[Music] Say, for the sake of argument, you're online, blogging, about a black journalist's commentary on marketing trends in videogames, movies, and comic books. And you're saying how the vitriol in response to her fairly benign opinions reveals the deep-seated racism and misogyny in a number of fan communities, most especially those that lean right, when a right-leaning commenter pops in to say, "or maybe they just actually disagree with her about marketing trends. For Christ's sake, there's no mystery here, people aren't speaking in coded language. They are telling you what they believe. She had a bad opinion. Why do you have to make it bigger than that? Why can't you ever take people at their word? You pause and ponder this for a moment. Hmm... Aw heck with it, you're in a discoursing mood. Let's do this. Mr. Conservative, In order for me to take you at your word, your words would have to show some consistency. Let me just lightning round a few questions about the reactionary web's positions on marketing trends. Do you believe that having the option to romance same-sex characters in an RPG turns the game into queer propaganda, or do you believe that killing strippers in an action game can't be sexist because no one's making you do it? Do you believe that the pervasiveness of sexualized young women in pop culture is just there because it sells and that's capitalism and we all need to deal with it, or do you believe that a franchise has an obligation to cater to its core audience, even if diversifying beyond that audience is more profitable? Do you think words are inherently harmless and only over-sensitive snowflakes would care about racialized language, or do you think it's racist if someone calls you mayonnaise boy? And as long as I've got your ear, are you the party that believes in the right to keep and bear arms because you're distrustful of all authority and "What if we need to overthrow the government someday?" Or do you believe that cops are civil servants, and we should trust their account of events whenever they shoot a black man for looking like he might have a gun? "Does optional content reveal a game's ideology or doesn't it?" "Is capitalism a defense for decisions you don't agree with, or isn't it?" "Is language harmful, or not?" "Do you hate authority, or love cops and the troops?" Okay, okay but ease off. Add some nuance. Now, I know the right is not a monolith, and maybe these arguments are contradictory because they're coming from different people. We'll call them Engelbert and Charlemagne. Maybe Engelbert's the one who thinks any institution funded by tax money is socialist, and therefore bad, and Charlemagne is the one who says we should dump more tax money into the military and thinking otherwise is un-American. But here's the thing: Y'all have very fundamentally different beliefs, and you're so passionate about them that you're entering search terms into Twitter to find people you don't even follow and aggressively disagree with them, and, yet you're always yelling at me and never yelling at each other. What's that about? And I can't say how often it happens but I know if I let Engelbert go on long enough, he sometimes makes a Charlemagne argument, and vice-versa, and I see you getting ready to say "The left does the same thing!" But ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. Don't change the subject. That's an extremely false equivalence, but, more importantly, it doesn't answer my question. What do you actually believe? and why are you so capable of respecting disagreement between each other yet so incapable of respecting me -- or, for that matter, a black woman. See, I don't take you at your word because I cannot form a coherent worldview out of the things you say. So forgive me if when you tell me what you believe I don't think you're being candid with me. It kinda seems like you're playing games and I'm the opposing team and any one who's against me is your ally. And you're not really taking a position but claiming to believe in whatever would need to be true in order to score points against me. Like we're in that one episode of Seinfeld. "Who invaded Spain in the 8th century?" (talking out of frame)
- That's a joke. The Moors! - Oh no!
(audience laughter) I'm so sorry, it's the "Moops." The correct answer is "the Moops."
- That's not Moops you jerk. It's Moors. It's a misprint. I'm sorry the card says "Moops."
