United States Politics Thread 46

[Travis B.]

It wouldn't be that unusua: when I hear medieval debates about theology, like 'god has distinct human and divine essences' vs 'god has one essence that is both divine and human', I always get the feeling that the discussion is actually about something else, though it'd take a degree in the matter to know exactly what by now.

Those things were much of the time more about political struggles than about anything religious in reality, of course.

[Torco]

It wouldn't be that unusua: when I hear medieval debates about theology, like 'god has distinct human and divine essences' vs 'god has one essence that is both divine and human', I always get the feeling that the discussion is actually about something else, though it'd take a degree in the matter to know exactly what by now.

Those things were much of the time more about political struggles than about anything religious in reality, of course.

I don't properly know this to be true, but it's intuitively appealing, like, I don't know that much about late antiquity and/or heresiology, but it sure does look like it: On the one hand, sure, religion is weird enough that maybe it was a sincere question of "no, that's not true" or whatever but... I can't bring myself to believe that thousands of people really went to war, and supported it, killed and died, over some obscure and borderline meaningless (if not entirely meaningless) item of doctrine like two essences or one double essence, whether the father is as eternal as the son or not, or if jesus had one will or two wills: it's much more likely that they are things people fight about to fight about something else. Arrianism was apparently popular amongst 'barbarians' (germans and goths or something) and thus the question of its heresy or not was possibly mostly a proxy for good old ethnic conflict.... but yeah, religion is so funky that honestly who knows.

I think what Torco is describing is more a problem on the center left in the US. Moderate Democrats have spent so many years pressing for rules of respectability...

I mean, yeah: you don't drive a significant portion of a population (are leftos are rightos ethnic groups? moities?) to endemic euphemism without a very strong cultural emphasis of adherence to formal rules regardless of actual beliefs, right? like with americans and their hecks and their holy fudges, or 1990ies chileans and our marriage annulments. (it was illegal to divorce here, so people got 'annuled' instead, which entailed a priest saying they were cousins, or never did fuck, or whatever).

[zompist]

I think what Torco is describing is more a problem on the center left in the US. Moderate Democrats have spent so many years pressing for rules of respectability that they struggle to tell the difference between a good person and a villain who uses PC language. Not doing slurs have evolved from a signifier of a desire for a virtuous society to its own distinct and complete virtue. You can oppress trans people all day, in a pleasant tone of voice, and get away with it. But the moment you take off the mask and use the T-word, suddenly this ferocious leftist tiger springs into action that previously was nowhere to be found. So of course the debate eventually becomes about the signifiers of respectability as if they were the whole point to begin with.

I don't really get who or what you're pointing at.

The fundamental fact about the Democrats is that just half of them are liberals and leftists— the rest identify as moderate (36%) or conservative (10%). The idea that these people are consumed by the same issues as college-educated leftists is pretty dubious.

In general Americans support trans rights by 64%. This is of course highly polarized. 59% of Democrats think trans acceptance hasn't gone far enough, just 15% of Democrats think it's "gone too far". We don't have crosstabs here, but it's pretty obvious that these will be the conservatives and center-rightists in the party. The idea that Democratic conservatives are terrified of PC activists also seems dubious. Does Joe Manchin, an actual conservative Dem, seem terrified to you?

If you mean Joe Biden, well, I can only point to the history of the Democrats for the last 90 years; it's a party that likes to take a position not so much out on a limb as just one foot from the trunk. And that's not because they're all hypocrites, it's because they have always been a coalition of conservatives and liberals, and when they solidly do the right thing, they lose elections and back off.

