Itās targeted meanness. Itās a rhetorical tactic. Itās not for general use in conversations. Itās like calling fascists weird, making fun of a terf woman for looking ugly, or calling a transphobe a dumbass for demanding we respect his new pronouns because he put on a dress and makeup.
Iāll use tankies as an example. Tankies are evil demons because they want to use trans people for political purposes and kill us all for not being ideologically pure. If a tanky says theyāre on the left call them a dumbass. And if anyone asks what a tanky is tell them that tankies are red fascists aka authoritarian communists.
To be clear, as a trans woman, I donāt want someone who uses ableism as a cudgel online defending me online or in real life. Itās not useful. It does nothing to forward the interests of neurodivergent people and it does nothing to push back on the people who want me dead. All it does is silence rhetorically effective critique of intolerant fascists and makes the person screaming ableism feel morally pure.
Again, itās targeted. This does not mean we should being using ableist language for no reason or because we feel like it in casual conversation. Itās fine to call out meanness or ableism when it is being used in a way that serves no useful purpose.
Also, the goal isnāt really to use slurs but in theory they could be used. Whatever is useful in the particular social environment. The goal is to be mean to a specific target. This is about leveraging the way social media accumulates engagement and internet culture against intolerant people who we should not tolerate.
Refusing to use targeted meanness in a social war is like refusing to use guns in a physical war. Itās a great way to lose the war.
Itās called tailism and itās throwing disabled people under the bus because you canāt find a better argument that the person you perceive as bad is actually bad.
Youād rather normalise ableist language to prevent the naziās from coming after you than make allies in disabled communities.
Edit: just to add, tailism is not even effective. Naziās promote it to pit marginalised groups against each other.
Meanness is part of society and so is this false notion of general intellect, which we cannot measure. Falsely championing disabled people and pretending targeted meanness isnāt effective when we all saw how calling specific fascists weird was effective isnāt an honest argument. Neither is hiding behind theory used as a straw man.
If Tim Walz had delivered a compelling argument about how fascism is self-destructive it wouldnāt have resonated with people the way weird did. People saw clips of JD Vance, they heard about the couch fucking, and weird resonated with them. Know who usually gets called weird and by who? Queer people by fascists. Did calling specific fascists weird bother queer people? No, because weāre weird and proud of it. Unlike the fascists who cling to a false sense of normalcy for the sake of their ego, queer people want to be themselves.
The reason this works is because it was targeted. Weird isnāt any more normalized against queer people than it was before Tim Walz used it. Calling specific fascists dumb isnāt going to normalize ableism even by using slurs. Which again using slurs may not even be the must useful rhetoric in any given scenario. But if a person finds themselves in a scenario where they can use slurs, even those that normally target queer people generally, to defend queer people effectively I would appreciate it if they did. The same way I would appreciate someone using violence to defend me effectively in a self-defense scenario.
Fascists arenāt going around telling us to be more mean. They would love for leftists to keep being nice no matter what and to cling to this obsession with moral purity because it renders us ineffective. Using a rhetorically effective word, phrase, or mannerism against a specific target isnāt any more reactionary than saying queer people should organize and arm themselves.
If leftists canāt get passed this obsession with moral purity itās going to get us all killed. We arenāt going to be able to communicate effectively to our peers and other people in general in person or online. The fascists will mop the floor with us in their messaging. Theyāre willing to be mean to get what they want. Choosing an always share, rhetorically pacifist strategy is the same as choosing to be complicit in our own destruction.
The way leftists cling to moral purity is the same way that fascists cling to normalcy. Itās about leftistsā egos. Leftists donāt like the idea of being morally wrong. Itās why leftists couldnāt bring themselves to vote for Kamala Harris despite it being the useful strategy. And itās why leftists canāt bring themselves to use slurs or abelist language or be mean against specific fascists who want to kill neurodivergent and queer people.
Killing people is wrong, but in some circumstances it is necessary. Being mean and using inappropriate language is wrong, but sometimes it is necessary. If everyone on one side of war is a pacifist, everyone they want to defend dies. If everyone on one side of a culture war is a rhetorical pacifist, everyone they want to defend dies. Refusing to say certain words in certain contexts isnāt protecting the neurdivergent or queer communities. Itās protecting leftistsā egos that depend on always being able to see a pair of clean hands.
