The Conservative Closet

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Mr Sausage
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#51 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:55 pm

DeprongMori wrote:
Mr Sausage wrote:
DeprongMori wrote:Please tell me how LGBTQ are trying to legally oppress conservatives. Are they trying to keep conservatives out of being able to adopt? Or serve in the military? (You probably don’t want to equate military efforts to keep Nazis out if the military with “oppression of conservatives”.) etc etc etc etc etc.
I looked back at my posts and was surprised to find that none of them sink or swim based on whether LGTBQ groups are actively oppressing conservatives at the moment.
You did express that they were equivalent “out-groups”. I indicated the manner in which they were in fact different.
It was actually a point about how in-groups view out-groups vs how they view themselves.

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DeprongMori
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#52 Post by DeprongMori » Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:57 pm

I generally agree that this conversation is unlikely to be productive. I also never saw much evidence of the central claim that conservatives were oppressed.

Unpopular maybe, but not oppressed.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#53 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:02 pm

There does seem to be a prevailing attitude among some here that conservatives ought to be oppressed.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#54 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:17 pm

How about -- conservatives ought not be coddled when their (always very very tender) feelings of self-importance are injured by having to not treat groups they despise fairly? I frankly don't care that it hurts their feelings when they are criticized for speaking (and acting) cruelly to folks who are genuinely oppressed.

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DeprongMori
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#55 Post by DeprongMori » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:22 pm

It was actually a point about how in-groups view out-groups vs how they view themselves.
And mine was on the objective relative merits of those views.

Unless conservatives can demonstrate that they actually are being oppressed, those claims seem to be inflated at the least. Unpopularity is not oppression.

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DeprongMori
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#56 Post by DeprongMori » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:30 pm

Question: Historically, these types of conversations have typically been banished quickly to the “Naval-gazing” basement of the Forum. I’m curious whether the topic’s continued presence in the main Forum is an artifact of the site reorganization or an editorial decision. I have no strong feelings either way whether it should be one place or the other, just genuinely curious.

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zedz
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#57 Post by zedz » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:34 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:02 pm
There does seem to be a prevailing attitude among some here that conservatives ought to be oppressed.
But wasn't the thread predicated on the claims by a specific conservative that they actually are oppressed? As far as I can tell from this distance, that oppression is a chimera.

I can see knives' original point, but I can also see how equating imaginary oppression against a profoundly privileged group with actual, historical and ongoing oppression of a vulnerable minority is inflammatory and insensitive.

Nobody is realistically advocating oppression of conservatives (how would one even go about that, given societal power dynamics?), whereas the advocation of oppression of minorities often has a direct relationship to real-world discrimination. I don't see the rhetorical flourish of "maybe conservatives should have a taste of their own medicine" as really equivalent to the actual serious political work of undermining the rights of non-white, non-male, non-straight communities, and think it's wrong to act as if they're even in the same category.

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Brian C
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#58 Post by Brian C » Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:24 am

zedz wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:34 pm
I don't see the rhetorical flourish of "maybe conservatives should have a taste of their own medicine" as really equivalent to the actual serious political work of undermining the rights of non-white, non-male, non-straight communities, and think it's wrong to act as if they're even in the same category.
"Maybe conservatives should have a taste of their own medicine" is, for better or worse, an actual position with actual political implications. Describing it as a mere "rhetorical flourish" seems disingenuous to me.

Of course it's true that societal power dynamics favor conservatives in a lot of ways, but to me that obvious fact makes "maybe they should have a taste of their own medicine" an irresponsible position to advocate. This kind of eye-for-an-eye thinking is always going to benefit the more powerful side, so even aside from the moral/ethical considerations, I think it's just kind of a dumb and counterproductive thing for a progressive to say.

I'm skeptical of Allen's claims of oppression, as I expressed earlier in the thread, but at the same time, I think it would be clearly wrong for conservatives to be fired because of their political views. There's actually a good progressive response to this! Which is that it should generally be much difficult to fire people for reasons other than demonstrable job-related reasons. I'm not sure if most foreigners know how absurdly easy it is for an employer to fire someone for literally no reason in most of this country, but frankly I like the idea of using conservative claims of oppression to further the fight for better job security for exactly the marginalized groups that people in this thread are trying to protect.

onedimension
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#59 Post by onedimension » Thu Jun 20, 2019 1:03 am

Conservatives aren't structurally oppressed in any way, and they're usually indifferent to, in denial about, or rationalizing of the oppression of other people.