[zompist]

I don't properly know this to be true, but it's intuitively appealing, like, I don't know that much about late antiquity and/or heresiology, but it sure does look like it: On the one hand, sure, religion is weird enough that maybe it was a sincere question of "no, that's not true" or whatever but... I can't bring myself to believe that thousands of people really went to war, and supported it, killed and died, over some obscure and borderline meaningless (if not entirely meaningless) item of doctrine like two essences or one double essence, whether the father is as eternal as the son or not, or if jesus had one will or two wills: it's much more likely that they are things people fight about to fight about something else. Arrianism was apparently popular amongst 'barbarians' (germans and goths or something) and thus the question of its heresy or not was possibly mostly a proxy for good old ethnic conflict.... but yeah, religion is so funky that honestly who knows.

I think the best way of understanding this is to reflect on why Stalinists and Maoists sometimes fight and kill each other. Is the difference between the two doctrines all that great? Enough that, rather than fight the capitalists, they have to murder each other?

There may be great-power issues behind these things (e.g China vs. Russia). On the other hand... if you've actually talked to a Maoist, do you think they're just putting on an act, they don't really care about their ideology? They take it very seriously.

Or to put it in cultural materialist terms, both etic and emic systems are important. Struggles between power groups will always happen, and get colored by the belief systems of the time. But people really do believe in their belief systems, too; it's one of the reasons they're willing to fight and die for abstract power groups.

[Linguoboy]

It wouldn't be that unusua: when I hear medieval debates about theology, like 'god has distinct human and divine essences' vs 'god has one essence that is both divine and human', I always get the feeling that the discussion is actually about something else, though it'd take a degree in the matter to know exactly what by now.

Those things were much of the time more about political struggles than about anything religious in reality, of course.

The ones you've heard of, certainly. But not every abstruse theological discussion led to a schism within Christianity.

In The barbarian conversion, Richard Fletcher argues that pagan leaders who embraced Christianity for political or economic reasons often chose heretical varieties (e.g. Arianism) in order to maintain a certain distance from Roman authority. I can no longer remember the proofs his provides, but it does make a certain intuitive sense to me.

[Torco]

Or to put it in cultural materialist terms, both etic and emic systems are important. Struggles between power groups will always happen, and get colored by the belief systems of the time. But people really do believe in their belief systems, too; it's one of the reasons they're willing to fight and die for abstract power groups.

agreed! which is why I hesitate here. on the other hand, of course, sometimes it does happen that nominally doctrinal questions are, in reality, sort of... metonymy? like, I don't know... the thing about whether or not being gay is a choice: the homophoboii don't really care if it's a choice or not, they think its icky or evil or whatever, and us reasonable, right-thinking people also don't care, really, if it's a choice or not: if it was somehow proven it's a choice [i dunno how, but bear with me] I think we would all be like "fuck it, gay and bi and heterocurious etcetera... they're all valid anyway". and yet, whether-homosexuality-is-a-choice as a debate *stands for* the issue of the validity of sexual minorities... or did, in the past, I don't hear about it that much these days, but it might be me. Or the thing about, I don't know, ensoulment: prochoicers don't *care*, really, or plenty of us don't anyway: philipa foot's violinist is a clincher argument if I've ever seen one, logically, and yet you still see the thing about oh, whether conception or implantation or whatever. People sometimes do believe in their belief systems, but sometimes they don't. insincere membership is a feature of all sucessful belief system groups. So I'm frankly of two minds here.

I do think it's funny, the example with varieties of communism... because I think communism's case is an example of irony/metonymy, not sincerity: the thing is not if the doctrine of permanent revolution is scientifically true in the sense that, I don't know, whether wave functions are real [or whether there's some underlying hidden phenomenon that the equations happen to describe very well]: no, it's not like that, the thing about troskism, maoism, stalinism or, whatever, is precisely about politics, military strategy, particular policies stalin implemented, socialism in one country, whatever. arguably by definition, to be a stalinist is, rather than ascribing to particular doctrines within marxism-leninism, just... to think that stalin did nothing wrong (or, perhaps, that it's widely exxagerated and was less bad than your regular capitalist presidents: you wanna hear a real genocidal famine? do you have a moment to talk about jesus chruchill?)

