posted
Well I know the first things I look for in a fair-minded and reasoned criticism of a given position are a) an opening assumption of fundamental dishonesty on the part of the criticized group and b) an assertion of some degree that a very widespread fault is the province of one particular side of a political divide.
I'm not sure to what extent this piece represents your own position, Destineer, but I hope it's not much. That's some grade-A schlock right there. Particularly since *both* sides of the Gamergate controversy claim victim status! And anyone with a moment's time to review political news today will in that moment that claiming to be a victim is a fundamental strategy of all sides now.
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posted
It does represent my own views to a great extent. DeBoer isn't saying that only one side of the controversy is claiming victim status. He's saying that lefty "the-personal-is-political" type activists are the ones who invented the practice of over-using victim status in this way, and their opponents have only recently adopted it.
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I'm not sure what you mean by him assuming fundamental dishonesty on the part of the group he criticizes. In particular, he's not saying that lefty activists are lying when they claim to be victims. He's just saying that sometimes they're mistaken about whether they're victims, and it's poisonous to have an environment in which its unacceptable to disagree with someone about whether they're a victim.
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quote:...but it is also a savvy piece of media manipulation, undertaken by people who have learned the lessons of left-wing political critique too well. We wrote the book for them.
Labeling a piece of behavior a 'savvy piece of media manipulation' seems to me to clearly suggest at least a lack of sincerity, which is also often referred to as dishonesty.
quote:It does represent my own views to a great extent. DeBoer isn't saying that only one side of the controversy is claiming victim status. He's saying that lefty "the-personal-is-political" type activists are the ones who invented the practice of over-using victim status in this way, and their opponents have only recently adopted it.
I get that he's saying that, and it's still bunk. Politicizing the personal, transforming a contentious issue into a personal attack and defending it as such and then attacking challengers as though they are challenging you personally is hardly a modern phenomena. It's pretty classic, really. 'Over-using' victim status is a value judgment anyway, and open to discussion, but the idea that the left 'invented' utilization of victim status is ridiculous. I can go back sixty years and find plenty of reactions to black voting drives along the lines of 'why do you want my daughter to marry one of those coloreds'. Claiming to be a victim is a classic, because if successful it puts the other party in the position as the aggressor, which is almost universally bad.
quote:I'm not sure what you mean by him assuming fundamental dishonesty on the part of the group he criticizes. In particular, he's not saying that lefty activists are lying when they claim to be victims. He's just saying that sometimes they're mistaken about whether they're victims, and it's poisonous to have an environment in which its unacceptable to disagree with someone about whether they're a victim.
This is where things fall apart. 'Unacceptable to disagree with someone about whether they're a victim'. Why exactly is it 'unacceptable', and how is this lack of acceptance transformed into some sort of restraint? It is 'unacceptable' to many people for others to claim victim status on any number of issues, and they try and shut down discussion themselves using precisely the same tactic!
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quote:I get that he's saying that, and it's still bunk. Politicizing the personal, transforming a contentious issue into a personal attack and defending it as such and then attacking challengers as though they are challenging you personally is hardly a modern phenomena. It's pretty classic, really. 'Over-using' victim status is a value judgment anyway, and open to discussion, but the idea that the left 'invented' utilization of victim status is ridiculous. I can go back sixty years and find plenty of reactions to black voting drives along the lines of 'why do you want my daughter to marry one of those coloreds'. Claiming to be a victim is a classic, because if successful it puts the other party in the position as the aggressor, which is almost universally bad.
It's certainly not new to claim that some political controversy affects you personally, or to take someone else's political position personally. But that's not what the article is talking about.
What is relatively new is to take run of the mill interpersonal interactions in your own life as instances of political oppression (these are sometimes called microaggressions these days).
(Note that DeBoer says, and I agree, that a lot of the time these small events are oppressive. The problem lies in the assumption that if they seem oppressive to a marginalized person, that always means they are actually oppressive. This point of view is one tenet of standpoint theory, a philosophical position that I strongly disagree with.)
quote:This is where things fall apart. 'Unacceptable to disagree with someone about whether they're a victim'. Why exactly is it 'unacceptable', and how is this lack of acceptance transformed into some sort of restraint?
The way it works is that, if you try to suggest that someone's interpretation of their experience as oppressive is mistaken, you're lumped in with sexists, racists, etc. Since it's unacceptable to be sexist or racist, this is a way of treating disagreement as unacceptable.
This isn't what always happens, of course, but if you look at the dialogues surrounding a controversy like #CancelColbert or SF's "RaceFail09", it's a distressingly common pattern.
quote: It is 'unacceptable' to many people for others to claim victim status on any number of issues, and they try and shut down discussion themselves using precisely the same tactic!
Yeah, many right-wing communities have what is effectively the opposite problem.
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Anita Sarkeesian wrote an op-ed in the NYTs today.
Wonderful read. I'm so pleased Nintendo's experiment with the Wii drew her back into videogames. Her final lines made me smile.
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Why do you want to stop people from having fun with bleach, Dana? What kind of monster are you?
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You can't stop a meme, opposing it will only make it stronger. It's like riding a carnivorous rampaging rhinoceros. If you try to get off too soon it'll trample you to death.
I like the term, I think its funny and often on point for as long as console vs PC gaming is still a hot button topic for people.
On the other hand Wealthy PC Noble[s]men[/s]people is also humourful.
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You can't stop a meme, opposing it will only make it stronger. It's like riding a carnivorous rampaging rhinoceros. If you try to get off too soon it'll trample you to death.
I like the term, I think its funny and often on point for as long as console vs PC gaming is still a hot button topic for people.
On the other hand Wealthy PC Noble[s]men[/s]people is also humourful.
What I got out of this article.
"I'm not calling for political correctness, but I'm calling for political correctness."
I don't think ANYONE associates the meme with Nazis or Hitler. I'll have to tell my friends not to order Kamikaze shots at the bar, since "not associating oneself with Japanese suicide pilots is just good living."
I also think it is a fairly humorous term, especially when talking about console fanboys.
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Although I'm not too sure, but I think its possible you forgot the original irony of the term.
Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation invented the term to refer to The Witcher which was a PC exclusive game because "Which as you know are made to be as complex and intuitive as possible so those dirty console playing peasants don't ruin it for the glorious PC Gaming Master Race [Insert Image]".
Which we [PC Gamers] took to with relish because we being slightly dense do think ourselves superior to 'the console fanboys' and thus use the term unironically.
The term doesn't refer to console fanboys (Which Yahtzee considered himself), it refers to us.
PC Gaming is thought to be: -More complex (Excel Spreadsheets, Flight Simulators, Keyboard & Mouse). -More expensive. -More difficult to get into.
Which we decided made us different and more awesome to have overcome that challenge and thus voila.
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I love master race jokes. I tell them all the time and they don't make me seem like a weird nerd who doesn't really get it, not at all. Don't get me wrong, I have console using inferior race friends,
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It is impossible to play computer games on a couch using your tv. This has literally never been accomplished. Checkmate, nerds
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
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So I guess the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld is forbidden. And like every other episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
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