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Do You Think It Would Be More Helpful If BLM Worked to Intellectually Combat White Supremacist Ideas?

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dadmonson

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While the media (that Leftist monolith, indeed, Eiuol) was laying into the white supremacists, somehow they neglected by misdirection to also mention this bunch. More globally organized, embedded and lethal by far:

https://gatestoneinstitute.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ae44aaf3f07dbffc928ba7cb5&id=be00f5b35c&e=454b6dbddc

Edited by whYNOT
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But returning to Black Lives Matter, nothing spreads like bad news, and even here in SA I'm seeing by changing attitudes, hearing and reading of a new black against white campaign inspired by BLM. Not by the majority yet, who are generally decent and good-willed individuals (but for how long until this crippling virus lockdown sinks in, and they find they are permanently jobless and the white businessmen - who are going bankrupt - get the blame? Any easy target but the ANC government: that corrupt and incompetent body who'd done their best to ruin the economy for years) but from the 'intellectuals' and columnists, all Leftist and neo-Marxist to the core. Europe and England has caught the BLM disease worse, great corporations and industries are caving in to so-called anti-racist demands, people are being fired for demurring, but all lives matter... 

Edited by whYNOT
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23 hours ago, whYNOT said:

While the media (that Leftist monolith, indeed, Eiuol) was laying into the white supremacists, somehow they neglected by misdirection to also mention this bunch. More globally organized, embedded and lethal by far:

I just told you that I don't want to talk about it, and then you talk about it.

Do you have anything to say about changing minds like the point of the OP in relation to what I posted, or do you only want to complain about BLM?

Edited by Eiuol
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On 7/1/2020 at 8:36 PM, Eiuol said:

I'm not going to go on about the errors of treating the left as a monolith. Just in case you were preparing to argue the same topics as usual again.

 

Wouldn't it be more powerful to focus less on your complaints, and place more focus on how to change minds in a positive direction? No matter what you say about BLM the organization, you still need to replace their ideas with something.

 

You speak rather blithely of replacing "their ideas with something". Ha, I'm in the choir, remember. My "complaints" appear to you as trivial, personal and subjective, no doubt. I have been warning about the rise of Leftism/extreme Leftism and the news propaganda (which I happen to have some expertise in) I watched helping perpetrate those ends for 5 years, and even longer in the UK and now there is no avoiding it. Anyone can see for themselves. Very little to do with the purported issues: policing, statues, political correctness, riots and 'racism', they are the cover, but a mortal attack on the "idea" of the USA from within. Horribly, a number are ready to sacrifice everyone else and any good to get into power. Not uncoincidentally at exactly the time the country is being ravaged, economically and morally weakened with a pandemic. Dismayingly, the business and commerce sector will not stand up for themselves.

The better ideas have to be encouraged/defended - while - firmly keeping one's principles in mind. The good, Objectivist ideas in rights and laissez-faire, won't be accomplished in a vacuum, sorta magically all by themselves. Whatever the future, it will grow out of the present and near future.

The "better idea" here is the Republic and its survival. Even assuming the Marxists will melt away for now, the compromised political scene will definitely I think go soft socialist, leaning harder with further Administrations. If some Objectivists have no problem with that, I am in the wrong place. So wake up, especially the Ayn Rand Institute, come down from those idealistic clouds and get your hands dirty, not despite your principles but *because of* the principles. Most certainly make no compromises, but the political game and the mass of people is not under our direct control and power. Objectivists persuade - but if they hold themselves aloof and *only* criticize/condemn - usually by impossible standards to non-Oists (as with this President and less with his predecessors, I noticed) - Objectivists and the philosophy will lose credibilty, influence and relevance in most minds.

One goes a long way in persuasion by saying to others: I think you did well here; less well there. Your thinking was mostly good; your methods were poor, but your purpose and goal is right. etc.

This has been my concern. If the USA loses this battle we are everywhere in for a dark age.

Edited by whYNOT
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23 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

Very little to do with the purported issues: policing, statues, political correctness, riots and 'racism', they are the cover, but a mortal attack on the USA from within.

I don't believe this to be true, or at least it doesn't sound like you've taken enough time to understand why these things are an issue especially in the US. The reason I say that is because you didn't engage with what to replace their ideas with. You didn't engage with what I said about self empowerment, you didn't even engage about Malcolm X. 

As I was getting at earlier, to reach someone, you want them to be in a position to listen carefully. BLM might talk about race in an inappropriate or collectivistic way, but that doesn't mean there are no racial issues whatsoever. BLM might talk about policing being inherently racially biased and specifically targeting black people, but that doesn't mean that there are no police abuse issues that should be dealt with. BLM might talk about removing any kind of statue of anyone even remotely connected to slavery, but that doesn't mean there isn't some real issue about symbolism in the US (there is nothing honorable about a Confederate statue nor do they stand for values of the country). At the very least, you could develop specific antiracist arguments directed at the most vehement racist and that way you are at least dealing with race issues.

23 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

So wake up, especially the Ayn Rand Institute, come down from those idealistic clouds and get your hands dirty, not despite your principles but *because of* the principles.

I mean, I agree with this, I'm saying that it's important to start specifying what exactly to do. When you say:

23 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

The "better idea" here is the Republic and its survival.

I think you are lost in the same idealistic clouds. 

23 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

Objectivists persuade - but if they hold themselves aloof and *only* criticize/condemn - usually by impossible standards to non-Oists (as with this President and less with his predecessors, I noticed) - Objectivists and the philosophy will lose credibilty and relevance in most minds.

That's my point. What would you do to change someone's mind? So I offered Malcolm X as a thinker that's important, a sort of transitionary thinker that even the people most stuck in an identity politics state of mind can begin to relate to what you're saying. 

 

Edited by Eiuol
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37 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

I just told you that I don't want to talk about it, and then you talk about it.

Do you have anything to say about changing minds like the point of the OP in relation to what I posted, or do you only want to complain about BLM?

Maybe I'm less concerned about what you want to talk about. The OP has been outstripped by later events, not one "supremacy" but two, the second being Marxist.

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One identifies - first. One makes value-assessments - next. 

Making things clear is half of what an Objectivist does.

And, Eiuol, I'm sure you are a good guy, but your interpretation of saving the Republic as me being, let's say, rationalistic, is astonishing.

This CAN be done and MUST be done.

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5 hours ago, Eiuol said:

At least watch the video, if nothing else.

I saw it, he and others I have heard are greatly encouraging and confirm those things I'm on about, such as "the idea" of America. Please tell me he is indicative of the majority? No? But you note that whomever they are, they have in common a leaning to conservativism and definitely away from the Left.  Maybe let's say they are the New Conservatives.

Whatever, here's a man one could have long conversations with. By his words and inferences, he "identifies" and isn't timid to judge; he has practiced his free will (in coming out of a dicey start); he seems to think conceptually; he is individualist, and has integrity and independence; he knows about the effects of collectivism and race 'victimizing'; he would clearly be for individual rights; and above all he understands that freedom is being free from hindrance AND from help. I don't hesitate in considering him objectivist in everything but name.

Could ARI invite him and other young conservatives into a panel discussion? There is where they should be "reaching out" lending the philosophy's intellectual/moral weight to already clear thinking and fine American individuals.

 

Edited by whYNOT
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4 hours ago, whYNOT said:

But you note that whomever they are, they have in common a leaning to conservativism and definitely away from the Left.

I don't know where you got that idea. I implied he leans libertarian. I even said the video is close to what I think. 

 

 

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