If leftists actually care about marginalized groups then leftists should be willing to use the most effective strategies to defeat the fascists who want to kill those groups. Otherwise leftists should be honest with those marginalized groups and say they are only willing to give them token support because thatās what makes those leftists feel good about themselves. If leftists value their moral purity more than peoples lives then leftists should tell those communities that. That way those communities can find real allies who are willing to put people before their egos.
The normalisation of words like āstupidā does have real life consequences to people with learning disabilities. Any time you use that word or similar words, you are not only insulting the person itās directed at, but youāre also insulting all people with a learning disability by insinuating that they are in some way inferior, because according to you their disability is an insult in and of itself. You will not gain any sympathy from the disabled community by normalising those words. Youāre pushing them away and throwing them under the bus to be targeted first.
āWeirdā is not an equivalent word because it doesnāt define a group of people in the same way. Walzās usage of the word āweirdā wasnāt to insult transphobes. It was a correct assessment that republicans are way too interested in controlling the personal lives of trans people in a way that most people would (and should) be weirded out by. Itās weird (and creepy) to find a stranger in your bedroom in the same way that itās weird (and creepy) to have a stranger tell you how you should dress, behave and look. Itās an argument that has substance, compared to the empty argument of saying that a transphobe person is of ālow intelligenceā, especially when thatās often not even the source of their transphobia.
Substantive arguments are always better than non substantive āmeanā arguments as you call them. Youāre not arguing to convince a nazi, youāre arguing to convince a bystander that a nazi is dangerous. A bystander needs an actual reason to be convinced, not a few mean words.
You claim a lot about antifascist strategy but your claims are not supported by historical evidence. The strongest antifascist factions have always been those that seek unity within oppressed groups. Tailism just leads to division.
The normalisation of words like āstupidā does have real life consequences to people with learning disabilities.
Targeted meanness doesnāt normalize the specific words used so that is not a relevant concern. Again, no one but the targeted fascists were offended by the usage of weird. Usages of the word weird havenāt exploded against queer people. By being mean to intolerant people we are defending the people those intolerant people want to kill. By refusing to be mean we would be abandoning the targeted out-groups. It is trivial to differentiate between using a word as a rhetorical tool in specific situations and dismissing its use in general discourse. It is in fact insulting to marginalized groups to insinuate they would not understand this.
āWeirdā is not an equivalent word because it doesnāt define a group of people in the same way. Walzās usage of the word āweirdā wasnāt to insult transphobes.
It definitely insulted them. Trump and Vance did not know how to handle being called weird. Weird is most certainly equivalent to words like dumb and stupid in terms of meanness.
compared to the empty argument of saying that a transphobe person is of ālow intelligenceā, especially when thatās often not even the source of their transphobia.
The use case of insulting a fascists intelligence would be different than calling them weird. Any given word is not going to be effective in every hypothetical scenario. Weird was the correct choice in Tim Walzās case during the election. Calling fascists stupid can be the correct choice in others.
Substantive arguments are always better than non substantive āmeanā arguments as you call them.
The fact this is wrong is self-evident. We could of course not fit this discussion effectively into character limited messages or sound bites in a debate. The way we even get people to read these arguments is to first win these rhetorical battles. And even then not everyone is going to have time read these kind of discussions. If we rely on these kind of long form arguments to the exclusion of all other forms of communication and rhetoric then we will lose to the fascists.
A bystander needs an actual reason to be convinced, not a few mean words.
This is exactly what any given bystander needs in the fast paced social media discourse we have today. A person having someone tell them a fascist is wrong in a few short words that have a negative connotation because they are mean is how people are socialized. We donāt have to like it, but we do have to acknowledge and act on reality if we want to continue to live in reality.
You claim a lot about antifascist strategy but your claims are not supported by historical evidence.
The strongest antifascist factions have always been those that seek unity within oppressed groups.
Nothing about using rhetoric to defend people is divisive. The same way violence in self-defense is not divisive. Throwing minority groups under the bus for the sake of moral purity is peak divisiveness.
Tailism just leads to division.
Iām not arguing for your argumentās straw man so this isnāt an issue.
