Comment on The best thing *you* can do for the fediverse is *just be kind*

SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• davel@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Horseshoe theory is horseshit.

  • ‘Horseshoe theory’ is nonsense – the far right and far left have little in common
  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory#Academic_s…
  • Funny thing about Hannah Arendt’s construction of “totalitarianism”: She came from a bourgeois family and so was unsurprisingly anti-communist, and she was funded & promoted by the CIA.
    Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia: From Anticommunism and Identity Politics to Democratic Illusions and Fascism

    One of the centerpieces of the cultural cold war was the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), which was revealed in 1966 to be a CIA front. Hugh Wilford, who has researched the topic extensively, described the CCF as nothing short of one of the largest patrons of art and culture in the history of the world. Established in 1950, it promoted on the international scene the work of collaborationist academics such as Raymond Aron and Hannah Arendt over and against their Marxian rivals, including the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

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  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    [deleted]

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    • Shardikprime@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      This is an example of what being nice is for the average Lemmy user

      Jesus Christ you people can’t even comment without going ballistic at each other over the slightest thing

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      • davel@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        I wouldn’t call this the “average” Lemmy user, but there is a minority of very loud users who make it seem that way at times.

        If we want this to be a pleasant place, users need to report them, and mods & admins—who, I cannot stress enough, do this labor for free or at most peanuts—need to deal with them.

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    • davel@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      You’ve once again shown your empty accusations and insults, contrary to OP’s advice in this post.

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      • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        You will never be accepted in this space no matter how many alt accounts you make to downvote people.

        This isn’t reddit you fascist, your tactics don’t work here.

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  • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    They have one very important thing in common. They both support the alt-right. Fascists because they want to. Leftist because they’re purists.

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    • davel@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      They do not support the alt-right. What are you even talking about? “MAGA communists” almost never show up on Lemmy, and when they do they are quickly shown the door.

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      • AwkwardBroccolli@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        I have read a lot of marxist and anarchist theory. All marxist theories did is to confirm that the anarchists are right.

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      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        They support the alt-right by being overly idealistic and failing to partner with liberals and more moderate leftists to make progress.

        Divide and be conquered.

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• Cris_Color@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  That is a very specific interpretation of what I meant by this post.

  To be perfectly honest, I really wasn’t making the point you should approve of nazis. Just that maybe it’s worth putting effort into being kind to one another…

  For example, I constantly see leftists online biting eachother’s heads off (including on lemmy) for having slightly different left-wing ideology. Its not like “approach people you disagree with with curiosity” means specifically actual neonazis, and approaching someone with curiosity doesn’t mean telling people “your idea is correct and you’re right for thinking it”

  It means trying to understand it. You can dislike someone and still gain from better understanding their worldview. Even if you think it’s harmful. Even if you think it’s illogical. Even if you think they’re wrong. Curiousity isn’t tacit approval.

  If you want to think about it cynically you can consider it creating allies and knowing your enemy.

  I understand we disagree on certain things, that’s okay, these are just my thoughts on the subject, and it’s a profoundly important one, so I can appreciate why people would have different strongly held beliefs on it. Hope you have a good one :)

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  • barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Yeah that’s a much too enlightened take for these parts it’ll never fly.

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    • Cris_Color@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Anger and fear are blinding if you let them be, especially if they’re intensely justified.

      Unfortunately we live in times where they’re very justified. I don’t begrudge people for reacting in anger or fear, I’m doing my best not to do exactly the same :(

      Take care my friend.

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      • barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        As so often, the answer is found in scripture:

        One day Mal-2 asked the messenger spirit Saint Gulik to approach the Goddess and request Her presence for some desperate advice. Shortly afterwards the radio came on by itself, and an ethereal female Voice said YES?

        “O! Eris! Blessed Mother of Man! Queen of Chaos! Daughter of Discord! Concubine of Confusion! O! Exquisite Lady, I beseech You to lift a heavy burden from my heart!”