The idea that Democratic conservatives are terrified of PC activists also seems dubious. Does Joe Manchin, an actual conservative Dem, seem terrified to you?

I bet not even democratic conservatives, even republican conservatives sometimes. like, not always and not terrified, but remember the gamergate "anti sjw" era? at least part of the aesthetic was a sort of cathartic liberation from an I think sincere feeling of being silenced. I think grampas everywhere must say things like "you can't say anything these days". of course, the kinds of things grampas say are often awful, but they lived their entire lives in a world where they were also strongly normalized. normies very often feel they can't "keep up with the lingo" or whatever: their PC was "blacks aren't inferior", after all.

[zompist]

I bet not even democratic conservatives, even republican conservatives sometimes. like, not always and not terrified, but remember the gamergate "anti sjw" era? at least part of the aesthetic was a sort of cathartic liberation from an I think sincere feeling of being silenced.

I think you're conflating two groups here. The gamergaters are just right-wing trolls. Sincere well-meaning people don't organize death threats, doxxing, and online brigading because they're so dang confused by left-wing terminology. They didn't give a fuck about left-wing terminology, they wanted to harm women.

I do think some people are confused, because I've seen them on Metafilter and other left-leaning sites. It does take some effort-- not a huge effort mind you, but some-- to not be left behind by changing standards. And unfortunately when people are challenged about a prejudice the first reaction is often to get defensive, and that doesn't go well. But these people are not rushing off to the alt-right.

of course, the kinds of things grampas say are often awful, but they lived their entire lives in a world where they were also strongly normalized.

For every grampa who says awful things, there's a grampa who is surprisingly accepting, and there's a young fascist dude. The gamergaters aren't grampas.

[xxx]

I don't know, but we are witnessing an obvious social reengineering in the "new norms" that take advantage of the modern means of touching the minds that are the internet and social networks...

they oscillate between, on the one hand, the rupture between generations and the fragmentation of societies into more or less fantasized groups and, on the other hand, a disinclusive internationalism that displaces populations against each other and pumps capital to the benefit of an ever smaller share...

It is difficult to see a single objective, as it seems contradictory, between the confiscation of power, consumption and commodification of everything to excess, and even an eco-malthusanist vision that promotes non-reproductive sexuality or the revolution that has become green and deproductivist...

the result is a great chaos where only the happy few find their account... the others lost in their struggles for their artificial minorities throw themselves into the arms of normative gurus without a future...

making society becomes difficult...
before new blocks are formed to simplify the objectives in violence and death...

[Ares Land]

I bet not even democratic conservatives, even republican conservatives sometimes. like, not always and not terrified, but remember the gamergate "anti sjw" era? at least part of the aesthetic was a sort of cathartic liberation from an I think sincere feeling of being silenced.

There was a time (when my generation was in their twenties, more or less) when being reactionary was cool, edgy and fashionable.
I think it was part chance, part strategy: the next generation of conservatives was aware of the benefits of a counter culture, and familiar with technology at a time when left-wing ideas felt a little bland.

It feels to me as if that time is mostly over. I don't see young people playing armchair fascist so much these days.

For every grampa who says awful things, there's a grampa who is surprisingly accepting, and there's a young fascist dude. The gamergaters aren't grampas.

Another case of the future being unevenly distributed '70s feminists were insanely radical by our standards and they're old enough to be grandmothers now. Meanwhile there's a surprising amount of sexism in my generation (born in the 80s), even though they had plenty of opportunity to learn better.

I'm approaching 40, so far the single most unpleasant thing about that is increasingly seeing people my own age turn into stereotypical awful grampas. They're even talking about kids these days.

[Raphael]

I think what Torco is describing is more a problem on the center left in the US. Moderate Democrats have spent so many years pressing for rules of respectability that they struggle to tell the difference between a good person and a villain who uses PC language. Not doing slurs have evolved from a signifier of a desire for a virtuous society to its own distinct and complete virtue. You can oppress trans people all day, in a pleasant tone of voice, and get away with it. But the moment you take off the mask and use the T-word, suddenly this ferocious leftist tiger springs into action that previously was nowhere to be found. So of course the debate eventually becomes about the signifiers of respectability as if they were the whole point to begin with.

