Observations of the Random sort

[lunchstealer]

The Mormons are wrong; the aliens are the lost tribes of Israel. Neil Young is their prophet.

Neil Young should remember, Space Jews don't need him around anyhow.

Sounds like a job for Byron de le Beckwith VII: Racist in the Year 3000!

[Eric the .5b]

Something I've noticed for the last decade or so, but which I find especially bizarre when people opposing Trump in pretty ordinary ways call themselves "the resistance": so many left-leaning people in the US automatically associate anything anti-establishment or rebellious with the right. From the ones who kept seeing sinister right-wing messaging in the teen dystopia movies to this person I ran into online today who straight-facedly went on about how Pollock and the rest of the abstract expressionists were all right-wing super-patriots. (Especially the left-anarchists, presumably.)

If you press these people, they'll say of course the left proper is marginal in the US and the GOP controls blah blah blah, but they keep knee-jerking about how any resistance to or defiance of the establishment or of authority is some kind of movement Republican shit. It's like they imagine that they're the establishment.

When did this happen? Is it as dumb as "when the Tea Party started"?

[thoreau]

The far right has styled itself an anti-government opposition for a long time, and the mainstream right has worn libertarian drag for about as long.

Meanwhile, government agencies and corporations have adopted progressive cultural stylings for a while.

I remember Bill Clinton saying that you can't love your country and fear your government.

[JD]

Something I've noticed for the last decade or so, but which I find especially bizarre when people opposing Trump in pretty ordinary ways call themselves "the resistance": so many left-leaning people in the US automatically associate anything anti-establishment or rebellious with the right.

I don't know when it started, but I think it has something to do with the fact that most of the left in America is fundamentally collective, establishment, and believers in government. The establishment of the state is, to them, fundamentally good, and if there is a problem to be solved, the state is the tool for solving it. So of course anyone who's against either their ends or their means is "right" and "anti-government".

[JasonL]

The left thinks in terms of narrative control at least as much as they think in terms of inequality. If they think The Wrong People have control of the narrative around right and wrong, they will be anti establishment. If they think they have control of right and wrong narratives they hunker down to defend their turf.

[Shem]

The left thinks in terms of narrative control at least as much as they think in terms of inequality. If they think The Wrong People have control of the narrative around right and wrong, they will be anti establishment. If they think they have control of right and wrong narratives they hunker down to defend their turf.

You really think that's a "left" thing?

[JasonL]

It is notable as a left call out to the extent people still have any residual view that counter culture is a thing of the left. If you try to analyze the behavior of the left vis a vis the establishment by trying to look at what actual beliefs are about the establishment you are missing the correct dynamic.

[Aresen]

The right has its own version of 'cancel culture' - try questioning the integrity of the police on Fox News, for example - but it is generally covered in so much stupid that it is hardly noticeable.

[Warren]

It is notable as a left call out to the extent people still have any residual view that counter culture is a thing of the left. If you try to analyze the behavior of the left vis a vis the establishment by trying to look at what actual beliefs are about the establishment you are missing the correct dynamic.

Sounds right to me.

[Jennifer]

"The left" aren't the ones claiming everything Trump dislikes is proof of the "Deep State" destroying everything.

[Shem]

It is notable as a left call out to the extent people still have any residual view that counter culture is a thing of the left. If you try to analyze the behavior of the left vis a vis the establishment by trying to look at what actual beliefs are about the establishment you are missing the correct dynamic.

Aha, so, "it doesn't matter when it happens on the right because we all expect that from them?"

[Shem]

The right has its own version of 'cancel culture' - try questioning the integrity of the police on Fox News, for example - but it is generally covered in so much stupid that it is hardly noticeable.

It also comes straight from the leader of the party on the right, but the cancelling on the left is apparently the matter of greatest concern, even though the left's actual leaders marginalize the people doing the cancelling from their side fairly successfully.

[Hugh Akston]

It is notable as a left call out to the extent people still have any residual view that counter culture is a thing of the left. If you try to analyze the behavior of the left vis a vis the establishment by trying to look at what actual beliefs are about the establishment you are missing the correct dynamic.

Aha, so, "it doesn't matter when it happens on the right because we all expect that from them?"

He wasn't talking about the right. He was talking about the left.

[Shem]

It is notable as a left call out to the extent people still have any residual view that counter culture is a thing of the left. If you try to analyze the behavior of the left vis a vis the establishment by trying to look at what actual beliefs are about the establishment you are missing the correct dynamic.

Aha, so, "it doesn't matter when it happens on the right because we all expect that from them?"

He wasn't talking about the right. He was talking about the left.

And I asked if the point he was making was really limited to the left. Given that his point seems to be that the thing he's taking about is a notable feature of leftist discourse, I'd say the fact that it's also found on the right is pretty damaging to his argument.

[JD]

I'm not sure that we have a very firm definition of "cancel culture", but I think it's definitely more pronounced on the left. Sure, on the right you can get yourself kicked out of the club for insulting the club, but it's the left that basically demands you become a nonperson because of allegations against you.

[Hugh Akston]

It is notable as a left call out to the extent people still have any residual view that counter culture is a thing of the left. If you try to analyze the behavior of the left vis a vis the establishment by trying to look at what actual beliefs are about the establishment you are missing the correct dynamic.

