted opponents for liberals.

It's easy to see what's going on. The author of this piece and many others once upon a time purported to espouse a certain set of principles, because it was fashionable and a socially expedient thing to do for the time, especially in the context of what it was a reaction to. The author eventually puts some thought into it and subsequently adopts a public stance matching what was privately true all along—revealing how little they value the things they said they did. The author then uses public messages like this one to signal that the earlier reactionary phase is over. This indicates to other fairweather philosophers that they, too, should now move into the new phase and adopt the new reactionary stance.

The level of sophism involved is important to keep in mind when trying to have a discussion. Principles here don't really matter, not even the ones which are said to underpin the new stance. Trying to have a principled discussion, therefore, or to attempt to work your way through a reasoned argument, is just going to be a waste of time and energy. It's still important to do it, but it's also important to understand what it's (not) going to achieve and be conscious of how you can better spend your resources.

Not at all. If a journalist interviews someone and then goes to print, and a Wikipedia article is trying to cite a source for something the interviewee said, you don't need another organization to quote the part of the article where the interviewee's words appear in order for a secondary source to come into existence. The article where the quote was first printed is a valid secondary source.

Reddit, along with Wikipedia, seems to have already slowly been claimed by groups pushing you to buy, only they're seeking something besides (direct) transfer of stuff for cash: buy-in and validation of which political positions are even valid to consider holding, let alone actually adopting. I'm on the left myself (although I think in terms of being liberal first over being "a part of the left"), and as Jon Stewart said during simpler times, "Reality has a liberal bias!", so I don't see it as much a direct threat to my existence as say a center-right conservative would, but oh geez. It's been getting really intense over the last year or two. Over the summer I was listening to a podcast where someone was discussing the remarks of a non-partisan entity (can't remember who, but the podcast itself was The Fifth Column), and the hosts referred to the undertones of those remarks as having an "implied 'we'".

Because the fervor doesn't match what I see in real life, I really do wonder how much of what's happening reflects actual public sentiment, and how much of it is the result of more subtle, nefarious things at play.

I recently found a Wikipedia article where some media organization had published an interview with a public entertainer, only rather than linking to this interview, the Wikipedia article in an attempt to cite a reference for the entertainer's quote linked instead to a Vox article that was, in consideration of prosaic matters alone, much worse than the original source. Of course it was really heavy-handed, too, and overstuffed with "implied 'we'". How did that happen, that piece getting linked in place of the original? Was it the result of laziness, ignorance, or something more intentional? I didn't dive into it (too much of a quagmire to try to wade in and correct it, either), but I wouldn't doubt if there was some monetary cause related to the big business of politics. It's certainly happening in other places.