The best I can suggest is to look at the people on each side, and say “what does the world look like if they are in charge?”
Because if the discourse has become so polluted that you can’t tell who’s oppressing who, at a certain point it’s time to just pick a side and hope for the best.
Dear lord no I don’t want to pick a side! That’s the road to brain damage! And I don’t care much about who’s oppressing who, it’s not a very useful frame for looking at things (as if being oppressed made anybody more likely to be right!).
A more interesting question is determining what a disagreement is about, and on what points disagreeing sides can agree. Often loud advocates on either side of a disagreement couldn’t even describe accurately what their opponents think!
Dear lord no I don’t want to pick a side! That’s the road to brain damage! And I don’t care much about who’s oppressing who, it’s not a very useful frame for looking at things (as if being oppressed made anybody more likely to be right!).
This is important and valid. Thank you for saying it. I will reexamine the processes that led to that statement and report back, but this may take a bit of time. Is that acceptable?
:( Welcome to primate politics. It’s… nasty.
The best I can suggest is to look at the people on each side, and say “what does the world look like if they are in charge?”
Because if the discourse has become so polluted that you can’t tell who’s oppressing who, at a certain point it’s time to just pick a side and hope for the best.
Dear lord no I don’t want to pick a side! That’s the road to brain damage! And I don’t care much about who’s oppressing who, it’s not a very useful frame for looking at things (as if being oppressed made anybody more likely to be right!).
A more interesting question is determining what a disagreement is about, and on what points disagreeing sides can agree. Often loud advocates on either side of a disagreement couldn’t even describe accurately what their opponents think!
This is important and valid. Thank you for saying it. I will reexamine the processes that led to that statement and report back, but this may take a bit of time. Is that acceptable?
Sure! These threads are getting kinda tentacular, and I don’t think anybody will be very offended by a lack of answer.
(I’m constantly surprised at how many threads here don’t degenerate into shouting matches)