        WHAT BOTHERS YOU, MAL? YOU DON’T SOUND WELL.

        “I am filled with fear and tormented with terrible visions of pain. Everywhere people are hurting one another, the planet is rampant with injustices, whole societies plunder groups of their own people, mothers imprison sons, children perish while brothers war. O, woe.”

        WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THAT, IF IT IS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?

        “But nobody wants it! Everybody hates it.”

        OH. WELL, THEN STOP.

        At which moment She turned herself into an aspirin commercial and left The Polyfather stranded alone with his species.

        Answer. I said answer. Not solution. Too much aspirin and your blood thins out and you need to move to Transylvania.

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  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Right wingers voted for the Republicans who are now attempting a fascist coup.

    Idk what to tell you

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    • Cris_Color@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      I can understand your anger, I’m in the same boat, but I really wasn’t asking you to do that :( I was asking you to be kind to the people here. That you share this space with.

      I wish I had left this list of examples in the original post where I had them at first

      • Compliment people’s art and ask about their process
      • Teach people about something you’re knowledgeable on
      • Give constructive criticism on peoples projects when it’s welcome
      • Thank people for posting things you’re glad you got to see, tell them you enjoyed it
      • Tell people you’re glad they’re here
      • Tell people you hope they have a good day

      I moved them to a comment because I have a bad habit of being really long winded and I wanted people to actually read the whole post, but I think moving them and leaving “try to approach people you disagree with with curiosity rather than hostility” prompted a lot of folks to interpret what I was saying as “tell the Nazis who want to debate your humanity that all their views are swell, actually”

      What I meant is exactly what didn’t happen in our interaction with eachother. I’m a queer leftist whose humanity is debated by the right. You don’t completely agree with me and that’s okay, but I’m not deserving of your hostility.

      We may not see things exactly the same way but I care just as much about combating fascism as you do; everyone I love save for some of my family is a minority with a target on their back in the eyes of the current administration.

      I wish I could have made it more clear what I meant. I’ve gotten lots of comments more or less insinuating that I’m encouraging we all complicit in the rise of fascism. And it’s not a big percentage, but I’m still a human being who hears 12 people forcefully telling me that, and it doesn’t feel great.

      That’s not what I’m advocating. I’m advocating that when you don’t completely see eye to eye with someone, you ask them what they mean (and also lots of other things, but I feel like thats the specific idea in question).

      WE don’t see exactly eye to eye. You and other commenters here don’t see exactly eye to eye. And that’s okay. Being willing to talk with them or me about what they think and why doesn’t help the Nazis.

      (Like I said I’m really long winded 🙃 sorry for the wall of text, I know it’s not even the first one I’ve replied with to you specifically 😅)

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      • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        It’s specifically the “don’t call people Russian trolls/bots”

        There are a lot of Right wingers sympathetic to fascist countries right now, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a troll farm or a regular person pushing hateful ideology it’s harmful and unacceptable either way.

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• TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  If you know what you are arguing and argue with tankies/Nazis in good faith, nine times out of ten they will eventually lose their temper and make fools of themselves. There is no need to be hostile to begin with, they just defeat themselves basically because their ideologies are totally flawed (kinda like in real life).

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  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    These people don’t deserve validation.

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    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      It is not to validate them, it is to discredit them and provide red flags to would-be readers how dangerous their ideas are.

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      • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        It makes them feel validated, they’re not capable of self reflection

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• Darkmoon_UK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  If you think political stances can be adequately expressed along a single line, then you’re not much better I’m afraid. Engage with the nuance, friend, it’ll build understanding and be better for you.

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  • Nangijala@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    But nuance is hard and demands empathy which is also hard. I want to be angry-mad and stomp my feet!

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  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    that’s what i’ve been saying for a while now. like a healthy organism that has both left and right hands, society too shall have both right and left people in it. that is not a problem. what is the problem is that these different parts are not communicating clearly enough and it’s causing dysfunction of society.