All your arguments are based on claims that are guesses or just plainly untrue. This not not a serious discussion. It makes sense that your sources and āexperiencesā come from vaush and twitter. Touch grass, talk to some experienced antifascist activists and maybe read some books.
Edit: and maybe reach out to a disabled community (in a respectful manner) to learn about how ableist language impacts them.
All your arguments are based on claims that are guesses or just plainly untrue. This not not a serious discussion.
If your argument is to lie about our discussion then your statement is correct, it is not a serious discussion.
It makes sense that your sources and āexperiencesā come from vaush and twitter.
Yes, we are discussing how to deal with fascists in social environments where there is limited space and/or time to communicate between parties. So the examples are drawn from relevant sources such as twitter and political debates.
Touch grass, talk to some experienced antifascist activists and maybe read some books.
Itās raining too much to mow, maybe next week. So not you then. I recommend Why Nations Fail.
Edit: and maybe reach out to a disabled community (in a respectful manner) to learn about how ableist language impacts them.
There were people from the queer and neurodivergent communities in the chat discussing the topics with Vaush. They agreed with him.
You can always find people of any group to agree with any statement (especially if theyāre already watching an ableist person). Which is why Iām telling you to seek out actual disabled communities. They often have advocacy and activist subgroups who can tell you a lot about ableism, its impact on disabled people and effective activism against it.
Real life discourse is very different from online discourse, and real life is where actual activism is done and changes are made.
Many of the people in Vaushās community consider themselves autistic. In fact many in his audience identify as part of the neurodivergent and/or queer communities. Nor is Vaush an ableist person, he just uses rhetoric effectively. My argument has exceeded the arbitrary bars your argument has set. Regardless none of these criticisms have any bearing on the content of my argument. These ad hominem suggestions are not a requirement to discuss this topic nor do they have any bearing on the validity of effective strategies to defeat fascism.
Real life discourse is very different from online discourse, and real life is where actual activism is done and changes are made.
The idea that online discourse doesnāt impact real life is nonsense. The far-right is spreading online just fine and they shape public opinion everyday. The idea that we could dismiss the internet, the largest and fastest communication network, for its potential to act as a means of activism and change is laughable. This belief is in part why the left is losing. Coupled with this moral obsession to be pure by not saying bad words.
Your argument has nothing to offer to justify being rhetorically ineffective. It only provides straw men, ad hominem statements, and blatant lies. Nothing your argument has offered will do anything to stem the tied of far-right propaganda online that is going to get so many people killed. On the ground action is of course still a necessary component of resisting fascism, but the far-right will run circles around us on the left if we do not take the internet seriously.
Itās targeted meanness. Itās a rhetorical tactic. Itās not for general use in conversations. Itās like calling fascists weird, making fun of a terf woman for looking ugly, or calling a transphobe a dumbass for demanding we respect his new pronouns because he put on a dress and makeup.
Iāll use tankies as an example. Tankies are evil demons because they want to use trans people for political purposes and kill us all for not being ideologically pure. If a tanky says theyāre on the left call them a dumbass. And if anyone asks what a tanky is tell them that tankies are red fascists aka authoritarian communists.
To be clear, as a trans woman, I donāt want someone who uses ableism as a cudgel online defending me online or in real life. Itās not useful. It does nothing to forward the interests of neurodivergent people and it does nothing to push back on the people who want me dead. All it does is silence rhetorically effective critique of intolerant fascists and makes the person screaming ableism feel morally pure.
Again, itās targeted. This does not mean we should being using ableist language for no reason or because we feel like it in casual conversation. Itās fine to call out meanness or ableism when it is being used in a way that serves no useful purpose.
Also, the goal isnāt really to use slurs but in theory they could be used. Whatever is useful in the particular social environment. The goal is to be mean to a specific target. This is about leveraging the way social media accumulates engagement and internet culture against intolerant people who we should not tolerate.
Refusing to use targeted meanness in a social war is like refusing to use guns in a physical war. Itās a great way to lose the war.
Itās called tailism and itās throwing disabled people under the bus because you canāt find a better argument that the person you perceive as bad is actually bad.
Youād rather normalise ableist language to prevent the naziās from coming after you than make allies in disabled communities.
Edit: just to add, tailism is not even effective. Naziās promote it to pit marginalised groups against each other.
