Not really. To you, antifa is a loosely-if-at-all organised collection of people united by opposition to fascism. To them, it’s a real organisation with actual members who use violence against the government. To you, because the collection isn’t really organised, the name determines what it is. To them, because it’s a real organisation, the name can be a lie and doesn’t matter. To you, direct action against the government is justified, because they’re in the process of creating a fascist state. To them, the government isn’t fascist, so action against the government can’t be on the basis of anti-fascism; antifa must therefore be a dishonest label.
Ah, but you have made the classical mistake of assuming they think/ actually believe what they are saying and arent just trying to disenfranchise billions.
Who’s “they”, now? I think that plenty of politicians knowingly misrepresent things like this, but I don’t think the average Trump voter/Fox news watcher understands. Otherwise the politicians and the news just wouldn’t have to lie.
This is somewhat of an encouraging thought. They have to lie to keep people on their side. Unfortunately the lies work, but at least the people don’t support their real agenda.
There are true believers, grifters, and idiots all throughout the movement. Sometimes you can have various shades of believer/grifter/idiot all rolled into a single person.
Never believe that anti‐ Semites fascists are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites fascists have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. It is not that they are afraid of being convinced. They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.
But then someone’s gonna sweep in with a moral relativistic argument about how “evil is a social construct” and “there’s no such thing as absolute evil” and that labelling something as evil is “essentialist”
I don’t get it. I thought moral relativism, anti-essentialism, and critiquing social constructs are all elements of post-modernism?
Or are you saying I would rant against postmodernism? Cause while I find deconstruction to be useful in certain contexts, denying the existence of evil as a concept seems like an absurdity.
Instead, I find the challenge to be in defining precisely what constitutes evil in a way that’s both narrow enough to not be overextended, while being comprehensive enough to avoid letting certain things slip through the cracks.
For instance, some things are objectively evil. Slavery, rape, genocide, torture, bombing civilians, child abuse, etc. It would be ridiculous to make a moral relativistic argument against that.
Some things are not so clearly defined, however. Is capital punishment inherently evil, or does it ever have justified cause? Is eating meat inherently evil? Does that mean everyone who eats meat is an evil person? Another one is this: does circumcision count as child abuse, therefore making it evil? Is modern capitalism literal wage-slavery, making the entire system evil?
Some people might have firm convictions about the answer to these questions, but if many people have diametrically opposite yet equally firm convictions, does that make the issue in concern a morally relativistic one?
So defining evil certainly isn’t a simple task. But if we had to throw out every concept that’s hard to define, we’d have to abandon use of the term “fascism” as well (you know what they say about nailing jelly to the wall).
Another question about defining evil: is it a property of actions, of agents (actors; i.e., people who do evil things), or of dispositions (tendencies, habits, attitudes, etc.; things that are consistently held properties rather than isolated incidents), or some other thing?
In other words, if a person tortures a civilian, would you say “He’s an evil person,” “He did an evil thing,” or “He has evil dispositions.” Or perhaps some combination of the above?
Outright rejecting the existence of evil, however, is a flaw of post-modernism. And a true post-modernist wouldn’t take that to mean that all of post-modernism is flawed, but simply that it has flaws.
I’m saying that the people currently holding a farcically post modernist take on the idea of evil, are often also ideologically opposed to post modernism. You may say this is contradictory, but to that theoretical you, I say, “yeah, but the main ideology that does this is fascism, and they don’t care if they’re self contradictory”
Honestly, I didn’t think the average fascist was smart enough to know what post-modernism is. But then again, there is that weird cohort of fascists that likes to co-opt philosophical-sounding jargon to make themselves seem intelligent while they propound insane and inane theories (such as Curtis Yarvin 🤢). So I think I see your point. Those types would certainly complain about post-modernism because it conflicts with their notion that we need to return to a feudalistic social order because “the past is always better” or something.
But then again a lot of fascists do believe in absolute evil (as opposed to relativistic evil); only instead of basing their metric on how much intentional, unnecessary, and unjustifiable harm something causes, they base it on whatever their pastor tells them to hate.
And then there are the ones who say “Yeah, evil exists. It’s me, I’m evil.” But those are rare. More often I think those are the types who propound quasi-post-modernist perspectives of evil (such as misusing “moral relativism” as an excuse to justify heinous atrocities) in order to obfuscate the moral vacancy and deplorability of their actions and intentions, while simultaneously claiming to be against post-modernism because, like you said, they’re self-contradictory and ideologically inconsistent, and post-modernism conflicts with their end goal of establishing neofeudalism…
Still seems bonkers to me they made anti-fascists the bad guys.
It demonstrates they don’t comprehend basic English - this statement included.