I don't really get who or what you're pointing at.

The fundamental fact about the Democrats is that just half of them are liberals and leftists— the rest identify as moderate (36%) or conservative (10%). The idea that these people are consumed by the same issues as college-educated leftists is pretty dubious.

In general Americans support trans rights by 64%. This is of course highly polarized. 59% of Democrats think trans acceptance hasn't gone far enough, just 15% of Democrats think it's "gone too far". We don't have crosstabs here, but it's pretty obvious that these will be the conservatives and center-rightists in the party. The idea that Democratic conservatives are terrified of PC activists also seems dubious. Does Joe Manchin, an actual conservative Dem, seem terrified to you?

If you mean Joe Biden, well, I can only point to the history of the Democrats for the last 90 years; it's a party that likes to take a position not so much out on a limb as just one foot from the trunk. And that's not because they're all hypocrites, it's because they have always been a coalition of conservatives and liberals, and when they solidly do the right thing, they lose elections and back off.

I think Moose-tache has a point, and you have a point, too, but I'm not entirely sure I understand how exactly your point relates to Moose-tache's point.

I do sometimes get the impression that some parts of the Left sometimes have more of a problem with hateful words than with people who are being hateful without using explicitly hateful words.

I do think some people are confused, because I've seen them on Metafilter and other left-leaning sites. It does take some effort-- not a huge effort mind you, but some-- to not be left behind by changing standards. And unfortunately when people are challenged about a prejudice the first reaction is often to get defensive, and that doesn't go well. But these people are not rushing off to the alt-right.

That's a good point. To be honest, I think we might all be a bit better off if there was a bit more awareness of that point on the Left.

For every grampa who says awful things, there's a grampa who is surprisingly accepting, and there's a young fascist dude. The gamergaters aren't grampas.

Anecdotally you are, of course, right, but I'm not sure if the stats on that matter - if there are any - back you up.

There was a time (when my generation was in their twenties, more or less) when being reactionary was cool, edgy and fashionable.
I think it was part chance, part strategy: the next generation of conservatives was aware of the benefits of a counter culture, and familiar with technology at a time when left-wing ideas felt a little bland.

It feels to me as if that time is mostly over. I don't see young people playing armchair fascist so much these days.

I'm afraid I'm too out of touch to judge whether you're right or wrong on that; of course I hope you're right.

I'm approaching 40, so far the single most unpleasant thing about that is increasingly seeing people my own age turn into stereotypical awful grampas. They're even talking about kids these days.

I'm just a little bit older than you, and I'm afraid the first time I noticed people of our generation talking about kids these days was when I was in my late teens. I was sitting in a classroom, surrounded by other people in their late teens (I don't remember for sure whether it was during a class or during a break), and they were talking about how messed up the people who were in their early teens at that time were, and about how they themselves had not been like that at that age at all. That was one of the more surreal experiences of my life.

[alice]

I do sometimes get the impression that some parts of the Left sometimes have more of a problem with hateful words than with people who are being hateful without using explicitly hateful words.

To rephrase what zompist said earlier, some parts of the Left often have more of a problem with other parts of the Left, whether they use words, hateful or not, or not. To such parts of the Left, everything else is on the Right.

[Travis B.]

I do sometimes get the impression that some parts of the Left sometimes have more of a problem with hateful words than with people who are being hateful without using explicitly hateful words.

To rephrase what zompist said earlier, some parts of the Left often have more of a problem with other parts of the Left, whether they use words, hateful or not, or not. To such parts of the Left, everything else is on the Right.

