Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
I get there are real dangers in giving platforms to these ideas. But as someone who had never took the time to listen to him I was a little surprised at how his flawed and inarticulate his arguments were.
“We are the genius…” Really Richard? I like how Michael Parenti added perspective in ‘The Sword and The Dollar’:
“In the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries the West was only superior in navigation, transportation and firepower not ‘civilisation’. Social Darwinism implies these ‘savages’ were culturally inferior people but they were superior in architecture, horticulture, arts, crafts, midwifery, hunting technology, medicinal herbs and tribal democracy.
We mustn’t romanticise these original peoples but generally where they lagged behind 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th century Europe were in hangings, murders, syphilis, gonorrhoea, smallpox, typhoid, bubonic plague, slavery, prostitution, poverty (urban and rural), religious war and inquisitional witch-hunts.”
Neither. My father survived D-day despite taking his LCT right up to the beach and getting hit by a Teller mine. His views on the rise of Naziism are pretty severe. There were plenty of people there younger than he was and there are a number still alive. Quite a lot of them are of distinctly left wing views.
In fact, I would argue that saying disgusting racist bullshit because even if you dont believe it you think you get something out if it makes you even more evil than your garden variety racists. Those are sincere in being pieces of shit - the others add duplicity and insincerity to the deal.
Well, yes. The goal is not to change Spencer’s mind (such as it is), but to sow doubt in those who think he has a point.
Spencer’s notion of Africa (not to mention India, China, etc.) as an utterly miserable, benighted place is a comforting myth for Americans. It goes along with our cherished notion that they are all begging for us to rescue them.
I suppose we (America… my people weren’t here at the time, but I suppose I share the guilt because I share the wealth) need to deal with the cognitive dissonance of just wanting to take stuff from people, but knowing that’s bad. So we resolve it by deciding they want us there. Nay, they NEED us there! It’s God’s work! And so on…
“He’s not very good at… You know, being President. But I’d be happy to have a beer and shoot the shit with him.”
And now it’s basically the opposite.
“I hate him, I hate what he’s doing. When he talks, I hate him more with every word. But the constitution says we have to tolerate people who try to destroy the constitution. Even if they’re traitors.”
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.
I kind of felt the same way – most of the stuff Spencer says could be swiftly and decisively dismissed using words of two syllables, such that even his kind of people would have a hard time ignoring the arguments. Which wouldn’t stop them being racist, obviously, but it would undermine their attempts to feel like they’re in the right.
But in fairness, I don’t think I could have done better on the spot. It’s easy to debate details, but when someone says “slavery was good for Africans”, it’s fantastically difficult to know where to even begin. It’s the conversational equivalent of being dropped blindfolded into the middle of the Amazon. And of course that’s how extremism works, by blasting you off the pathways of reason into the chaotic realm of swivel-eyed brainwashing.
I think there’s a place for arguing with batshit demagogues, but it’s a specialist skill. Simply having an open-minded casual conversation with them is not a good approach.
Jon Ronson’s book ‘Them: Adventures with Extremists’ is an excellent (albeit terrifying) read about Ronson’s various meetings with the likes of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, islamists and David Icke. Recommended.
Having played that game with coworkers saying equally stupid shit (example: “the Democratic party is responsible for racism in this country”) and experienced exactly what you described. You’re left muttering to yourself and shaking your head, while they laugh.
Cruel, thoughtless people aren’t worth having conversations with. Just ignore them.
It’s not for me to determine the differing ‘degrees of evil’ in other people’s hearts, and I don’t think it really matters “which is worse” when the end result is still the same; needless discord, conflict and chaos to the detriment of everyone, eventually.
Folks like Richard Spencer know they’re ill-equipped to tackle the real aspects of their complaints so they use emotive techniques or fallacious reasoning to distract from their real desire of mass murder. Basically, they’re the racist equivalent of Christian apologists.
I agree that it would be tough to come up with a cogent defense on the spot to this kind of nonsense… I think it’s best to not even try, and to certainly not give such speech a large platform…
Those outrageous claims are just a rhetorical trap that one should stay away from at all costs. By even engaging in a refutation, you are ceding ground to a disingenuous speaker, because the very notion is predicated on twisted beliefs of racial hierarchy. If he believed that all human ethnicities are equal and deserving of equal treatment, he couldn’t possibly believe that slavery is good for any group of people… so even if you explain why it is bad for Africans, you’re still giving him room to make claims about racial hierarchy… you’ve lost ground.
There’s a dangerously thin line between shining light in a dark corners of society and giving the denizens therein a platform to broadcast their garbage. Like you say, the open-minded casual approach can be disastrous.
I mean, this is like a textbook example of why you shouldn’t debate people who won’t act in good faith. But the bad-faith tactic is the centerpiece of right-wing debate more generally; righties will say stuff like “our first priority is to reduce the deficit”, knowing their opponents will waste time discussing that. And then those same righties will turn around and blow up the deficit with tax cuts and military spending, and be all “neener neener, I guess you could’ve stopped us if you hadn’t spent all your time on our bullshit talking points that we never actually cared about”.
It’s infuriating how consistently left-wing journalists and politicians let themselves be led around by the nose in this way. I guess they’re bidding for the moral and intellectual high ground, but it’s like, it doesn’t matter how good you might be at kicking the football, if you let Lucy trick you every single goddamn time you try.
+1 to everything you said: absolutely! It so frustrating to watch, and it’s not like I know the right way to counter such rampant bullshit from these right-wing assholes either. There’s not good way to do it IMO
At risk of boring you with my ramblings, we used to sing this in school assembly:
“From all that terror teaches, from lies of tongue and pen
From all the easy speeches that comfort cruel men
From sale and profanation of honour and the sword
From sleep and from damnation, deliver us good Lord!” (Chesterton)
The “sleep” of course is the tendency of good people to stand by and do nothing. Chesterton wasn’t asking us to let God take over the work of making the world better.
