counter-point: I knew a white dude on welfare simply because it was easy; the guy was willfully underemployed

I'm sure I'm not the only person with this experience.

if telling him his views are sexist won't do anything, why bother telling him they are?

You can see class?

I can see material conditions and then ascribe the label of "class" to them

the old problem of inductive inference

Think you have the causality wrong here. If your friend didn't change his mind it wasn't because he was called a Nazi, it was because his ideas weren't challenged. Those are totally separate things. Also anecdotally, I've seen more people persuaded by fly in the politics forum because he challenges peoples ideas super hard, and despite how he treats the people he's arguing against, than I have from someone like well named who's articulate and civil but is more explainy than challengy.

I have seen people back down from Fly; I don't recall seeing anybody persuaded. Sometimes Fly will point to historical occurrences, and from those I think people are actually educated, but that really only furthers my point.

WN's difficulty persuading others I'd attribute more to the density of his prose than its subject-matter.

The ideas were not challenged; instead the person was just called a Nazi. That's exactly my point - the refusal to engage with the ideas themselves and instead to treat of the person/'s character, particularly in an offensive and inaccurate/nebulous way.

Seems like you are going down a semantics rabbit hole here.

Political “left” and “right” refers to a collections of political ideas.

Class refers to a specific set of material conditions, those being a persons relations to the means of production.

Do you see how those are different?

This is a different question/argument than you were making before. I more or less agree that telling a person their ideas are sexist aren’t going to do much to convert that person.

But again that is not your argument. You argument was that accurately labeling their sexist ideas as sexist would somehow drive them to fascism or at the very least eliminate your chance to change their mind, as it were. And I’m saying you are wrong on that count.

I see how they are different ideas. You can't touch "class", though, any more than you can touch neoliberalism.

Class has no weight; it is not matter, it is not material.



Your god is a lie.

A word is not identical to its referent, news at 11 :P

Lol you are really missing the point or just don’t understand the concept. Words are still words and ideas are still ideas. We are talking about what those words describe not the words themselves?

Yeah this basically.

I said arguing that the PERSON is sexist/nazi/whatever is counterproductive; characterizing one's ideas as such is only half a step away. Instead of characterizing/labeling, why not address the fallacy/error of the ideas themselves - not that they are offensive, but that they are unsound?

I thought this thread of conversation began using Antifa as an example of a radical leftist group. I don't know how we got from there to talking about calling people nazis. I agree people also complain about being called names, but that's not the complaint I hear about Antifa, or even BLM for that matter. When people call them terrorists they don't mean because they are impolite.

of course I'm not talking about semiotics

"dog" refers to a thing that is comprised of matter

"breed" refers to a category organizing things comprised of matter, dogs



"person" refers to a thing comprised of matter

"class" is a category organizing persons

good to know. thanks!

I'd suggest that for the people calling Antifa terrorists, it is actually very very similar to others calling people Nazis.

Those calling Antifa terrorists are largely of the group that think "terrorists" are infinitely worse than Nazis, who you know 'had some good ideas' or whatever -- but don't have a single handy group to point to (Al-Qaeda maybe, but that doesn't work super well), so that's the fill in.

I feel like I explained why not in my post about zork:

1) you assume people believe what they believe because of “reason” when instead it usually has more to do with what is in their best interest

2) people usually cover up their true believe with an excuse. People aren’t pro-life because they care about saving babies. They are pro-life because they want control over the means of reproduction. What good does it do to show zorkman that pro-choice policies actual lower abortions when he really just wants to control women?

I’m not sure whose quote it is but the idea that “socialism is not for the bourgeoisie” rings true here. Point being that socialism is about ending class rule so why would the ruling class ever acquiesce to it? It doesn’t matter how muc “convincing” you try to do—it is in their interest NOT to agree/believe/understand you.

Like I said there are the rare exceptions, but ultimately people are going to believe what they want to believe and they shape a narrative to justify it. Not the other way around.

I think Antifa gets a bad rap for dressing in black, wearing face-masks, and breaking things / punching people. Whether that stuff actually happens is separate, but that's the general basis afaiu.

I think a lot of the stigma against BLM comes from (1) the attribution of black-supremacy by ignorati, (2) reports of riotous behavior (despite BLM organizers stated goals to avoid such conduct), and (3) simply racism. Lumping all of these categories together with (3) is where the problem lies wrt converting people away from anti-BLM sentiment. You can't convince them that (1) and (2) are false if your argument is "you only believe (1) and (2) because you are racist".

WN can you fix this please?

i heard part of a radio documentary last night about a ww2 massacre where usa empire soldiers killed a bunch of nazis. the bombed some building the nazis were in. nazis were burning inside, but scared to come out because of usa empire soldiers surrounding the building. the first one who came out was an unarmed medic with a white flag and his hands up. the usa empire soldiers shot him. eventually all the nazis came out, trying to surrender and usa empire soldiers shot them all.

the narrator/producer seemed to think this wasn't that good, but he also said "then again, they were nazis"

I agree with all of this. Mainly I'm just pointing out that what I wrote before about framing was addressed towards comparisons between Antifa and neo-nazis, and specifically the claim that Antifa enables right-wing extremism. The question about the utility of calling people racist is a different question in my mind.

The problem with basing beliefs on interests is that interests are inconstant and internally inconsistent - I want to be well-liked, but I want to be left alone, eg. Generally, I agree that you should focus on a person's interests, as much as possible, when trying to convince them of something. Of course, calling people names in this vein will almost always be the wrong course of action.

When you presume to know what other people want, you lose credibility with them, especially when they disagree.

"You're telling me what I want" (I don't think I want that) "(I think) you have nfi what you're talking about"

are you sure you aren't misconstruing the evidence on this point? maybe they lower abortion-related deaths?

birdman is using a Marxist definition of "material", although in this instance the Marxist meaning is not way different from the intuitive common usage, it's just a little more technical. I don't think that constitutes a flaw or a problem.

Or in other words, class as a concept is abstract, like all concepts, and like all categorization schemes. But the criteria used to categorize are pretty tangible. Person in class X makes a living through their ownership of business. Person in class Y makes a living selling labor. Their actual lives are different in lots of tangible and directly observable ways. Hence those differences are "material", as opposed to "ideological" (in the analogy to political beliefs)

I guess I should clarify that certain tactics have that counterproductive effect, tactics which are regularly undertaken by but not necessarily a function of the respective position.

A persons class can be observed. You can see that they work for a wage or own a business without ever knowing any ideas inside their head.

To know whether a person is politically on the “right” or “left” would require some type of investigation into their head space to understand their ideas.