They are, though, subject to increasingly strong social pressures and prejudices. And I more often hear liberals articulating an acrid, vengeful moralism.

The social status of conservatives is complicated, too, because the president is somehow simultaneously ordinary in his bite and horrific in his barking.

It's not a cycle of conflict with a visible off-ramp..

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furbicide
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#60 Post by furbicide » Thu Jun 20, 2019 2:27 am

DeprongMori wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:09 pm
a) One chooses to be “conservative”. One does not choose to be LGBTQ.
Is that actually true, though? Did you really choose your politics?

I accept that the "Republicans are the new gay people" is a bit of a bad analogy in several ways, but I also think some of the responses here – "Republicans are bad people and therefore deserve what they get" – are a bit alarming. Like, you do know you have to share a society with these people, right? You can't just pretend they don't exist.
Brian C wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:24 am
There's actually a good progressive response to this! Which is that it should generally be much difficult to fire people for reasons other than demonstrable job-related reasons. I'm not sure if most foreigners know how absurdly easy it is for an employer to fire someone for literally no reason in most of this country, but frankly I like the idea of using conservative claims of oppression to further the fight for better job security for exactly the marginalized groups that people in this thread are trying to protect.
Well said! Also, I suspect that this problem (insofar as it exists) has a lot to do with cliques and cronyism; in Hollywood, you get in if you know someone, if your Dad was friends with someone else's Dad, etc. Forget Republicans; that's a problem that affects a much broader group of people, and it only serves as a means of perpetuating class privilege. Fighting for stronger workplace rights, fairer hiring practices, etc., etc., would solve a lot of these issues.

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MichaelB
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#61 Post by MichaelB » Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:20 am

Mr Sausage wrote:What this thread has taught me:

1. Oppression is reprehensible.

2. Except when it's against your outgroup. Then it's fine.
British Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn is a very keen advocate of these principles.

If you’re Palestinian, then you’re automatically a victim worthy of every form of support and assistance, even if you’re a keen supporter of or even an active member of Hamas and fully subscribe to their somewhat negative opinions of Jews and indeed homosexuals. However, if you’re Venezuelan and have the temerity to even so much as question the government’s economic policies, fuck you.

(Corbyn even used the Trumpian “violence on both sides” formula to wriggle out of criticising his beloved President Maduro.)

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Lost Highway
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#62 Post by Lost Highway » Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:01 am

furbicide wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 2:27 am
DeprongMori wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:09 pm
a) One chooses to be “conservative”. One does not choose to be LGBTQ.
Is that actually true, though? Did you really choose your politics?

I accept that the "Republicans are the new gay people" is a bit of a bad analogy in several ways, but I also think some of the responses here – "Republicans are bad people and therefore deserve what they get" – are a bit alarming. Like, you do know you have to share a society with these people, right? You can't just pretend they don't exist.
Brian C wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:24 am
There's actually a good progressive response to this! Which is that it should generally be much difficult to fire people for reasons other than demonstrable job-related reasons. I'm not sure if most foreigners know how absurdly easy it is for an employer to fire someone for literally no reason in most of this country, but frankly I like the idea of using conservative claims of oppression to further the fight for better job security for exactly the marginalized groups that people in this thread are trying to protect.
Well said! Also, I suspect that this problem (insofar as it exists) has a lot to do with cliques and cronyism; in Hollywood, you get in if you know someone, if your Dad was friends with someone else's Dad, etc. Forget Republicans; that's a problem that affects a much broader group of people, and it only serves as a means of perpetuating class privilege. Fighting for stronger workplace rights, fairer hiring practices, etc., etc., would solve a lot of these issues.
I’m not even going to get into another inane comparison between being gay and not being able to help your politics but to the second point:

There are certain jobs in Hollywood where nepotism might help you to get your foot in the door (we’ve heard of acting dynasties and some people who work in production jobs started as runners or with internships facilitated by relatives, lovers, etc.) but even then, if you aren’t doing your job well, you are not going to have a long, successful career. For every Bryce Dallas Howard there is a Thanee Welch.

The vast majority of jobs in Hollywood require a high skill set on an artistic and/or technical level. I’ve worked in special effects and animation for three decades and you need to be genuinely talented in those fields. These are the 99% of Hollywood jobs. I’ve worked with people recruited from all over the US and the world, of all types of religious and political persuasions, all of them got their jobs because they were outstanding talents in their field. Your daddy is not going to make you a talented animator, technical director, designer, editor, DOP, composer, etc. If you happen to be a gifted character animator and a Trump voter, as long as you are not haranguing liberals about your political persuasion, you will be in demand. Genuine talents in that field are like gold dust.

