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Tay Zonday
@tayzonday
Critiquing “liberalism” is great. We should understand attitudes and terms that can be used to erase and oppress. However— any “leftist” talking about “liberalism” the same way a KKK Grand Dragon talks about non-Aryan blood should make you wonder: You should wonder why they preach black and white “purity politics” rather than aspirational consciousness that offers to further any individual on their journey; You should wonder why their “revolution” reduces your family, friends and role models to a eugenic identity defined by the oppressor; You should wonder why their loyalty to a dogma resembles loyalty to a religion, and why that loyalty sounds like right-wing theocracy with a wardrobe change. If you see a “leftist” like this, remind them that the revolution has room for the willing. Remind them that loudly signaling “leftism” with a bullhorn is an unequal privilege denied to many who are marginalized and oppressed BY liberalism—and not a character attribute.
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Stuart
@olystuart
Are you saying the word liberal is eugenics defined by the oppressor? If I call someone a liberal you're saying that I'm a eugenicist? That sounds like more of a purity test and alienating language than anything I've said as a leftist towards liberals. Liberalism has been an identified as an enemy of social progress by many great leaders from the civil Rights Movement.
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Tay Zonday
@tayzonday
Thank you for your thoughts. No, that’s not what I say at all. That was a subordinate clause in my post which means it subordinates to the primary clause. Just like in programming there’s “IF/Then” language— My statement reduces to “IF a person describes “liberalism” LIKE it is an innate and immutable identity of personhood [primary clause], THEN it should invite the following lines of inquiry. One of the subordinating lines of inquiry is, indeed, why it would be an immutable characteristic as articulated in the primary clause. Secondary clauses are usually ridiculous without their primary clauses. The most famous example is the U.S. second amendment, where partisans have ignored the primary clause (“a well regulated militia”) and chosen to interpret the “the right the people to keep and bear arms” in a vacuum: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”
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Stuart
@olystuart
Are you saying there's leftists that think liberalism is a trait people are born with? I've never seen or heard of that. Don't people think of liberalism as an ideology?
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Tay Zonday
@tayzonday
I can’t take a position on what leftists think. I can take a position on the language leftists use. There are definitely leftists, including on Farcaster, who use language that can imply that “liberalism” is like a terminal, transmissible infection that a leftist needs to quarantine from so they can stay safe. The practice of using terminology that reduces a complex phenomenon to an inaccurate “essence” is essentialism. Pretending that liberalism is always a voluntary choice rather than a choice coerced under duress is one type of essentialism. “Liberals think this” and “liberals hate this” are examples of essentialist language. We don’t say things like “cancers think this” and “cancers hate this” to describe people diagnosed with malignant neoplasms (cancers). The idea should be the subject in non-essentialist language. “Liberalism causes people to think this.” “Liberalism causes people to hate this.” “Libs” or “Liberals” are not “Liberalism.”
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