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    • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Which one of your hand has the ideology that hinges on erasing the other?

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• BrainInABox@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Your comment history is deranged

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• shaggyb@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Don’t apologize.

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• gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  [deleted]

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  • jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    The basic problem is thinking that conquering somebody is natural, inevitable, or good.

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      oh yes i forgot about canada and greenland somehow, sorry

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      • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Right wing ideologies hinge on distracting people from their problems instead of solving them.

        This arracts exclusively con men and dumb marks.

        And the distractions they choose always end up being the erasure of minorities.

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    • Shardikprime@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      I mean

      It’s been happening for the 99.9% of human existence

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      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        proof?

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      • FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Doesn’t make it right. This is a civilized age and we must forever push for progress.

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      • SpicyColdFartChamber@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        We also didn’t have modern medicine for 99.9% of human existence. Want to return to that?

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      • shaggyb@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Same with smallpox.

        And we’re capable of better now.

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  • FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    In America, right wingers support the republicans who have a verified track record of taking rights away, cheating elections and straight up lying. By refusing the see any other point of view, they reject open mindedness. They are unyielding in their beliefs and that is dangerous. It’s whats led to the current affairs of the USA. Theyve been swindled for years. The thing I hate most of all is there core principle is hate. They hate minorities, immigrants, foreigners and gays. They always have some justification for it. "Gays are cross dressing and confusing my children. Gays are indecent. Minorities are abusing social programs. Jewish people are running criminal cabals. (Etc. etc.)

    You’ll have the “oh well I don’t support THAT part of my political party but shrug nothing we can do 🙂” publicans but don’t do anything or even CRITICIZE it. And those that try to refute these points either outright deny that its true or use whataboutism.

    I will end this by saying I have right winger friends who are radicalizing away from me and I’m trying my hardest to show them that core beliefs of comraderie and compassion is far superior to the kool aid they’re being forced fed by all major social media companies.

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      actually let me think about it again:

      IMO that somebody’s always hateful is typically a sign of enormous psychological/emotional stress. so that tells me these people have a lot of problems, and probably don’t know how to deal with the world. i wonder what education would do to them.

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      • FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        The thing is, hate has varying degrees. There is: slight disregard up to boiling rage. But the root is the same. They hate those that are different and the higher ups need a Boogeyman to point their capitalistism caused depression to.

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  • Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    The main thing is the bigotry and making marginalized people feel unwelcome and unsafe. Having trans people and Nazis existing in the same space isn’t really tenable, in practice, most marginalized people would rather be in a space where they’re existence and basic rights aren’t up for debate and where they won’t receive slurs and threats of violence. So the question is, who would you rather have in your community, oppressor or oppressed?

    Of course, this person applies this standard blindly by including “tankies” as “right-wingers.” She’s just abusing a valid argument by using it to dismiss any perspective she doesn’t like, left or right, bigoted or accepting, bad faith or good faith, as “right-wing.”

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• Muyal@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  “Tankies”

  The irony with this is that Lemmy was founded by communists and it follows a lot of communist principles.

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  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Tankies aren’t communist.

    Authoritarianism is right wing.

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    • Shardikprime@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Authoritarians can be and ARE either left or right wing.

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• needthosepylons@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Oh, not them. I suppose they meant among non-right wingers. I always found quite explicit they aren’t welcome here. Not today, not ever.

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• AwkwardBroccolli@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  What is a tankie?

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  • davel@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie#Modern_Internet_uses but actually joewrote.com/…/jfk-files-reveal-the-cia-role-in

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    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      A broken clock is right twice a day. And it is not like the Hungarian freedom fighters are mujahideen turned Taliban.

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      CIA again

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    • AwkwardBroccolli@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      This is interesting.

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  • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    If you’re familiar with how the word “commie” was used during the cold war, its just an updated version of that, for people who don’t want to sound like crusty boomers.

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