People here appear to be under the impression that every job in Hollywood is movie star or studio executive.

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knives
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#63 Post by knives » Thu Jun 20, 2019 6:43 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:17 pm
How about -- conservatives ought not be coddled when their (always very very tender) feelings of self-importance are injured by having to not treat groups they despise fairly? I frankly don't care that it hurts their feelings when they are criticized for speaking (and acting) cruelly to folks who are genuinely oppressed.
This certainly seems the most reasonable position and a bit of what I was advocating for earlier with education. People shouldn't lose their work over political views, i.e. not actions, but if someone does express something hateful correct them on it in a way that educates them without making them resentful.

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Mr Sausage
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The Conservative Closet

#64 Post by Mr Sausage » Thu Jun 20, 2019 6:54 am

zedz wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:34 pm
Mr Sausage wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:02 pm
There does seem to be a prevailing attitude among some here that conservatives ought to be oppressed.
But wasn't the thread predicated on the claims by a specific conservative that they actually are oppressed? As far as I can tell from this distance, that oppression is a chimera.

I can see knives' original point, but I can also see how equating imaginary oppression against a profoundly privileged group with actual, historical and ongoing oppression of a vulnerable minority is inflammatory and insensitive.

Nobody is realistically advocating oppression of conservatives (how would one even go about that, given societal power dynamics?), whereas the advocation of oppression of minorities often has a direct relationship to real-world discrimination. I don't see the rhetorical flourish of "maybe conservatives should have a taste of their own medicine" as really equivalent to the actual serious political work of undermining the rights of non-white, non-male, non-straight communities, and think it's wrong to act as if they're even in the same category.
Brian C did a an excellent job of answering this, but just so I don't seem to be silent about it, I'll add: punching upward has a real pitfall. It's hard to know at what point it stops being upward. History affords many examples of oppressed groups who, on gaining power, turn into oppressors of precisely the kind they had fought against.

Presuming your own righteousness is dangerous because it easily becomes a justification of the kind that says: 'It's ok when I do it; I have right on my side.' As I've been trying to point out, your out-group feels the same way about its own motives, and that's driven how they've treated you. That in itself ought to make people rethink if that's really the playbook they want to use.

The basic, and I would think uncontroversial, point here is that in-group/out-group mentalities produce ugly and dangerous thinking that leads us nowhere good. We should be skeptical of righteous and ungenerous thinking, in others but especially in ourselves, because oppressive groups have long trafficked in it. Replying to that with some version of "We're just punching upward; it has no weight behind it" is to admit that your positions aren't determined by principle, but by historical or social happenstance. If the excesses of your out-group are driven by attitudes you yourself hold, it's probably a good idea to reframe some things, whether your group poses any realistic threat to anything or not.

Progressives have historically been against oppression. I think that ought to apply across the board, including to their enemies and oppressors. This is a pretty banal and obvious point, I know, but it needs to be reaffirmed every now and then.
Deeprong Mori wrote:And mine was on the objective relative merits of those views.
Your point was that you think your in-group is doing the good one and your out-group is doing the bad one. My point is that your out-group thinks it’s doing the good one and you are doing the bad one. I think that's important to recognize.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#65 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jun 20, 2019 6:58 am

knives - I suspect it is often (maybe most of the time) impossible to correct today's diehard conservatives respectfully without causing them to feel angry and resentful.

mr sausage - In America we are still many decades from any (probably remote) possibility of White Christian conservatives being actually oppressed - but they are already using their _ feelings_ of being oppressed to justify _actually_ hurting people far less powerful than themselves.

I believe in treating people respectfully for MY own benefit, but I see no evidence that it makes any real difference in communicating with trumpian Americans.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#66 Post by Mr Sausage » Thu Jun 20, 2019 7:51 am

Michael Kerpan wrote: but they are already using their _ feelings_ of being oppressed to justify _actually_ hurting people far less powerful than themselves.
Seems pretty well in keeping with everything I just said.

