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Mask off R*ddit libs defending Biden's word choice
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this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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the_dunk_tank
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It's the dunk tank.
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I am aware of the different meanings of liberalism; it just makes no sense to me (in this context) to interpret "libs" in that way. Who cares if conservatives are doing mask-off racism in a political thread? They always do that. And of course I agree that progressives are racist in "acceptable" ways, but that would be another way of saying mask-on racism. And while progressives sometimes do straight up mask-off racism, that's not something I saw in the comment thread. In any case, just because someone identifies as progressive or espouses progressive beliefs in one area does not mean all of their beliefs are progressive or hold in line with what most other progressives think.
I also just think it's misguided
except in specific circumstances
to use the term "liberal" to mean something different than it is commonly understood to mean. But I should have been more aware that on hexbear people are more likely to mean it in the academic sense.
Friend the definition we use is not simply an "academic meaning" IT IS THE DEFINITION
Anything else is political illiteracy, no doubt reinforced through pop culture or Internet memery. Do you see how you've twisted yourself into knots trying to divide and catalog the mindsets between those so-called conservatives, "liberals", and progressives? It's pointless they're all subspecies of the same ideology, the liberals in that thread are not violating some sacred progressive liberal value with their racism, nor are they tapping into some inherent conservatism that invalidates their liberalism, it's all tactical differences not fundamental ones
They are simply liberals doing what liberals have always done, dividing and demoralizing the working class in defense of a pro-capitalist status quo and racism has always been a favored tool; of course many of them are also politically illiterate and are simply doing it out of a sort of social muscle memory, but end of the day they're still liberals
Words almost always have multiple definitions and are context dependent. "Liberal" fits the bill on both counts.
Clarifying what definition you're using is fine, but it's silly to claim that's the only definition, especially when the vast majority of U.S. political discourse uses a different one.
What you're arguing is "I know there is an actual meaning used in political discussions, but I have chosen to ignore that in favour of the alternate colloquial meaning that doesn't make sense contextually". Just shut up.
Pedantic redditbrain bullshit
The OP links to r/politics, which like the rest of U.S. mainstream political discussion takes "liberal" to mean "aligned with the Democratic Party." Someone from midwest.social drops in to say "these look like conservatives, not liberals," referencing the same context.
Then a bunch of Hexbear posters trip over themselves to say
"uhh ackshually these are all liberals in the classic sense," a point that adds nothing and that the midwest.social user already knows. Even after that user clarifies they already get this, and are referring to the partisan split in the U.S., people here still have to show how smart and correct they are instead of a simple "ah I see we're on the same page."
This is the way normal people interact with others and will bring the revolution any day now
I guess I don't get what we're doing here if we aren't going to discuss politics the way this site was meant to. If you want to use the pop culture definitions to defend the status quo, I recommend clicking the link, signing up for reddit and turning off your brain.
We're trying to learn and make a difference here.
Agreed -- but education involves stuff like assessing people's current understanding, clearly communicating items that may be new to them, and thinking about how what you're saying is being received. A lot of folks are failing at all three here.
The original post isn't at all clear about how it's defining "liberal" (and the context it links to uses the most common definition in the U.S.). No one recognizes that the person who came in and used that common definition is doing so because of the way it was communicated. Even when that person states they already understand the different definitions, they're met with further detail on a definition they just said they already know, and are firmly told they are wrong, which itself is wrong.
Except they clearly did not understand the "different definitions" and did require further detail on the ACTUAL definition, we do not need to get bogged down in the million-and-one specific personalized and incoherent configurations of liberalism, we instead look at the common characteristics of liberalism as it dwells in Existing Power and how it structures and molds the society we live in
I was describing the Titanic, you want us to describe the specific personnel arrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic, in education an accurate perspective and a sense of scale is critical for full comprehension
The most common definition of liberal in the U.S., by far, is "broadly associated with the Democratic Party." This is the definition used by every mainstream media source, and even throughout much of academica.
It's ridiculous to simply ignore the reality of how people commonly use words.
Again, that has no useful content, it can cover anything from demoralized social liberalism, to ecstatic neoliberalism and every crank liberalism in between, while simultaneously and incorrectly excluding those liberals aligned with the Republican Party or nonaligned at all ex. "I'm not a liberal I'm independent" absolute gibberish that has no bearing on American liberalism let alone global liberalism
Which is why it's better to zoom out and take into account the actual contents of liberalism, which is its reification of capitalist property relations and the atomization of the working class, which the reality of how people commonly experience liberalism politically, especially in the US
The useful content is I can say "liberal" to about anyone in the U.S. and they will know I'm referring to a set of policies broadly under the umbrella of the Democratic Party. If I say "liberal" while referring to the GOP, most will not understand my usage.
