Comment on In what way(s) are my observations wrong?
Telorand@reddthat.com 3 months ago
- Labels allow expedient understanding of a philosophy, concept, belief system, etc. They’re not pointless.
- If you want to agree upon a definition of a label, you have to start by asking people what they mean and then go back and forth until you agree what “Label N” means. Otherwise, you’re just talking past each other.
- Seems fine to me. I call them fascists, because they seem to believe in extreme government control of the population, jingoism and territorial expansion, religious indoctrination, cult worship of the leader, suppression of speech, and “othering” minorities in pursuit of power.
- See my above point about religious indoctrination and cult worship. The in-group lingo signals to the group that you’re supposed to get mad about the thing without question; questioning might get you cast out from the group.
- Not true. There’s lots of podcasters, for example, who check their facts and aren’t merely propaganda (Knowledge Fight is a great example). At best, you can say "many."
- How you decide to define the word “Christian” is subjective. Lots of the MAGA types would also consider themselves "followers of Christ."
- If Christians don’t want to be saddled with the ugly behavior of some of their adherents, they need to come together and agree upon a new label, either for themselves or for the ones they are rejecting.
TxTechnician@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
I need to clarify what I mean by this.
In the context of what I am thinking about the use of labels, I mean whenever people use labels to describe their out group, they use them as a dismissive tool.
For example, if you are not 100% pro-Trump and you say anything negative about Trump or his administration to somebody who has died in the wool, they will call you a liberal.
It has gotten to the point where anything that you say will get you labeled as woke or a liberal. So long as it is something that goes against magga and Christian nationalism.
Therefore, the political term liberal is all but meaningless.
Because it doesn’t hold a unified definition across the aisles.
Besides this, political labels as a whole are mostly bullshit because people use them to describe themselves as being part of a group. But whenever you question them as an individual, you find out that they don’t align with a lot of the shit that other people who use that political label ascribe to.
Telorand@reddthat.com 3 months ago
First of all, let me say that I think it’s great how you’re dissecting all of this.
You might enjoy this video: youtu.be/v2QGME8KHzY
He talks a lot about that idea in a very thoughtful way.
This is, unfortunately, not an accident. First it was “the Commies,” then “the Gays,” then “the occult,” then the Liberals, then the “trans people,” then the “groomers,” and then, and then… The people in charge right now know exactly what they did and what they’re doing: shortcutting people’s ability to reason.
This is common in religious cults and other abuse structures. It’s also no accident that fundamentalist religion is a major component of a lot of MAGA, since it already primes people not to question anything their leaders say.
Until facts once again matter more than what our favorite political/billionaire celebrities say, they’ll continue to weaponize our worst impulses against us. Recognizing that you deserve to think for yourself is the first step in resisting.