Part of the reason I have autism in my name is so comrades I expect to be able to do so will not try to dunk on me for normal autistic behavior like caring about accuracy in rhetoric.
Please don’t take a defensive stance and attack me like I’m some federated user (not that you all aren’t obnoxiously agressive with federated users who havent actually earned it anyway sometimes, ive called it out a few times recently) spouting liberal rhetoric.
This is an obvious subtweet so fuck it i’m just going to screenshot what im talking about
In this thread I was arguing with the federated lib elsewhere, which was easy to see. But these two users here @Kieselguhr@hexbear.net and @ElHexo@hexbear.net decided to compare me to liberal fact checkers (liberal fact checkers use differences that dont actually matter to try to spin things as false, this is not what was happening here, as I wasnt trying to spin Kieselguhr as false, merely give them advice, AND the difference actually is material). Which frankly is an insulting comparison to make towards an autistic comrade. Then ElHexo decided to tell me information I already knew but wasnt relevant to the correction I made.
Fact checking isnt inherently wrong and playing fast and loose with information in your rhetoric isnt lib shit. Don’t give people holes to gotcha you with lmao. Caring about truth is supposed to be one of our values. We are materialists. The fact that they got upbeared over me for this dunk bothers me too, wish I could see upbears so I could correct everyone involved in that too. Please, as leftists, care about truth and dont give liberals opening to gotcha you with. The fact that you’ve let the bad faith actions of liberal fact checkers start to make you post-truth is not a good sign. Readjust your thinking.
Finally, you really shouldnt approach any fellow Hexbear doing this by assuming bad faith like this, but especially not one with autism in the username. I was trying to improve rhetoric, not prove you wrong. Coming at me aggressively was not an appropriate response. We really should have an official rule of assuming good faith from fellow Hexbears. Especially long standing ones like myself, and ones who are open about being neurodiverse on top of that.
The response in the screenshot reads as a joke to me, the meaning of which is that a fraction of half the Dems not giving an ovation because they weren’t there doesn’t matter nor actually contradict the point made. If we are being very specific, the claim was just that the Democrats gave a standing ovation, and that is technically true. A ton of them were present and they did that. This is a valid way to express that fact.
I would say that the issue may be that the response could be interpreted as snarky. It’s sometimes hard to tell what is a normal joke and what is dunking snark and what is a sarcastic but comradely ribbing. I think it’s a good practice for those making jokes to be as obvious as possible but also for those who find them troubling to also directly ask. If it were me, I would have interpreted it as the last one: a comradely ribbing calling out some liberalism.
I do also think that the culture here is and always has been to make fun of liberalism, and with all respect, your counterpoint in the screenshot is liberalism. So for everyone to remain and be comfortable, either the site culture needs to change or we need to make peace with seeing our own liberalism called out sometimes, and even made fun of a bit.
Finally, I think making a joke reference like this is often perceived as the less critical way to engage with someone. Someone writing a paragraph on how this is a liberal attitude might be conveying that this is a much more serious correction than it really is, whereas goofing around may communicate that it is minor. I know this is the opposite of how someone that is on the spectrum may perceive that way of communicating. I’m not sure what the best way forward is but I hope this contextualization is helpful either way.
I mostly take this well and think its good analysis but
I dont get this. I dont get how the truth is liberalism. Half the democrats weren’t there and objected to Netanyahu’s speech for various reasons. Thats just a fact. Why are facts liberalism? Shouldn’t we value truth? I’m missing something.
I don’t think it is fair to summarize your screenshotted response as just some facts. You were very explicitly saying the person you were responding to was not factual, and I have just stated how what they said was actually perfectly valid. The fact that not all Dems were there is true and is a fact. The point being made based on this, however, is incorrect and is a form of liberalism that serves to let the capitalist party off the hook for their massive support for the Zionist entity. That half were not there does not change the fact that the Dems still gave Netanyahu a standing ovation. The fact that none of them except Tlaib could even forward a direct criticism is supportive of the validity of that statement. In addition, broad-brushing does not imply every single member doing exactly the same thing, but whether it is representative. I would say giving Netanyahu a standing ovation is indeed representative, in part demonstrated by the aforementioned weakness of opposition.
Well, I still think the distinciton is material, but I at least understand your perspective, thank you.
I’m curious why you think the distinction is material? In my reading of it, while you were clear that you were in agreement with their argument, your comment just feels like it derailed the point that the other person made and would veer the conversation into semantics.
I’m autistic and can be very pedantic lol. So I think I can see why you’d find it so important, but I think the fact that you inserted yourself between another argument and, without intending to, kinda watered down your comrades point, was probably off putting. If it was a conversation between yourself and that person then I don’t know that you would’ve gotten the same response, but they probably were frustrated and felt kind of attacked
Alright. I can see what you mean with that. I’ll try to be more cognizant. I generally have trouble understanding situational awareness and tend to just comment whatever I’m thinking.
I feel you, it’s hard! I don’t think you deserved the snark, to be sure. It can be hard to be autistic and always have to feel like you’re walking on eggshells for NT people though so I get why you’d be frustrated over their response to you.
Kind of tangent: idk if you have this experience but I feel like it relates- I am always trying to think of arguments from all sides and I REALLY believe that people don’t like that lol. Like, I know where I stand and what I believe in, but I try to put myself in the shoes of my “enemy” or whatever to figure out how even from their perspective they are not benefiting themselves, much less any other party, so that just collapses their entire position as illogical. But when I frame things like that I think that freaks people out lol. And I think it makes me out to look more like a lib than I actually am
Yeah I know what you mean with that last part. I try to understand where libs are coming from and sometimes that can lead to my fellow leftists being offput.
There is a reason Marx put as his slogan “Nothing human is alien to me” (translated), it is not enough for a socialist to merely denounce bad things, they must also understand them if they are to actually contend with them. The luxury of flattening other perspectives is one afforded to defenders of the status quo.
I think I’m starting to understand why some people call it liberal. Obviously, the individual, disorganized actions of the half that bailed count for less than the official, enacted position of the bourgeois party.
I think it’s good that half bailed, and liberal detractors will naturally cling to this fact to maintain belief in the Democratic Party.
I think it’s worth mentioning, and then explaining why it doesn’t matter. One without the other runs the risk of enabling the
reformists.
Because it isn’t relevant to the original point which didn’t say ALL democrats gave a standing ovation, just that Democrats did. Half of the party not being there is just a cop out and nitpicking. They weren’t absent because they’re vocally opposed, they just weren’t there so that ‘fact’ doesn’t change anything.
“The Democrats” to me implies all, but I can see how this would have been a misunderstanding.
Most of them did make an official anouncement of why they werent attending. I saw a bunch of them on, of all places, Chen “lifetime bitch” Weihua’s account. I just wasnt really that impressed with the specific rhetoric and reasons they used, as I mentioned in that reply in the screenshot.
This kind of reminds me of when someone says, “not all men” in response to criticism of “men” as a whole in feminist or women-centered spaces. (For example: “Not all men are paid more than women.” Like, no, not every literal man receives higher pay than women, but it’s common enough that it’s a systemic issue).
Let me disclaim that I’m not saying that you would have that same kind of reaction to that statement, just that it’s unnecessarily splitting hairs and kind of missing the point of the original argument. The statement that “The Dems” gave Bibi a standing ovation is factually true, and is indicative of the general opinion and behavior of the Democratic party as supporters and enablers of Israel’s atrocities.
I’m autistic too, and it sucks that we tend to interpret things literally and can sometimes miss the intended subtext when someone makes a statement. Hope what I’m saying makes sense and doesn’t come across as criticism!
I can see what you mean by that comparison.