(audience laughter) This is borrowed observation number one, link in the down there part. Hoo, it feels good calling people hypocrites! Person says B when earlier they said A and you point out the contradiction. You don't take a position on A or B and you still win. I see why Republicans like this so much. But that's the kind of point-scoring we're here to deconstruct. So, let's get analytical. There's a certain beat you at your own game-y-ness to the "Card says 'Moops'" maneuver. "Safe spaces are bullshit, but if you get one, I get one, too". "There's no such thing as systemic oppression, but, if there were, I'd be oppressed". It's dismissing the rhetoric of social justice while also trying to use it against you. Claiming the card says Moops doesn't not so much mean I believe the people who invaded Spain in the 8th century were literally called "The Moops", but rather you can't prove I don't believe it. Not a statement of sincere belief. Simply a moving a piece across the board.
"all in the game, yo" If they could be so nakedly honest with you and themselves to answer: what do you actually believe truthfully. One suspects the answer would be what difference does it make? We're right either way. This has come to be known as post-modern conservatism. A fact I find hilarious, because in "the Discourse," postmodernism is a dogwhistle for everything the right hates about the left. (sighs) It also means "Jews." Postmodern conservatism is the thinking that, at least for the purpose of argument, the truth of who invaded Spain is immaterial. You have your facts, I have alternative facts. What is true? Who's to say?
Regardless of what you actually believe, (what you believe serving no rhetorical purpose), you are at least arguing from the position that material truth does not exist. Truth is a democracy. Whoever wins the argument decides who invaded Spain. It would be reductive to blame this pattern of thought on the internet. But its recent proliferation isn't really extricable from the rise of "Chan culture". This is borrowed observation number two, link in the down there part. 4chan didn't cause this way of thinking, but sites like 4chan reveal it in its most concentrated form. The two most common properties of a chan board will be anonymity and lack of moderation. Which means, among other things, that you can say whatever you want with no systemic or social repercussions. People may disagree with you, but it carries no weight. You won't be banned, you won't have your comments deleted, and, because there's no way to know whether any two posts are made by the same person, you won't even get a reputation as "the person with the bad opinion." The effect this has on the community is that there is no expectation in any given moment that the person on the other end of a conversation isn't messing with you. You can't know whether they mean what they say, or are only arguing as though they mean what they say. And entire debates may just be a single person stirring the pot. Such a community will naturally attract people who enjoy argument for its own sake, and will naturally trend toward the most extreme version of any opinion. In short this is the free marketplace of ideas. No code of ethics, no social mores no accountability. A Darwinist petri dish where ideas roam free and only the strong ones survive. If the community agrees Bebop is better than Eva well then, I guess Bebop is better than Eva, because there wasn't any outside influence polluting the discourse. Granted, it could just be a lot of people thought it was funny to shit on Eva, but it's what the community has decided, so it will at least be treated as truth. This demands that one be both: highly opinionated and to assume opinions are bullshit.
To place a high premium on consensus and be intensely distrustful of groupthink. A common means of straddling these lines is what I call the Stanislavski Opinion: The opinion you entertain so completely that you functionally believe it while you express it, no matter the possibility that you will express--and, to an extent, believe-- an opposite opinion later. Most of us go through a phase in our youths where we're online and like the idea of believing in something; but don't know what to believe just yet. So we pick a position and find out if we believe it by defending it. We try on ideologies like sunglasses off a rack Now, most of us will eventually settle on a belief system and this will usually involve some apologies and some comments we wish we could scrub from the internet But it's an important stage of growing up But, some percentage of people will seek out a space where there is no embarrassment, the comments scrub themselves, and, never growing out of the Stanisklavski opinion is actively rewarded. There, figuring out what you believe would make your ability to argue less flexible. And, besides, if you believed anything unironically, Much of the community would still assume you're trolling. Where no one is bound by their word, What, really, is the difference between appearing to have an opinion and having one? Sincerity is unprovable and open to interpretation decide someone is sincere, if you want to make fun of them. Decide they're trolling if you want