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[Gentlefish]

Manspreading got overhyped by the Right. It was never a common problem anyone really complained about, save a handful of people, that they latched onto in order to alienate the Left. It's an overused, worn-out joke.

Toxic masculinity is machismo. Concealing your emotions, being stoic all the time. Not being allowed to feel anything. Being pressured to establish dominance in social situations. That sorta thing. The fight to let men express the full range of emotion and not be denigrated for being compassionate and empathetic is a real fight.

Antifa is not toxic masculinity, nor a response to toxic masculinity. It's kind of right there in the title what it's about. Antifaschiste aktion. There's no organization. That's kind of antithetical to the idea. In that way they are fairly anarchistic. No leaders except those whose ideas rise to the top.

"All the Antifa causing violence" like the people who were accosting that old man for no reason?

Or when an Antifa group fought police to prevent actual brownshirts from marching down the Jewish district of London?

[PTTG??]

I'd like to throw in a quick note:

Once physical violence is brought in as a "means of protest" or whatever, to anyone not directly involved the entire thing changes dramatically. It's no longer "left vs. right" or whatever, it's "people who might hurt me" and "people who probably won't hurt me".

I don't like antifa because masked thugs who have the same (or similar) ideology as me are just as bad as masked thugs who don't, when the brick hits the window. I'm speaking from experience; it's absolutely zero comfort to know that someone fundamentally wants the same things as you when they're running around threatening anyone not sufficiently obviously on their side. I've been threatened by people "on my side" and cleaned up the mess left by people "on my side".

When I say I don't like antifa, I don't mean I like fascists, or fascist rallies. I mean I don't like people that prepare to do violence, and I especially don't like those who conceal their identities along with it.

Hold the phone -- you're saying that fascist violence is OK and normal, but when people resist fascist violence with anything more effective than writing sad poetry, they go too far?

[Naturegirl1999]

I'd like to throw in a quick note:

Once physical violence is brought in as a "means of protest" or whatever, to anyone not directly involved the entire thing changes dramatically. It's no longer "left vs. right" or whatever, it's "people who might hurt me" and "people who probably won't hurt me".

I don't like antifa because masked thugs who have the same (or similar) ideology as me are just as bad as masked thugs who don't, when the brick hits the window. I'm speaking from experience; it's absolutely zero comfort to know that someone fundamentally wants the same things as you when they're running around threatening anyone not sufficiently obviously on their side. I've been threatened by people "on my side" and cleaned up the mess left by people "on my side".

When I say I don't like antifa, I don't mean I like fascists, or fascist rallies. I mean I don't like people that prepare to do violence, and I especially don't like those who conceal their identities along with it.

Hold the phone -- you're saying that fascist violence is OK and normal, but when people resist fascist violence with anything more effective than writing sad poetry, they go too far?

He said he doesn’t like people preparing for violence, thus would include not liking fascists too. He dislikes violence from both of them

[Arx]

I don't mean I like fascists

Not sure where you got "Fascist violence is fine" from there.

[Trekkin]

In that way they are fairly anarchistic. No leaders except those whose ideas rise to the top.

I think this gets forgotten in the rush to equivocate Antifa and the fascists: the left and the right work differently. Not only do conservative brains actually work differently than liberal ones, most particularly in how they attribute causation, but they organize differently too.

It's easy to miss this when we look at their online conversations, where the loudest and most extreme voices will always dominate the echo chambers, but liberals don't actually tend to follow people with nearly the same fervor that they follow abstract ideas. This is partly why cancel culture has become such a thing, and also partly why liberals have a reputation for backstabbing and infighting. The upside, then, is that while the crazy radical liberals get a lot of likes, there's always a handy long-winded philosophical justification for doing nothing in any particular case.

The right, on the other hand, coalesces around people; even before the GOP supported Trump and tax cuts but nothing else, they've been running on Reagan hagiography for thirty years and counting. They're not in any ideological sense the party of Lincoln, but it still suits them to be the party of someone. Gavin McInnes is the leader of the Proud Boys in a way that nobody could ever be the leader of Antifa.

In short, when the boss says jump, conservatives jump. Half the liberals explain how they took a principled stance against jumping, find a new boss, and denounce the half who did jump, or at least expressed a general willingness to jump, as having lost the way.