The fact that there are other definitions that (in the right context) are more precise, or useful, or coherent, does not mean the common definition isn't real, or is incorrect. It's how people use it; it's a real definition. There is no reason to refuse to acknowledge it.
You mean the set of policies that's anti-immigration today but was pro-immigration five years ago? That was anti-queer 15 years ago but is now kinda indifferent to queer people today even tho it was more pro-queer five years ago? The set of policies that was racist sixty years ago and is still pretty racist today, but people colloquially think it's not anymore, unless you're the wrong kind of POC?
Yeah that's a useful and coherent definition that totally isn't hiding the true nature of liberalism behind a veneer
I mean hey 75 million plus Trump loving dipshits believe liberalism under the Democratic Party is the new communism so it must be true. It's how people use it, right? So it's a real definition; like orks from 40k we can shift reality with our collective will, but apparently we still can't shift the set of policies
I am not arguing that Democrats are good and have consistent politics.
I'm also not going to argue any more on the premise that words are defined in part by how people actually use them. That's just how language works.
75 million Trump supporters believe liberalism is communism, go argue with them about "how language works" since you know it's according to you just a numbers game
What's your argument here then? That they were being willfully ignorant? You're accusing me of redditbrain, but your comment is incoherent holier than thou "but technically" whinging. Just shut up.
The argument is that they very obviously, very understandably used a common definition of "liberal," and the response of "let me explain something that you already know and then insist I'm right" is reddit brain.
Are you five?
They used a US misconception of the definition of liberal that didn't make sense in context - what psychic powers do you have that you managed to deduce that actually, they totally do know the normal definition, which is why they were so confused by us calling what they think of as conservatives "liberals"? For fuck's sake, even while claiming they know the definition they still can't make sense of republicans being called liberals.
Now stop being a lib and shut up.
"Me and my few friends have the One True definition of this word, that's totally how language works, and you're wrong and stupid for using the word how most people do"
Tell me more about how connected to the masses you are and how good you are at educating them
Damn, you had so many chance to back off and still decided to shoot your stupidest possible shot.
Yes, we're only using ONE definition, we haven't mentioned any alternative definitions like the one Mao uses in Combat Liberalism, and certainly haven't said that the issue isn't with multiple meanings, but the specific one they're trying to use.
Most Americans. I already pointed this one out, but the American use barely extends into other parts of the Anglosphere, nevermind the actual majority of the world - if you started talking about liberals over here in Britain people would be asking who even cares about the Lib Dems after 2012. You are not the centre of the world. Nobody cares if you say you're doing it on purpose, you are misuing the english language.
It's extremely sad that you honestly consider Hexbear.net, a site with less than 1000 daily users from around the entire world, to be the vanguard of the revolution. That you're sitting behind your computer in the honest belief that coming here connects you to the masses and spreads political education. Go outside, touch some grass, and join an org if you actually want to work on outreach, whinging in one of the most obscure possible corners of the internet is not going to achieve anything.
There is no content or coherence to the "colloquial" definition, the ideology we call liberalism has a history, a set of a priori assumptions of the world, a roster of multiple internal schools of thought (none of which mesh with the colloquial understanding), and most important an actually existing record of real world policies that define it's true function and scope in the world
You can claim a million billion people think liberalism is sunshine and roses, that still wouldn't make it true
Words mean what people think they mean. The vast majority of Americans use "liberal" and "conservative" interchangeably with Democratic and Republican policies, so in that context (which is the context of the r/politics thread) "liberal" is fairly read as "aligned with Democrats." That's a valid definition because it's how most people actually use the word.
Claiming that your preferred definition is the only real definition, and the hundreds of millions of people who use the most common definition are all wrong, is nonsensical and will get you nothing but endless semantic slapfights.
Yeah if those people had power, a political education and sustained control over the levers of knowledge production
Except our non-hexbear friend asserted those liberals in that thread aren't liberals because they sound like "garden variety conservatives" but they're not (according to the colloquial definition), they're "democrat aligned" Biden supporters pissing and moaning about people upset over Biden's anti-immigration stance (oh look anti-immigration from the liberal dems, another violation of the vaunted colloquial definition)
So that tells us not only were you not paying attention to what op was saying, but that the definition that you're holding up as the gold standard (because millions of American don't have a political education) can't even hold up in the thread you gave as an example
Which is why political education is important and colloquial understanding that isn't even colloquial is not
This is very plainly drawing a difference between "liberals defending Biden" and "garden variety conservatives."