Many of these parts of the Left have trouble discerning the difference between differing positions other than theirs. To them, you're either one of them or you might as well be a fascist. Of course, this myopic point of view leads to things like not being able to tell the difference between mediocre positions and outrageously bad ones. This then gives an advantage to real fascists, because it reduces the number of people who would vote for the non-fascists. We saw this in places like France, where in the most recent elections many of the left-wing voters were squeamish about voting for Macron due to his being a neoliberal, even though his opponent was a real live fascist.

[Torco]

Agreed, grampas are not all ideologically awful, but the point is that those that are, along with a lot of people in, say, rural areas, very conservative states, very religious communities etcetera, are used to particular speech-related expressions of their awfulness being normalized.

I think you're conflating two groups here. The gamergaters are just right-wing trolls. Sincere well-meaning people don't organize death threats, doxxing, and online brigading because they're so dang confused by left-wing terminology. They didn't give a fuck about left-wing terminology, they wanted to harm women.

I find that it's generally good indication that one has gone methodologically wrong is to conclude that the explanation of any given social phenomenon is that "it's simple! those people are shit and want to do evil". It's kind of like how everytime you hear "why don't they just", it's an indication that you're talking to someon who doesn't understand a lot about the subject. I myself, back in the day -and I cringe to remember- did drink some of the anti-sjw juice... I think I even posted some here, the rebecca watson elevator thing or something... I was even subscribed to a cult leader by the name of Stefan Molyneaux for a while and it wasn't because I "just wanted to harm women", I think: rather, it was because those ideas and discourses *did* something for me, emotionally: they made me feel less irrelevant, and like I didn't actually need to examine my privileges and whatever. If you listen to the stories of ex-alt-righters and so on you get similar accounts of it: the way you get people to be nazis, or support the pinochet coup, or to fight for their landowner's right to own slaves, or join Boko Haram is you appeal to people based on their primitive emotions: and "I just want to do evil" is very rarely one of those.

And unfortunately when people are challenged about a prejudice the first reaction is often to get defensive, and that doesn't go well. But these people are not rushing off to the alt-right.

I think they do, though. I don't have data, but anecdotically the people I know who've gotten into the alt-right all tell about "I was looking on youtube for arguments against the annoying blue-haired lady who told me my opinion was invalid because I was cishet and I found" whatever: jordan peterson, thunderfoot, richard darkins, sargon of akkad, mencius moldbug, blaire white or whoever and from there they maybe saw a debate with, I don't know, richard spencer or andrew tate, and from there, boom, horst wiesel lied intensifies. What are the entry points to the alt-right pipeline? anti-feminism, pick up artistry, self-help, exercise, "enterpreneurship mindset motivation" stuff, nerds whining about the new LOTR thing having black elves, it's stuff that makes people feel good about themselves: I doubt many people are googling "how to hurt the women's liberation movement"

It feels to me as if that time is mostly over. I don't see young people playing armchair fascist so much these days.

as my granny used to say, que dios te oiga y el diablo se haga el sordo

I do sometimes get the impression that some parts of the Left sometimes have more of a problem with hateful words than with people who are being hateful without using explicitly hateful words.

YES! it's a lot of why I'm bothered by the 'language creates realities' dealio. but, then again, how do you deal with the problem of people *being* hateful? we can't see inside people's hearts. but if they say, i don't know, [insert slur here], that's a thing you can see.

[Travis B.]

The thing about trolls is that they very much get off on doing evil for "the lulz" in and of itself - that is a big part of why they do it. They don't do it out of any kind of deep ideology or sincere belief. It is just that far right-wing beliefs frequently dovetail with what trolls do, rather than that trolls troll out of sincere ideological belief in and of itself.

[Torco]

but doesn't a person's beliefs and values shape what gives them da lulz ?