It's a feature rather than a bug here too; without actual Nazis to fight, Antifa would splinter into a thousand little Antiflets bitterly angry at each other over miniscule doctrinal differences but fundamentally unwilling to do more than gripe, modulo the fraction that really are just in it for the violence. Without Antifa, the Nazis would just hurt people of color and LGBT people more quickly.

[nenjin]

Gavin McInnes is the leader of the Proud Boys in a way that nobody could ever be the leader of Antifa.

To note, a little under a year ago Gavin McInnes stepped down from the Proud Boys. He wasn't very transparent about why, but you got the sense that their methods were becoming troublesome for someone with a professional career. Now, maybe he's since gone back. But I figured I should state that for the record. I used to like Gavin, until his politics crept in to his act. Then I found out he was a founder? of the Proud Boys, did a little research and was like "Well, ok, Gavin's a nationalist wonk." Then he stepped away and I felt a little better about him.

[Gentlefish]

My favorite video on how the Right functions and how Conservatives think.

I used to think it was overblown until my girl's father said to me "I'm gonna fight so I'm not on the bottom. I don't gotta be on the top, but I'm not going to let myself be on the bottom" and that's really stuck with me since: They really believe this to be true, and that the Left wants to drag everyone down on a hierarchy when in reality we just want the hierarchy gone altogether.

Gavin McInnes is the leader of the Proud Boys in a way that nobody could ever be the leader of Antifa.

To note, about 4 or 5 months ago Gavin McInnes stepped down from the Proud Boys. He wasn't very transparent about why, but you got the sense that their methods were becoming troublesome for someone with a professional career. Now, maybe he's since gone back. But I figured I should state that for the record. I used to like Gavin, until his politics crept in to his act. Then I found out he was a founder? of the Proud Boys, did a little research and was like "Well, ok, Gavin's a nationalist wonk." Then he stepped away and I felt a little better about him.

Those beliefs don't just go away because a group is bad optics. I know, for example, JonTron has some pretty bad takes. I still enjoy his content but I keep in mind he's publicly stated racist beliefs.

[nenjin]

Yeah I'll never quite believe Gavin McInnes isn't a scary nationalist type, but perhaps there is such a thing as someone going "I may not like minorities but there's a limit to how much hate I can have in my heart."

[Gentlefish]

There is no moral amount of hate for minorities save none.

What reason is there, after all, to hate a minority aside from "They are different" that you can think of that isn't, of itself, a racist or sexist, or transphobic, et cetera stereotyping or thought?

Hating a black person for being black is morally wrong. Hating someone because of something they did is a different story altogether.

[Iduno]

Yeah I'll never quite believe Gavin McInnes isn't a scary nationalist type, but perhaps there is such a thing as someone going "I may not like minorities but there's a limit to how much hate I can have in my heart."

"The founder of the Proud Boys, a nationalist group, isn't a scary nationalist type."

Those are some real reasonable thoughts there, buddy.

[Arx]

Yeah I'll never quite believe Gavin McInnes isn't a scary nationalist type, but perhaps there is such a thing as someone going "I may not like minorities but there's a limit to how much hate I can have in my heart."

Please guys, let's stop jumping to reading Nazism into posts that specifically reject it.

[nenjin]

Welcome to why you can't even have a conversation about this shit anymore these days.

"What do you think about Nazis?"

"Well--"

"YOU FUCKING FASCIST."

It's a delightful state of affairs.

[Gentlefish]

I'm not. It's that second part of the sentence that bothers me. The limit there is "none". Any hate that goes further than a person's character is immoral and not based in rationality.

Welcome to why you can't even have a conversation about this shit anymore these days.

"What do you think about Nazis?"

"Well--"

"YOU FUCKING FASCIST."

It's a delightful state of affairs.

Where did I mention nazis in my post critiquing your statement? Please by all means point it out.

[nenjin]

Sorry, must have been channeling some MSH there.

[Kagus]

I've had racist thoughts and tendencies, specifically against the Chinese. This is due to a traumatic experience during my youth, that ended up shadowing a lot of my development. I acknowledge that I have these tendencies, I recognize where they come from, and I try to overcome them. And it has gotten a lot better.


We're all flawed. It's not impossible for a prejudiced person to try and work through their prejudice, nor is it impossible for them to succeed. I'm not saying Gavin Wossface is or was trying to redeem himself, but I do take issue with the insinuation that someone who's exhibited bigotry at one point is thereby damned forever to remain a despicable person. Or that there aren't varying degrees of it.