If you have examples of Biden supporters in that thread endorsing the racist term "illegals," citing those would have been infinitely more productive than pretending the common definition of "liberal" doesn't even exist.
I'm well aware what they tried to do, I'm saying they failed because they don't know what liberalism is because they have a bullshit mangled colloquial understanding of it that doesn't accurately describe reality
Nah bro these totally aren't Biden supporters, absolute "garden variety conservatives", lmao hey happened to the fuckin colloquial definition, I can't seem to find it?
I'm not arguing about this. I'm saying you should have brought up this actual substantive stuff right away rather than posting multiple paragraphs about the definition of a word
...the original post was a link to the content. You shouldnt have commented unless you clicked the link to see what we were even talking about.
You don't have to know shit about the underlying post to point out that dogpiling someone for using the most common definition of "liberal" is a poor way to communicate with them.
I read the underlying post, anyway.
Just take the L.
You can't break out "aren't we trying to learn here" on one hand and then drop reddit shit like this on the other
Everyone else already made my point for me, and you have at least dodeca-ed down
If the pattern I've noticed on hexbear persists, we are about three more back and forths away from your mask slipping and you getting banned, so I'm just gonna leave it at this comment and call it a day.
Lmao what kind of horseshit is this? "You did not submit to my obviously superior intellect, so you must be some secret reactionary whose mask is just a hair from slipping?"
Not even close, but go ahead and assume you know anything about me at all
Lol
Haha nice edit, too
Yeah, I didn't feel like being a jerk after letting it breathe
Look, you’re not going to find any support here with this take.
I once made a thread asking Hexbears to tone down their rhetoric so it’s more welcoming to the vast majority of the outside people, and 99% of the responses were a firm no.
People here aren’t going to give up using the materialist definition of liberalism just to pander to the libs.
I see the same thing happening -- it's a fast track to an ultraleftist dead end.
It's also worth noting that recognizing what non-leftists mean when they speak is not pandering, but a prerequisite to effective communication. We're abandoning talking to people out of eagerness to dunk on anything that moves.
This thread shows how we need more accessible, as in memes, political education for left-curious folks. This stuff has to meet people where they are if we ever hope to build a popular revolutionary movement.
Prescriptivism is bullshit, the definition of a word is how it is used and how the word is used is its definition. Even if it isn't, the dictionaries I've looked at give multiple definitions for the word.
Maybe I'm just so indoctrinated that the knots and twists don't feel all that knotty or twisty. I just disagree that it's pointless to make note of these divisions. Some people are trying to make the world a better place, and some people are trying to make it worse.
Communists
Liberals
It's not prescriptivism, you're misusing that word, what's actually happened here is that you've fallen for a political misnomer or a series of political misnomers
Liberalism has a basis in historical socio-economic practice that runs into the present day, its multiple schools of thought from; social liberalism, ordoliberalism, neoclassical econ, Keynesianism, the Austrian school etc. define and shape not only the contours of higher learning, but the whole political matrix of the entire earth, and all those schools make a mockery of the common "colloquial" understanding
The so-called "presciptivist" definition is the one that accurately describes the liberalism in the heads of the powerful, the wealthy, the influential, their mentors, their brokers, their guard dogs, their scientists, their theorists, their planners.....basically it's the liberalism that has actual power and acts as the software for capitalism's hardware; and I'm telling you now friend, you won't find that info in a dictionary
Really? You think it's worthwhile to play No True Scotsman with a half-dozen different flavors of liberalism? It doesn't matter what you or those people claim to be or believe; it's the ideas, values, epistemology, and actually existing political structures that they defend that truly define who they are
"The most progressive president since FDR" is adopting Trump border policies, calling undocumented immigrants "illegals" that are dangerous to you and yours, and abetting a genocide of Palestinians. Dems are happily falling in line and are already gearing up for their attempt to shame each other into holding the line despite it obviously meaning nothing every four years.
No twists and turns?
“Both” types of liberals fall into the latter category.
It's what liberal means everywhere except the incoherent myopia of American political illiteracy where people like to pretend that Reagan and Obama had different political ideologies.
Re: racism and liberals, every example I gave is mask-off racism and you'll find they're very common among liberals, including "progressives". They just normalize it to each other and tell themselves they aren't racist, happily living with the contradiction. Mask-on vs mask-off racism is about hiding racism that someone acknowledges, which is a different thing.
I bet if you revisit the thread with a critical lens you'll find some lib racism.