Careful here… while I agree with your anger, you’re using the same language used to dehumanize vulnerable populations. Everyone, including horrible people like Steven Miller, deserve basic human dignity. They deserve fairness, due process, and every human right. But unrepentant fascists don’t deserve our attention, our sympathy, forgiveness, or reprieve from justice (repentant ones are more complex and not addressed here).
To treat them as less than human is to risk becoming like them. When you fight monsters, you must take extra care to avoid becoming a monster yourself, after all.
There’s this thing they do. Basic schoolyard bully shit. Accusing someone else of the thing you’re gonna do, so when you do it, the victim sounds like theyre just copying you.
I’ve read neitzsche, by the way. There’s a lot of nuance to what that part actually means. Just quoting it to excuse the libshit you already believed (or think you do) is kind of missing the entire point of that philosophy.
Fully agree with you, and touché on the glib use of the quote. I wasn’t trying to invoke the full depth of Nietzsche. I’m merely cautioning against crossing the line between condemning disgusting actions and labeling the people themselves as disgusting. I’m appealing to humility and humanity: a recognition that we aren’t inherently “better” than the worst of them. In order to be different from them, we have to act differently.
We don’t have to agree, we don’t have to sympathize, but failing to see their humanity no matter how unconscionable their actions blurs the line between us and them, and that’s a line I prefer to keep as clear as possible.
I am curious what you see in my comment that is “libshit”, though. I don’t personally see how the invocation of human rights and dignity is liberalism by any reading.
Sorry for the wall of text, but so often your position is espoused by reactionary bigots who think being born the right species is inherently virtuous, that there’s a fundamental mystical essential ‘humanness’ to give us some baseline value, and that nothing else could ever deserve those considerations, and call me a monster for considering fucking nuance, or the ways i am, as a human, capable of sucking. It’s uncannily close to fascism and i can get somewhat emotional about it.
People are hurt right now, and hurt mammals respond defensively (universally AFAIK). Without pretending to understand what’s going on in your life right now, I want to let you know that I see you. I’m sure your anger is justified.
And if you think I’m preaching from some pulpit, I’m not. I am using writing this reply to avoid engaging in a situation that has a good chance of triggering some of my own recent trauma. I’m also not someone who uses the word “trauma” in the recent pop-psych sense. I mean it in a clinical sense.
Even though I disagree with some of what you’re saying and believe it is counter-productive to the end goals that I think we share (assumption based on your comments), I don’t think you’re a monster. You deserve the space to be angry and to express that, as does everyone.
If you’re willing, I’m interested to learn how I could better express my position succinctly without crossing into the rhetoric that you have read as close to fascism. That’s not who I am trying to be and I would like to learn how to do that better. No obligation. I already appreciate your willingness to engage in good faith.
(working on response to other comment, but it’s more nuanced)
Careful here… while I agree with your anger, you’re using the same language used to dehumanize vulnerable populations. Everyone, including horrible people like Steven Miller, deserve basic human dignity. They deserve fairness, due process, and every human right. But unrepentant fascists don’t deserve our attention, our sympathy, forgiveness, or reprieve from justice (repentant ones are more complex and not addressed here).
To treat them as less than human is to risk becoming like them. When you fight monsters, you must take extra care to avoid becoming a monster yourself, after all.
There’s this thing they do. Basic schoolyard bully shit. Accusing someone else of the thing you’re gonna do, so when you do it, the victim sounds like theyre just copying you.
I’ve read neitzsche, by the way. There’s a lot of nuance to what that part actually means. Just quoting it to excuse the libshit you already believed (or think you do) is kind of missing the entire point of that philosophy.
Fully agree with you, and touché on the glib use of the quote. I wasn’t trying to invoke the full depth of Nietzsche. I’m merely cautioning against crossing the line between condemning disgusting actions and labeling the people themselves as disgusting. I’m appealing to humility and humanity: a recognition that we aren’t inherently “better” than the worst of them. In order to be different from them, we have to act differently.
We don’t have to agree, we don’t have to sympathize, but failing to see their humanity no matter how unconscionable their actions blurs the line between us and them, and that’s a line I prefer to keep as clear as possible.
I am curious what you see in my comment that is “libshit”, though. I don’t personally see how the invocation of human rights and dignity is liberalism by any reading.
Sorry for the wall of text, but so often your position is espoused by reactionary bigots who think being born the right species is inherently virtuous, that there’s a fundamental mystical essential ‘humanness’ to give us some baseline value, and that nothing else could ever deserve those considerations, and call me a monster for considering fucking nuance, or the ways i am, as a human, capable of sucking. It’s uncannily close to fascism and i can get somewhat emotional about it.
You’re good. :)
People are hurt right now, and hurt mammals respond defensively (universally AFAIK). Without pretending to understand what’s going on in your life right now, I want to let you know that I see you. I’m sure your anger is justified.
And if you think I’m preaching from some pulpit, I’m not. I am using writing this reply to avoid engaging in a situation that has a good chance of triggering some of my own recent trauma. I’m also not someone who uses the word “trauma” in the recent pop-psych sense. I mean it in a clinical sense.
Even though I disagree with some of what you’re saying and believe it is counter-productive to the end goals that I think we share (assumption based on your comments), I don’t think you’re a monster. You deserve the space to be angry and to express that, as does everyone.
If you’re willing, I’m interested to learn how I could better express my position succinctly without crossing into the rhetoric that you have read as close to fascism. That’s not who I am trying to be and I would like to learn how to do that better. No obligation. I already appreciate your willingness to engage in good faith.
(working on response to other comment, but it’s more nuanced)