[zompist]

I find that it's generally good indication that one has gone methodologically wrong is to conclude that the explanation of any given social phenomenon is that "it's simple! those people are shit and want to do evil". It's kind of like how everytime you hear "why don't they just", it's an indication that you're talking to someon who doesn't understand a lot about the subject. I myself, back in the day -and I cringe to remember- did drink some of the anti-sjw juice... I think I even posted some here, the rebecca watson elevator thing or something... I was even subscribed to a cult leader by the name of Stefan Molyneaux for a while and it wasn't because I "just wanted to harm women", I think: rather, it was because those ideas and discourses *did* something for me, emotionally: they made me feel less irrelevant, and like I didn't actually need to examine my privileges and whatever. If you listen to the stories of ex-alt-righters and so on you get similar accounts of it: the way you get people to be nazis, or support the pinochet coup, or to fight for their landowner's right to own slaves, or join Boko Haram is you appeal to people based on their primitive emotions: and "I just want to do evil" is very rarely one of those.

I really suggest you review (as I did writing the last posts) what gamergaters actually did. They made women's lives hell, drove them out of their homes, went after their jobs, sent them rape and death threats, used false reports to sent armed police after their critics, literally plotted all day on forums on how to do more damage to them and build support from others. (Their security was farcical, so some of their victims were on those forums recording everything.) When people do harm to women, it's not some methodological error to say it's because they want to do harm to women.

Naturally there is a continuum from gamergaters to supporters to undecided-but-kinda-antifeminist to opposed-but-kinda-antifeminist. I am guessing and hoping that you were not in the core group on 4chan. I'd suggest to you that you know far less about the motivations of the core group than you think you do. They're not just "Past Torco but a little more so."

On people's motivations... if you're writing a book I advise you, as I always have, to make villains' motivations more interesting than eeeeevil. In politics I think it's counter-productive to do pop sociology on pathological movements, which is why I react as strongly as I do to suggestions that gamergate is just people confused by left-wing terminology.

Back in the 90s people started talking about privilege. And that's a real thing: sometimes it's the system that embodies and enforces bigotry, without the participants needing to think anything at all, much less be eeeeevil. But after 2016 this framework began to seem far less explanatory. There really are bigots and psychopaths out there, people who really do hate women and people of color and sexual minorities. The current movement to literally eradicate trans people isn't just "people asking questions" or nice dudes mildly put off by a social justice meme on Tiktok. It's actual fascism, starting with trans people rather than Jews this time.

The problem with the pop sociology explanations is that they're either just wrong historically, or they suggest avenues that don't work. Fascism didn't arise because of Youtube's algorithm (though that is a factor today); there has always been a faction of people happy to do the dirty work of a hierarchical system. And feeling that fascists need sympathy because they're nice dudes at heart, only confused, helps normalize their beliefs and actions. It's more effective to show them that their beliefs are not widely shared and understood.

To put it another way, I thing the question is not "what leftist excess turned these poor lambs into authoritarians and thugs?" It's more "What methods were used to get the existing authoritarians and thugs excited?" The whole "poor lambs" theory is misguided.

[bradrn]

I don’t think those two theories are mutually exclusive. There are people who are genuinely evil, who enjoy manipulating others and making people who won’t fall into line miserable. And there are also people who are misguided, and agree with bad ideas only because they fell down that path without thinking too much of it or seeing enough counter-arguments. I’d suggest that the latter far outnumber the former, though — not everyone on the right (or even the alt-right) is a GamerGater.

[zompist]

I don’t think those two theories are mutually exclusive. There are people who are genuinely evil, who enjoy manipulating others and making people who won’t fall into line miserable. And there are also people who are misguided, and agree with bad ideas only because they fell down that path without thinking too much of it or seeing enough counter-arguments. I’d suggest that the latter far outnumber the former, though — not everyone on the right (or even the alt-right) is a GamerGater.

Yes, I said about five times that not everyone is evil. But the "poor lambs" theory is never presented with exceptions. Someone shoots up a school and the media is all about how nice and misunderstood they were.

[Ares Land]

We saw this in places like France, where in the most recent elections many of the left-wing voters were squeamish about voting for Macron due to his being a neoliberal, even though his opponent was a real live fascist.