Not really. To you, antifa is a loosely-if-at-all organised collection of people united by opposition to fascism. To them, it’s a real organisation with actual members who use violence against the government. To you, because the collection isn’t really organised, the name determines what it is. To them, because it’s a real organisation, the name can be a lie and doesn’t matter. To you, direct action against the government is justified, because they’re in the process of creating a fascist state. To them, the government isn’t fascist, so action against the government can’t be on the basis of anti-fascism; antifa must therefore be a dishonest label.
Ah, but you have made the classical mistake of assuming they think/ actually believe what they are saying and arent just trying to disenfranchise billions.
Who’s “they”, now? I think that plenty of politicians knowingly misrepresent things like this, but I don’t think the average Trump voter/Fox news watcher understands. Otherwise the politicians and the news just wouldn’t have to lie.
This is somewhat of an encouraging thought. They have to lie to keep people on their side. Unfortunately the lies work, but at least the people don’t support their real agenda.
Average viewer doesnt think, average producer is running a grift
It’s pretty much this from top to bottom.
There are true believers, grifters, and idiots all throughout the movement. Sometimes you can have various shades of believer/grifter/idiot all rolled into a single person.
And furthermore, to them the government can’t be fascist because they supported all of the fascist parts of it.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre
France to the rescue!
A friend asked me what is antifa… I started carrying crayons after that encounter.
To feed your friend?
Maybe we need a rebranding change the name to anti-evil. Instead of fascist you say evil
But then someone’s gonna sweep in with a moral relativistic argument about how “evil is a social construct” and “there’s no such thing as absolute evil” and that labelling something as evil is “essentialist”
This person may also rant against postmodernism
I don’t get it. I thought moral relativism, anti-essentialism, and critiquing social constructs are all elements of post-modernism?
Or are you saying I would rant against postmodernism? Cause while I find deconstruction to be useful in certain contexts, denying the existence of evil as a concept seems like an absurdity.
Instead, I find the challenge to be in defining precisely what constitutes evil in a way that’s both narrow enough to not be overextended, while being comprehensive enough to avoid letting certain things slip through the cracks.
For instance, some things are objectively evil. Slavery, rape, genocide, torture, bombing civilians, child abuse, etc. It would be ridiculous to make a moral relativistic argument against that.
Some things are not so clearly defined, however. Is capital punishment inherently evil, or does it ever have justified cause? Is eating meat inherently evil? Does that mean everyone who eats meat is an evil person? Another one is this: does circumcision count as child abuse, therefore making it evil? Is modern capitalism literal wage-slavery, making the entire system evil?
Some people might have firm convictions about the answer to these questions, but if many people have diametrically opposite yet equally firm convictions, does that make the issue in concern a morally relativistic one?
So defining evil certainly isn’t a simple task. But if we had to throw out every concept that’s hard to define, we’d have to abandon use of the term “fascism” as well (you know what they say about nailing jelly to the wall).
Another question about defining evil: is it a property of actions, of agents (actors; i.e., people who do evil things), or of dispositions (tendencies, habits, attitudes, etc.; things that are consistently held properties rather than isolated incidents), or some other thing?
In other words, if a person tortures a civilian, would you say “He’s an evil person,” “He did an evil thing,” or “He has evil dispositions.” Or perhaps some combination of the above?
Outright rejecting the existence of evil, however, is a flaw of post-modernism. And a true post-modernist wouldn’t take that to mean that all of post-modernism is flawed, but simply that it has flaws.
I’m saying that the people currently holding a farcically post modernist take on the idea of evil, are often also ideologically opposed to post modernism. You may say this is contradictory, but to that theoretical you, I say, “yeah, but the main ideology that does this is fascism, and they don’t care if they’re self contradictory”
Oh, I think I understand now.
Honestly, I didn’t think the average fascist was smart enough to know what post-modernism is. But then again, there is that weird cohort of fascists that likes to co-opt philosophical-sounding jargon to make themselves seem intelligent while they propound insane and inane theories (such as Curtis Yarvin 🤢). So I think I see your point. Those types would certainly complain about post-modernism because it conflicts with their notion that we need to return to a feudalistic social order because “the past is always better” or something.
But then again a lot of fascists do believe in absolute evil (as opposed to relativistic evil); only instead of basing their metric on how much intentional, unnecessary, and unjustifiable harm something causes, they base it on whatever their pastor tells them to hate.
And then there are the ones who say “Yeah, evil exists. It’s me, I’m evil.” But those are rare. More often I think those are the types who propound quasi-post-modernist perspectives of evil (such as misusing “moral relativism” as an excuse to justify heinous atrocities) in order to obfuscate the moral vacancy and deplorability of their actions and intentions, while simultaneously claiming to be against post-modernism because, like you said, they’re self-contradictory and ideologically inconsistent, and post-modernism conflicts with their end goal of establishing neofeudalism…
Soon: “if being evil is bad then I don’t want to be good!!”
America is a disease