zlacker

>>tosh+(OP)
Some bright spots I've noticed in the past month or so in this area, for those who care both about justice and open debate:

- John Carmack signal boosting[1] Sarah Downey's article "This PC witch-hunt is killing free speech, and we have to fight it"[2]

- The critical comments on the obligatory "BLM" post in r/askscience[3]

- Glenn Loury's response[4] to Brown University's letter to faculty/alumni about racial justice.

- The failure[5] of a group of folks to cancel Steven Pinker over accusations of racial insensitivity.

[1] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1279105937404579841

[2] https://medium.com/@sarahadowney/this-politically-correct-wi...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gvc7k9/black_li...

[4] https://www.city-journal.org/brown-university-letter-racism

[5] https://mobile.twitter.com/sapinker/status/12799365902367907...

>>dnissl+Tr
>- John Carmack signal boosting[1] Sarah Downey's article "This PC witch-hunt is killing free speech, and we have to fight it"[2]

Is this really a "bright spot"? Expressing a fear (without any reasoning or evidence shown as the basis for that fear) that one's opponents approve of an atrocious campaign orchestrated by a totalitarian regime?

There's a lot of room to criticize "cancel culture" and deplatforming. Comparisons with mass killings and state-orchestrated oppression is an odd choice, and (to take the other side of the fence here) with about the same amount of merit as saying that people critical of BLM have similar opinions of the Nazi regime.

>>claudi+9K
There is a direct line of descent between Maoist agitation in Western countries throughout the late-1960s and 1970s and the current radical left. They have explicitly approved of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in the past - often enthusiastically so - and for all we know, they continue to do so. The M.O. is certainly comparable.

>>zozbot+5L
>There is a direct line of descent between Maoist agitation in Western countries throughout the late-1960s and 1970s and the current radical left.

Do you have any sources I can read on this? If anything, it seems the radical left actually left Badiou and his ilk behind for the Frankfurt School, and even then, I'm doubtful as to what that intellectual heritage means to your average "radical leftist" today. This is all beside the point, however - is there a recent (from the past 20 years) poll or anything similar surveying the "radical left" (which, mind you, includes anti-statists and anarcho-Communists) on their opinion of the Cultural Revolution? One of the largest "radical leftist" groups in the West is Antifa, but from what I know, it's hard to see any Maoism (or Maoist ideas) present in its members[0]. The Sino-Soviet split and the ascension of Deng liberalizing China has practically deadened Maoist ideology in the West. You'd have a better (but still somewhat shaky) case to say the radical left today draws from Stalinism instead (as opposed to Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, etc.).

>They have approved of the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in the past

To what degree? In what numbers? For example, I can't name a single leftist journal which the majority of contributors could be aligned with Maoist views, never mind views supporting the Cultural Revolution. Even the Maoists I know of with some influence (e.g. Badiou) are critical of the cultural revolution.

>and for all we know, they continue to do so

So it's a superstition?

>The M.O. is certainly similar.

Which mainstream leftist organizations (mainstream enough to guide the course of the modern "radical left") approve of state-sanctioned murder and imprisonment of intellectuals?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)#Ideolog...