Heh, it depends on where you met these left-wing voters. By now there's a really noticeable pattern of squeamish online "left-wingers" turning out to be Le Pen voters and/or fascist sockpuppets.
Real life left-wingers are more than a little bitter these days though. We've been bullied into voting for neoliberals for more than twenty years now; after six years of Macron it also turns out he's a lot closer to Le Pen than expected, so plenty of ground for bitterness.

[Torco]

I feel strawmanned. no I don't think I said anything to the effect of poor lambs: instead, I said "they're bad and want to hurt women" is not an adequate explanation. like, okay, plenty of them did in fact want to hurt women, and we know this because they did in fact hurt women and it's pretty silly to think they did so by accident, but that's not a good explanation for the phenomenon. This is a confusion I see more often amongst right-wingers about how we leftos think about, say, crime: when we go "you know, science proves that crime has a number of causal factors such as lack of opportunity, the breakdown of families and urban segregation, and thus good ways to reduce crime would be to make sure people can improve their livelihood, reduce working hours so parents can actually be there for their children and raise them right and promote a city that's more walkable, integrated, and livable" and they go "SEE? YOU'RE ONLY CONCERNED ABOUT THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE CRIMINAL. WHAT ABOUT THE VICTIMS. NO THE SOLUTION IS TO SHOOT EACH CRIMINAL IN THE FACE BECAUSE THEY ARE EEEEEVIL".

that was pretty visceral because my own country is in the middle of such a process lmao. but the point remains: gamergaters, at least the central figures of the movement, *are* evil: but that is a mere value judgement, not an explanation. No matter how evil a group is, it will always be a poor, lazy and pragmatically infertile explanation to go "well, they did so because they are evil". the nazis were evil, but they were not evil *because* they were evil: there were concrete historical and sociological causes, catalysts and antecedents that permitted and effected the rise of the movement, just like there are historical and sociological causes to the current nazistoid ultraconservatism, the one with trans people cast in the role of jews. these causes must exist, whether we currently can discern them or not, and knowing them would not make it so we can't say they're bad.

the flipside of the aspiration to objectivity -or however one wants to call the relevant epistemic virtue- means that even if you can build an explanation for someone else's behavior, that does not, in fact, *excuse* that behavior, just like if you can construct an explanation for why, say, so valiantly the ukranians fight for their country or whatever, that does not mean that their valor is less praiseworthy. Now, sociological explanations sometimes permit us to formulate better political programmes, sure, but descriptive models about the causes of things don't in and of themselves entail any normative position, because of hume's guillotine.

The problem with the pop sociology explanations is that they're either just wrong historically, or they suggest avenues that don't work.

except when they're right and suggest avenues that work, which obviously happens from time to time too: it's just the pop sociology that works you probably just call truth, and not pop sociology: but the entire framework of thinking about privilege you use -which don't get me wrong I subscribe to both descriptively and normatively- started out as pop sociology, in the sense that it was sociology adopted into pop culture. and I think its adoption has been both epistemically good -i.e. has allowed us to better understand reality- and politically good -i.e. affords access to such knowledge as permits us to better realize some important political values. A lot of key points of doctrine, so to speak, of this kind of current mainstream progressive ideology (to which I mostly suscribe, again, but that doesn't mean it is not a particular social movement, historically contingent etcetera because i'm in it) indeed come from sociological works making their way into popular culture and The Discourse(tm). Importantly, a lot of what the fash, the terfs and the more strasserite tankies call "gender ideology" is mostly that, pop sociology: the thing is, it's also true, and good. I like that keynes quote here, practical men who believe themselves to be exempt from intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.

In the case contrary, you really think pop sociology [not in the sense of guys with phds in sociology, but in the sense of the results of the general purpose of systematically, scientifically, trying to formulate explanations about society: the sociological project, as it were, the social sciences] is always either wrong or useless? big pessimism.