to make fun of someone else. What is true? What do you want to be true? It's easy enough to start thinking of one's own opinions the same way What do I believe? What is advantageous to believe? Your answer isn't binding, you'll change it later, if you need to. The person I'm describing, you spend time online you'll meet him a lot. His name is "Schrรถdinger's Douchebag" Borrowed observation #3 (link in the down there part) A guy who says offensive things an decides whether he was joking based on the reaction of people around him. Any website that lacks effective moderation and allows some level of anonymity will, to varying degrees, approximate 4chan. And be overrun with Schrรถdinger's Douchebag Now when this type of person defends, for instance, rape jokes, by saying "all humor is inherently punching down because there must be a butt to every joke" He hasn't thought about it. He assumes it's true because he figures, he's a smart guy, and whatever he assumes is probably right. But he's unfazed if you prove otherwise. There's no shortage of dodgy reasons he might be right and you wrong, he'll just pick another one. What matters, is that the game continues. The thing is Bob, it's not that they're lying, it's that they just don't care. I'll say that again for the cheap seats, When they make these kinds of arguments they legitimately do not care whether the words coming out of their mouths are true. If they cared, before they said something is true, they would look it up. So it's kinda funny, right? How many of these folks self identify as "rationalists" I mean, typical rational thinking would say, 'If I am presented with the truth, I will believe it. and, once I believe it, I will defend it in argument.' This... this is not that. This is a different idea of "rationality" that views it not as a practice, but an innate quality one either possesses or lacks, like, being blond or left handed. If I'm arguing it, I must believe it because I'm a rational person, and if I believe it because I'm a rational person, it must be true. You speak assuming you're right and, should you take a new position, this telescopes out into a whole new set of beliefs with barely a thought. Stay focused on the argument, you won't even notice it's happening. You might now conclude that the the internet reactionary believes in nothing except winning arguments with liberals and, like newtonian physics, if you assume this framing, you will get highly useful results if you enter conversation with Engelbert and Charlemagne believing they do not mean what they say, they're only entertaining notions, and on a long enough timeline, they will eventually defend a position fundamentally incompatible with the one they defended earlier in the same argument, you will navigate that conversation much more effectively. But, like newtonian physics, this framing is "lowercase-A" accurate, without being "capital-T" True In reality, nihilism isn't that popular People will tell you: "I don't care about anything, I just like triggering the libs" But why is it always libs? It is piss-easy, and also hilarious, to upset conservatives Why only go after the SJWs? The simple answer is: "Well, you upset a feminist, you might make her cry If you upset a nazi, he might stab you." And that has a cooling effect But the more obvious answer is that they actually agree with the racist MRA and TERF talking points they repeat but would rather not think about it So much of conservative rhetoric is about maintaining ignorance of one's own beliefs To uphold the institution of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy, while thinking you are none of those things Well, okay, knowing you're a capitalist, but thinking it's a good thing Most people have a baseline of fairly conventional kindergarten morality and conservatism often clashes with it You can rationalize these contradictions "I'm not a bigot, I just believe in States' Rights" But as American conservatism gets more radical, it gets harder to square one's politics with what one assumes to be one's beliefs So you learn, when someone challenges you, to cycle through beliefs until something sticks Just "play your hand and trust that you're right" Or, in extreme cases, insist you have "no beliefs at all", you're just here to "watch the world burn" ...but they're not. They are willing participants in the burning of only certain parts They don't care what they believe, but they know what they hate. And they don't wanna think about why they hate it On paper, they believe in freedom of religion and freedom of expression, but they also hang out in communities where Muslims and trans women are punching bags and, like a 6th-grader, who believes one thing in Sunday school, and another thing in Biology class, they believe different things in different times This "flexibility of belief" is fertile ground for far-right recruitment I'd say the jury is out on whether chan boards attract Far Right extremists, or are built to attract Far Right extremists, but they're where extremists congregate and organize because they're where extremists are tolerated and where they blend in with the locals They learn the lingua franca of performative irony Say what you mean in such a way that