Meanness is part of society and so is this false notion of general intellect, which we cannot measure. Falsely championing disabled people and pretending targeted meanness isnāt effective when we all saw how calling specific fascists weird was effective isnāt an honest argument. Neither is hiding behind theory used as a straw man.
If Tim Walz had delivered a compelling argument about how fascism is self-destructive it wouldnāt have resonated with people the way weird did. People saw clips of JD Vance, they heard about the couch fucking, and weird resonated with them. Know who usually gets called weird and by who? Queer people by fascists. Did calling specific fascists weird bother queer people? No, because weāre weird and proud of it. Unlike the fascists who cling to a false sense of normalcy for the sake of their ego, queer people want to be themselves.
The reason this works is because it was targeted. Weird isnāt any more normalized against queer people than it was before Tim Walz used it. Calling specific fascists dumb isnāt going to normalize ableism even by using slurs. Which again using slurs may not even be the must useful rhetoric in any given scenario. But if a person finds themselves in a scenario where they can use slurs, even those that normally target queer people generally, to defend queer people effectively I would appreciate it if they did. The same way I would appreciate someone using violence to defend me effectively in a self-defense scenario.
Fascists arenāt going around telling us to be more mean. They would love for leftists to keep being nice no matter what and to cling to this obsession with moral purity because it renders us ineffective. Using a rhetorically effective word, phrase, or mannerism against a specific target isnāt any more reactionary than saying queer people should organize and arm themselves.
If leftists canāt get passed this obsession with moral purity itās going to get us all killed. We arenāt going to be able to communicate effectively to our peers and other people in general in person or online. The fascists will mop the floor with us in their messaging. Theyāre willing to be mean to get what they want. Choosing an always share, rhetorically pacifist strategy is the same as choosing to be complicit in our own destruction.
The way leftists cling to moral purity is the same way that fascists cling to normalcy. Itās about leftistsā egos. Leftists donāt like the idea of being morally wrong. Itās why leftists couldnāt bring themselves to vote for Kamala Harris despite it being the useful strategy. And itās why leftists canāt bring themselves to use slurs or abelist language or be mean against specific fascists who want to kill neurodivergent and queer people.
Killing people is wrong, but in some circumstances it is necessary. Being mean and using inappropriate language is wrong, but sometimes it is necessary. If everyone on one side of war is a pacifist, everyone they want to defend dies. If everyone on one side of a culture war is a rhetorical pacifist, everyone they want to defend dies. Refusing to say certain words in certain contexts isnāt protecting the neurdivergent or queer communities. Itās protecting leftistsā egos that depend on always being able to see a pair of clean hands.
If leftists actually care about marginalized groups then leftists should be willing to use the most effective strategies to defeat the fascists who want to kill those groups. Otherwise leftists should be honest with those marginalized groups and say they are only willing to give them token support because thatās what makes those leftists feel good about themselves. If leftists value their moral purity more than peoples lives then leftists should tell those communities that. That way those communities can find real allies who are willing to put people before their egos.
The normalisation of words like āstupidā does have real life consequences to people with learning disabilities. Any time you use that word or similar words, you are not only insulting the person itās directed at, but youāre also insulting all people with a learning disability by insinuating that they are in some way inferior, because according to you their disability is an insult in and of itself. You will not gain any sympathy from the disabled community by normalising those words. Youāre pushing them away and throwing them under the bus to be targeted first.
āWeirdā is not an equivalent word because it doesnāt define a group of people in the same way. Walzās usage of the word āweirdā wasnāt to insult transphobes. It was a correct assessment that republicans are way too interested in controlling the personal lives of trans people in a way that most people would (and should) be weirded out by. Itās weird (and creepy) to find a stranger in your bedroom in the same way that itās weird (and creepy) to have a stranger tell you how you should dress, behave and look. Itās an argument that has substance, compared to the empty argument of saying that a transphobe person is of ālow intelligenceā, especially when thatās often not even the source of their transphobia.
Substantive arguments are always better than non substantive āmeanā arguments as you call them. Youāre not arguing to convince a nazi, youāre arguing to convince a bystander that a nazi is dangerous. A bystander needs an actual reason to be convinced, not a few mean words.
You claim a lot about antifascist strategy but your claims are not supported by historical evidence. The strongest antifascist factions have always been those that seek unity within oppressed groups. Tailism just leads to division.