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knives
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#67 Post by knives » Thu Jun 20, 2019 8:29 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 6:58 am
knives - I suspect it is often (maybe most of the time) impossible to correct today's diehard conservatives respectfully without causing them to feel angry and resentful.
I actually feel qualified to talk about this as I used to do outreach of the kind I am describing with actual skinheads, trying to convince a guy with white power tattoos that gay people are normal through Nabakov is the single weirdest moment of my life, and I think was actually very easy to get them to appreciate my points without their getting upset. It's slow work, but it in the long term succeeds better than osterization.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#68 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jun 20, 2019 9:13 am

knives -- I don't think most folks have the skills (or the time) to engage in this kind of intensive, long range dialog.

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Brian C
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#69 Post by Brian C » Thu Jun 20, 2019 9:32 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:knives -- I don't think most folks have the skills (or the time) to engage in this kind of intensive, long range dialog.
I think this thread (and ones like it all over the internet) supports the notion that a good number of folks lack the inclination more than anything.

Progressives love more than anything to talk about how popular their ideas are and how well those ideas all poll and about how conservatives are always voting against their self-interests. And while it’s definitely true that there are enormous structural barriers in place towards moving policy leftward, it’s also true that we progressives just really, really suck at convincing people to vote our way. But I mean, who has the skill and the time to do that, right?

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Re: The Conservative Closet

#70 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Jun 20, 2019 9:46 am

Brian -- Research has shown that present-day American hard-core conservatives usually cannot be swayed from their beliefs by facts (no matter how solid these may be). How does one even attempt to persuade people who live in a fact-impermeable bubble of false reality?

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knives
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#71 Post by knives » Thu Jun 20, 2019 9:54 am

By talking to them and breaking the bubbles. That said and going to my original point eve if you don't want to engage in that dialogue not saying oppressive things like you should have limited job opportunities for expressing your opinion is a good start.

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HJackson
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#72 Post by HJackson » Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:24 am

There's a world of difference between opening up dialogue, and setting out to "persuade" or "convince" people that you're right about everything and their view of the world is a lie sustained by a fact-impermeable bubble of false reality.

It's obvious from the tone of Kerpan's posts that he's not interested in dialogue with conservatives at all, where dialogue implies a good faith exchange of ideas, and that insofar as he can ever see himself dirtying his hands by interacting with them at all it's to educate them in a schoolmarm-like manner out of their erroneous beliefs - which he, being specially capable of discerning truth from falsity as a True Believing Liberal, can of course identify with perfect and pinpoint accuracy and handily refute with rock-solid and incontrovertible facts if only those damn fools would listen.

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Brian C
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#73 Post by Brian C » Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:38 am

HJackson wrote:It's obvious from the tone of Kerpan's posts that he's not interested in dialogue with conservatives at all, where dialogue implies a good faith exchange of ideas, and that insofar as he can ever see himself dirtying his hands by interacting with them at all it's to educate them in a schoolmarm-like manner out of their erroneous beliefs - which he, being specially capable of discerning truth from falsity as a True Believing Liberal, can of course identify with perfect and pinpoint accuracy and handily refute with rock-solid and incontrovertible facts if only those damn fools would listen.
Which is ironic, because he’s also asserting that liberals are too stupid and lazy ... er, don’t have the skill or time ... to do the job effectively in the first place.

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swo17
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Re: The Conservative Closet

#74 Post by swo17 » Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:45 am

You need to make friends with a person (or perhaps get them to fall in love with you!) before they will make themselves vulnerable enough to reconsider their deeply held worldviews. And even then, the "conversion" won't necessarily come through words but rather by them seeing your actions and wanting to identify more with you. I've seen it happen. It's happened to me.

Obviously "conservative oppression" to the extent that it even exists is not directly comparable to anything else, but I think statements like this one made earlier in the thread risk building it into a real valid thing:
There are A TON of closet conservatives in Hollywood of course. Most have the good sense to keep their thoughts to themselves for the sake of their careers.

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Re: The Conservative Closet

#75 Post by Foam » Thu Jun 20, 2019 11:07 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 9:46 am
Brian -- Research has shown that present-day American hard-core conservatives usually cannot be swayed from their beliefs by facts (no matter how solid these may be). How does one even attempt to persuade people who live in a fact-impermeable bubble of false reality?
Maybe we should be looking to people like Daryl Davis, a black bluesman who has spent the last 30 years befriending Klansmen and getting them to give up their robes.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/54486193 ... heir-robes

How many reviews have I seen of American History X from woke Letterboxd reviewers alleging that the film is stupid since it's naive to think that a a Neo-Nazi and a black guy could ever realistically become friends? Maybe not so naive after all.

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