Aha, so, "it doesn't matter when it happens on the right because we all expect that from them?"

He wasn't talking about the right. He was talking about the left.

And I asked if the point he was making was really limited to the left. Given that his point seems to be that the thing he's taking about is a notable feature of leftist discourse, I'd say the fact that it's also found on the right is pretty damaging to his argument.

Only if his argument is "this is a thing the left does that the right doesn't". If his argument is "this is a thing the left does" then it's just whataboutism.

[Jennifer]

It is notable as a left call out to the extent people still have any residual view that counter culture is a thing of the left. If you try to analyze the behavior of the left vis a vis the establishment by trying to look at what actual beliefs are about the establishment you are missing the correct dynamic.

Aha, so, "it doesn't matter when it happens on the right because we all expect that from them?"

He wasn't talking about the right. He was talking about the left.

And I asked if the point he was making was really limited to the left. Given that his point seems to be that the thing he's taking about is a notable feature of leftist discourse, I'd say the fact that it's also found on the right is pretty damaging to his argument.

Only if his argument is "this is a thing the left does that the right doesn't". If his argument is "this is a thing the left does" then it's just whataboutism.

His use of the word "notable" as relates to "the left" certainly implies the former.

[Aresen]

If the massive Russian hack of the US government revealed this week gets traced back to negligence on the part of Trump or a Trump appointee, it is going to be amusing listening to the Trumpers explaining how the revelation is actually part of a 'Deep State' conspiracy against Trump.

[nicole]

If the massive Russian hack of the US government revealed this week gets traced back to negligence on the part of Trump or a Trump appointee, it is going to be amusing listening to the Trumpers explaining how the revelation is actually part of a 'Deep State' conspiracy against Trump.

Well, that’s definitely not going to happen because Trump definitely isn’t responsible for SolarWinds being compromised. Also, no one is actually giving any evidence let alone proof that it was Russia.

[thoreau]

I don't know that we'll get anywhere debating who cancels more. But as far as the Blues distrusting anyone who styles themselves anti-establishment (Eric's point), I think that a few decades of Reds dressed in libertarian drag is surely part of it. Also a mythology that Once Upon A Time we had a a government that fit neatly into its constitutional limits, then FDR screwed it all up, and the Reds will totally undo it. The Blues sort of accept it by styling themselves defenders of the New Deal.

Plus, regardless of who cancels more or has more power, the left cultural flank at least has enough institutional foothold to make the Che shirts rather ironic. Maybe they run the institutions, maybe they just barely hold on, but whoever the real victim is, neither side is all that outsider.

[Jadagul]

The mainstream left, in its rhetoric, is more "pro-government" than the mainstream right.

This is silly because it has a lot to do with how "government" has been rhetorically gerrymandered: the police aren't part of the government, nor is immigration enforcement, and often Medicare isn't either. But it's the way the rhetoric gets used.

What makes this super funny, and I think was the original observation, is that because we're so tribalized about political rhetoric, left-anarchists will still dunk on people who aren't in favor of "big government". Because left-anarchists are still left, and thus inherits the mainstream left/liberal alliance's pro-"government" rhetoric.

[thoreau]

The mainstream left, in its rhetoric, is more "pro-government" than the mainstream right.

This is silly because it has a lot to do with how "government" has been rhetorically gerrymandered: the police aren't part of the government, nor is immigration enforcement, and often Medicare isn't either. But it's the way the rhetoric gets used.

Don't forget the military. Military spending isn't government spending.

[Shem]

I'm not sure that we have a very firm definition of "cancel culture", but I think it's definitely more pronounced on the left. Sure, on the right you can get yourself kicked out of the club for insulting the club, but it's the left that basically demands you become a nonperson because of allegations against you.

I mean, unless you try to be trans in a small town. Or be Black and keep your hair in a way that makes white people uncomfortable. Or be Black and move to some of those small towns. Or be openly gay in one of those places until about 10 years ago. Or be a Republican Secretary of State in Georgia and try to do your job. Or be a professor and make comments that are insufficiently pro-Israel. Or be Jeff Flake. Or...

Point is, it's simply not true that the left are the ones who demand you "become a nonperson" to suit their ideological vision of the world. "Cancel culture" is just a catchy new name for the way Americans have always solved questions of what cultural mores should be. This is always sort of low-grade happening in the background (e.g. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson) and it gets loud pretty much every 30 years or so. This one is just more strident because we've never had so many older people remaining in positions of cultural and political authority for so long, and we've never had twitter to make the stupidest part of the discourse the loudest before.

[Shem]

Plus, regardless of who cancels more or has more power, the left cultural flank at least has enough institutional foothold to make the Che shirts rather ironic. Maybe they run the institutions, maybe they just barely hold on, but whoever the real victim is, neither side is all that outsider.

I don't understand this point. I mean, they're ironic because someone got the idiot wearing it to shell out $20 for a shirt that cost $2 to make and ship, with an image of a communist on it, made by a prole in a third world factory working under conditions that any communist would find hideously exploitative. It's actually fractally ironic, when you think about it. But, not sure what it has to do with institutional power.

[Eric the .5b]

And outside of academia or wherever, I don't know where "the left" has institutional power. Team Blue, sure.