Targeted meanness doesnāt normalize the specific words used so that is not a relevant concern. Again, no one but the targeted fascists were offended by the usage of weird. Usages of the word weird havenāt exploded against queer people. By being mean to intolerant people we are defending the people those intolerant people want to kill. By refusing to be mean we would be abandoning the targeted out-groups. It is trivial to differentiate between using a word as a rhetorical tool in specific situations and dismissing its use in general discourse. It is in fact insulting to marginalized groups to insinuate they would not understand this.
It definitely insulted them. Trump and Vance did not know how to handle being called weird. Weird is most certainly equivalent to words like dumb and stupid in terms of meanness.
The use case of insulting a fascists intelligence would be different than calling them weird. Any given word is not going to be effective in every hypothetical scenario. Weird was the correct choice in Tim Walzās case during the election. Calling fascists stupid can be the correct choice in others.
The fact this is wrong is self-evident. We could of course not fit this discussion effectively into character limited messages or sound bites in a debate. The way we even get people to read these arguments is to first win these rhetorical battles. And even then not everyone is going to have time read these kind of discussions. If we rely on these kind of long form arguments to the exclusion of all other forms of communication and rhetoric then we will lose to the fascists.
This is exactly what any given bystander needs in the fast paced social media discourse we have today. A person having someone tell them a fascist is wrong in a few short words that have a negative connotation because they are mean is how people are socialized. We donāt have to like it, but we do have to acknowledge and act on reality if we want to continue to live in reality.
My argumentās claims are in fact based on historical evidence. Two of the examples in my argument were from real twitter discourse. Hereās the Vaush video, but it contains abelist language, so only watch it if learning how to defeat fascism is worth violating personal sensibilities. The other example being Tim Walz, which refers to the last election cycle that just happened.
Nothing about using rhetoric to defend people is divisive. The same way violence in self-defense is not divisive. Throwing minority groups under the bus for the sake of moral purity is peak divisiveness.
Iām not arguing for your argumentās straw man so this isnāt an issue.
All your arguments are based on claims that are guesses or just plainly untrue. This not not a serious discussion. It makes sense that your sources and āexperiencesā come from vaush and twitter. Touch grass, talk to some experienced antifascist activists and maybe read some books.
Edit: and maybe reach out to a disabled community (in a respectful manner) to learn about how ableist language impacts them.
If your argument is to lie about our discussion then your statement is correct, it is not a serious discussion.
Yes, we are discussing how to deal with fascists in social environments where there is limited space and/or time to communicate between parties. So the examples are drawn from relevant sources such as twitter and political debates.
Itās raining too much to mow, maybe next week. So not you then. I recommend Why Nations Fail.
There were people from the queer and neurodivergent communities in the chat discussing the topics with Vaush. They agreed with him.
You can always find people of any group to agree with any statement (especially if theyāre already watching an ableist person). Which is why Iām telling you to seek out actual disabled communities. They often have advocacy and activist subgroups who can tell you a lot about ableism, its impact on disabled people and effective activism against it.
Real life discourse is very different from online discourse, and real life is where actual activism is done and changes are made.
Many of the people in Vaushās community consider themselves autistic. In fact many in his audience identify as part of the neurodivergent and/or queer communities. Nor is Vaush an ableist person, he just uses rhetoric effectively. My argument has exceeded the arbitrary bars your argument has set. Regardless none of these criticisms have any bearing on the content of my argument. These ad hominem suggestions are not a requirement to discuss this topic nor do they have any bearing on the validity of effective strategies to defeat fascism.
The idea that online discourse doesnāt impact real life is nonsense. The far-right is spreading online just fine and they shape public opinion everyday. The idea that we could dismiss the internet, the largest and fastest communication network, for its potential to act as a means of activism and change is laughable. This belief is in part why the left is losing. Coupled with this moral obsession to be pure by not saying bad words.
Your argument has nothing to offer to justify being rhetorically ineffective. It only provides straw men, ad hominem statements, and blatant lies. Nothing your argument has offered will do anything to stem the tied of far-right propaganda online that is going to get so many people killed. On the ground action is of course still a necessary component of resisting fascism, but the far-right will run circles around us on the left if we do not take the internet seriously.