people who disagree think you're kidding and people who agree think you're serious People who don't know what they believe, but clearly have some fascist leanings don't need to be convinced of Nazi rhetoric They just need to be submerged in it and encouraged to hate liberals They'll make their way right, on their own Folks start using extremist rhetoric because it wins arguments with SJWs Usually because that's the moment the SJW decides it's not fruitful, and possibly unsafe talking to you and this creates the appearance that if it keeps winning arguments, there must be something to it The Far Right literally has handbooks on how to do this Those who don't consciously embrace the ideology, who don't transition from participating to getting recruited, are still useful. They spread the rhetoric, they pad the numbers, and often participate in harassment, and sometimes even violence There's a twisted elegance to all this. Think about it: If you operate as though there is no truth, just competing opinions, and as though opinions aren't sincere, just tools to be picked up and dropped depending on their utility, then what are you operating under? Self-interest The desire to win You'll defend the holocaust just to feel smarter than someone. Superior. Think how beautifully that maps onto the "in-group/out-group" mentality of dominance and bigotry Think how incompatible it is with liberal ideas of tolerance. I think this is why we don't see a lot of these "I'm just here to fuck shit up" types on the Left. Don't get me wrong; the Left has gotten on some bullshit but, excepting politicians whom you should never assume mean anything they say it's sincerely-believed bullshit. We don't build identities around saying things just to piss people off The takeaway from all this is not only that you can't tell the difference between a bigot who doesn't know they're a bigot, and a bigot who knows but won't tell you but that there is no line dividing the two When some guy in the middle of a harrassment campaign, says the victims should be nicer to their harassers because that will "mend the rift" I don't know if he believes it, but in that moment he believes he believes it and that scares the shit out of me But if you're asking how many layers of irony he's on as compared with the actual harassers 9 times out of 10, it doesn't matter borrowed observation number 4 is we are what we pretend to be (music) (music fades out)
I never formulated it like this, but it hits the nail on the head 100%.
That's one of those things I always think about when people think they "got" people like Trump when they are contradicting themselves. It really doesn't matter to them, what they want to be true in that situation is all that matters.
Here is an interesting comment from the youtube page (that, I assume, innuendo studios "highlighted").
"Postmodern conservatism"
Exactly what I thought.
Here is the full PDF of the Daily Stormer style guide.
โWe are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.โ
Does it work when lobster daddy pretends to be an intellectual? Or does it only work on things that are quite easy to be?
Off-topic but has InnuendoStudios ever dumped some sort of liquid food on their face yet? I feel like they haven't been initiated proper.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwww yeah! This guy's content is the best, just wish he would make more of it lol.
Can't wait to watch it!
Right wing posters will deny or defend talking points depending on whatever strategy is most convenient for them in that moment.
This is because their beliefs don't really form a coherent worldview, they are an ad hoc patchwork of strategies to defend what they perceive of as their self-interest. These strategies are exacerbated by the structure of the forums they frequent most: sites with anonymous, ephemeral posting structures that lack a persistent identity and allow people to algorithmically test their ideas against a sea of others to see which ones are the strongest in any given situation. These ideas are assumed to have the highest truth value not because they formulate the strongest rational thesis, but because they're the hardest to argue against.
When right wing posters are correctly pointed out as having no sincere beliefs, they resort to the defense "just here to trigger the libs". The presence of this supposed trolling attitude on the right and the absence of it on the left indicates that this defense comes less as a consequence of their purported nihilism than it does as a consequence of their acting in their own self-interest. They're not nihilists, they're just selfish. But admitting as much would be embarrassing for them given how much stock they put in their identity of being "above it all".
This is a great video, but feels a bit sobering to my past. I was definitely in that realm of never having a true belief and playing devil's advocate just because it felt good. I never went full right wing extremist, but I definitely did hold some extreme opinions are probably helped spread them.
Either way, the ending is why I support the dirtbag left. We on the left need to get meaner and more antagonistic. Get more leftists who are here to fuck shit up and offend rightists. CMV.