Interesting. His alt-center sounds more like my alt-left. I wonder what he would consider the alt left.
Or maybe he really is the alt left, and what we think of as normal leftists is what he calls the center. E Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 24, 2017, at 11:28, BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical > Centrist Community <[email protected]> wrote: > > > it's all one thing > Blog attributed to Will Shetterly > > Saturday, December 3, 2016 > The alt-center, censorship, and the weaponizing of poverty: a scattershot note > 1 > If your response to a Twitter tiff is to go running to someone's employer, > you view poverty as a weapon and are a terrible person. > — Emily Robinson29🎅🏻 (@See_Em_Play) November 26, 2016 > I love this quote. I have seen too many examples of people online trying to > silence their opponents with financial threats instead of simply refuting > them. > > Perhaps the best thing I can point to about Trump's election is fewer people > who claim to be on the left are mocking "freeze peach". It's a little sad > that the ACLU's support is divided between people who believe in free speech > and people who would like to censor their opponents but are afraid they're in > danger of losing that fight, but I suspect that's always been the case. > During McCarthyism, the left strongly supported free speech. During the rise > of left-identitarianism, the right did. What we'll have under Trump's gonzo > conservatism, I can't guess, but I know we'll need the ACLU at least as much > as we always have. > > 2 > > I don't know who coined "alt-center", but I love it for at least two reasons: > > 1. The people who fall under labels like "social justice warrior" and my > previous alternative, "censorial left-identitarian" are not leftist in any > meaningful way. They tend to support Clinton's right-of-center neoliberalism. > They are extremely conformist and they love trying to get people banned or > fired for expressing ideas they disagree with. Their solution to the problems > of racism and sexism is not to redistribute the wealth to end economic > inequality but to advocate the ancient solution of education, which for all > its virtues only helps the poor people who're lucky enough to have the > resources that will let them graduate with honors. The US's two-party system > makes these angry identitarians think they are leftists because they're to > the left of the far right, but the fact that their champion in the current > election, Hillary Clinton, won many wealthy neighborhoods that had > traditionally voted for Republicans should show that their politics are > consistent with those of moderate Republicans. > > 2. What distinguishes the alt-center from the center is what distinguishes > the alt-right from the right: they're loud and obsessed with social identity. > "Alt" is shorthand for smug, furious, and superficial—both the alt-right and > the alt-center are content with a skin-deep analysis of injustice that > ignores capitalism. > > Yes, there are self-proclaimed socialists like Sady Doyle whose > identitarianism made them support Clinton's neoliberalism. Their existence > does not mean we need a category for them like alt-left or one I had liked, > ctrl-left. The internet has countless videos of animals who seem to think > they're a different animal—but just as a prancing cat is not a horse, someone > who supports a neoliberal is not a socialist. > > Now, I'm not saying alt-center is the perfect name for the loud group of > people who've taken the religious concept of social justice and turned it > into something that would embarrass social justice workers like Dorothy Day > and Dom Hélder Câmara, but it's the best I've found. If ever the alt-center > adopts a name, I'll happily use it—I believe you should call people what they > like to be called so long as that name does not create confusion. Until they > adopt a name, I'll just follow along with what works best at the time. Right > now, that's "alt-center". > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
