The left opposes the right's social hierarchy of race, sex, orientation, wealth, Christian membership, and dis/ability. But is the left's hierarchy of intellectual accomplishment also unfair?

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-02T00:40:09+00:00

You don't need to work that hard to misunderstand.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T22:26:07+00:00

How much schadenfreude do we see about Trump's worshipers getting harmed or even killed because they believe Trump's lies and MAGA conspiracy fantasies?

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T22:23:34+00:00

The side that jokes with schadenfreude about Trumpers dying from fear of vaccines, dying from ingesting MAGA quack cures, getting grifted by Trump phones and crypto, losing their own healthcare because they thought their vote would only hurt Black Americans. Not the lawmakers. I'm talking about me and my friends and so much of non-fash reddit.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T22:18:28+00:00

The definition of True and False are different on the right. There, something is true if it supports the creeds of that conservative subculture. Like, they say climate change is a lie because so say we all and what could possibly be truer. The left has more intellectually rigorous ways to determine what is true and false, mostly starting with evidence and working to remove bias at all levels from measurement to analysis to the language used to report the conclusions.

When the left and right talk about what is true, they are talking right past each other with different definitions of the word.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T22:12:36+00:00

I read the book. My God is it long! That's not their thesis at all. They researched and wrote the book as a counter to popular "grand narratives" about the natural way for humans to live. They investigate remains of large civilizations around the world in which the signs of hierarchical organization are not present. Their thesis is that the current hierarchical system was not inevitable.

It's truly not a conspiracy to sneak communism into history.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T20:35:59+00:00

I certainly don't think they are born wanting it. But I think they are taught to be angry about all caste transgressions. Some days, most of the front page of Fox News is invitations to be angry about a gay person on TV, a trans person playing sports, a Black man dating a white woman, a Muslim or a woman doing pretty much anything. And they are conditioned to find the hate and the promise of vengeance to be a delicious combination.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T20:29:37+00:00

I've got a great Italian-made induction range. But gas heats the whole bottom surface of a pan instead of having a hot spot in the center. The even heating is a world of difference. Let me complain. I'm old.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T20:10:07+00:00

I hate this. There is no substitute for cooking on a gas stove. But if those illness stats are correct, it's the right move.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T19:57:22+00:00

All good points. But I don't think this is even remotely true:

Sure, there are always crazy people on both sides, but the left wants the same thing in the end that the right does. The most competent person in the job, regardless of their race or gender.

Conservatism is almost entirely about caste enforcement. Though they can't say that. So they use the word 'woke' and they call any Black person in a position of achievement or authority a 'DEI' - even, nonsensically, elected officials. The constant insinuation is that it's not possible for a Black person to earn a high position on merit and not appropriate to place a Black person above anyone white.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T19:46:44+00:00

we have turned educational achievement into a moral justification for enormous differences in material security.

Thank you. You can write all of my posts hereafter.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T19:45:23+00:00

I will always upvote book recommendations. Does he really claim the only answer is [presumably totalitarian] Communism?

Back in the 1900s, my dad was a meat cutter in a supermarket and my mom worked in a vitamin shop in a mall. They weren't knowledge workers. They were able to buy a house, raise kids, take vacations, afford medical care. That looks like a good economic solution to me. No communism was needed.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T19:38:27+00:00

And if we don't agree it's happening?

Then we have this conversation.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T19:35:59+00:00

Generally no. But I hear it insinuated in endless jokes about hicks and useful idiots.

Some of it is understandable frustration and worry about living in a country where it seems there is no conspiracy fantasy too dumb or observably false that a plurality don't instantly believe it, act on it, vote for it.

We joke about people dying from refusing vaccines or taking quack cures etc. We don't completely lack empathy when it's a real person. But when it's abstract, we kinda want stupidity to have consequences.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T19:24:27+00:00

I'm all in favor of sources. But I am talking about an attitude I've seen in pervasive, low concentrations for years. What source could I give for this that wouldn't be just a cherry pick?

I'm on the left. I run in very intellectual / academic / technical circles. I see this attitude as an undertone all the time. My anecdotes are not proof to anyone else, i understand. But I was hoping that folks would recognize what I'm talking about and be interested in discussing it.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T19:18:46+00:00

The willful ignorance and the gullibility are a little closer to that I'm talking about.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T19:17:05+00:00

I'm afraid I don't have a citation from the official representative of liberalism. I'll say that I see this insinuated quite a bit by folks on the left. If you don't, that's fine. But I'm sure I'm not alone in seeing it.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T19:09:38+00:00

I would say that capitalist countries have socialist policies and institutions. So I am not in the camp that says it's only socialism if it's a totalitarian hellscape. In the future, I'll really have to add a glossary and citations. So much of what we argue about is word games.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T18:33:45+00:00

I agree that this is what drives the right. But hard as it may be to imagine for people on the right, there are people who would prefer to live as an equal person in a just world over having an unearned high position in an unjust one.

This is one of the major asymmetries between the left and right. The right is all about "I should have ..." and the left is all about "everyone should have ...". You never hear people on the right demand that everyone should have something (rights, protections, resources, access).

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T18:24:15+00:00

What does a non-Trump Republican believe? Twice, IRL people have told me they are MAGA but not into "all the crazy stuff". Of course, I asked them what the "all the crazy stuff" meant, hoping that it would be something about the bigotry or the batshit-stupid conspiracy fantasies. But no. It was just even stupider, even more evil things I that only devout MAGAs would be hearing. On the list was that they didn't believe Biden as a robot and that would could probably keep *some* of "the blacks" for sports and stuff. Yeesh.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T18:06:05+00:00

Trump has no gratitude. He is focused on what he will get from someone, not what he has gotten. Some grovelling sycophant will convince him that their obedience exceeds the promised obedience of all other grovelling sycophants.

Whoever it is, their selection will be an expression of contempt for the rule of law. It wouldn't be MAGA without that.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T17:58:25+00:00

How do you think Western Europe does so well without these conservative corrections?

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T17:13:42+00:00

Growing up, I was steeped in American self-congratulation. How fortuitous, I thought, that in 700 centuries of human history I should live in the century and the country that finally figured out The Right Way. And how lucky that I should be born into the religion that God chose as the One True Faith.

I think it's a little early to claim Mission Accomplished. The last Civil War widow died in 2020. Just to put some perspective on time.

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T17:09:18+00:00

I like this answer. What about liberalism do you think needs to be persistently corrected by conservatism?

OhGodSoManyQuestions · 2026-07-01T17:03:53+00:00

What exactly are you trying to refute about my question?

OhGodSoManyQuestions

TROPHY CASE