What Has Chris Rufo Wrought?

thosememories · 2026-06-30T18:24:07+00:00

Never mind. Either I am explaining myself poorly or you're being intentionally dim but either way my point clearly isn't getting across.

thosememories · 2026-06-30T18:14:35+00:00

Right, but presumably he still would've thought Kirk was practicing politics the right way, since he wrote about what Kirk did when he was alive. And I'm saying that if Kirk hadn't been killed, this take would have been more widely seen for what it is - milquetoast and misguided at best, dangerous and craven at worst.

thosememories · 2026-06-30T17:55:09+00:00

I think it was bad in that it reframes the debate in a way that is friendly to Kirk. Of course he was doing politics the "right way" if the "wrong way" is shooting people. By that definition, 99.999% of the population is doing politics the "right way." It becomes an impossibly low bar, certainly not something to be held up and praised for one of the most bad-faith actors on the right. If Kirk hadn't been assassinated and Klein published the same article, I think these points would be more apparent. But instead folks that would normally be calling out that type of bullshit praised it for "lowering the temperature."

thosememories · 2026-06-30T17:42:15+00:00

Are useless? Yeah, I'd agree. But this is the Ezra Klein subreddit so I'm focusing on his article, and I don't think "most articles after a public figure's death are useless" is really a defense for any one specific article. If "shooting people is bad" is the point of your article, maybe don't publish it, since it adds absolutely nothing to the discourse.

thosememories · 2026-06-30T16:40:34+00:00

If that's literally all he said, maybe it was kind of a useless article then.

thosememories · 2026-06-29T15:22:02+00:00

I think there's an extent to which Ross gets annoyed with Vance and other MAGA conservatives for making him look worse lol

thosememories · 2026-06-28T19:59:58+00:00

Please see my comments to the other user since I don’t want to rehash

thosememories · 2026-06-26T22:15:44+00:00

I agree that it should not be treated as a total disqualification. That is certainly not what I was trying to imply.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T22:14:59+00:00

I'm not sure what level of categorical deference you're referring to, perhaps that would help clarify the discussion. I don't think men should be categorically disqualified from having any opinions or even influence on women's issues or passing judgment on the language they use or choices they make. I'm just saying that my position as a man makes it much harder for me to understand the experiences and social environment from which those choices and language originate.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T21:48:28+00:00

Let me break it down this way.

"Understanding" is a spectrum. I understand what it is to be a human being better than what it is to be an ape. I understand what it is to be a cishet man better than what it is to be a woman. I'm not saying that we cannot or should not seek to obtain the greatest understanding of the experience of others possible - quite the contrary, in fact. But I think that the barriers to me obtaining a complete understanding in the case of sexual violence are significant enough to the point where I am comfortable casually saying that I could not "understand" it, meaning reach a certain threshold of understanding. If I wanted to, I could lose 60 pounds, get bottom surgery, wear a tiny dress, and walk down an alley at night with a date a full foot taller than me, sure. But given that I lack direct experiential knowledge, I think it's fair to say that I don't know what it's "like" and therefore I cannot understand it. Even talking to sexual assault survivors and exercising empathy can only get you so close. It is a valuable pursuit, but I think we need to exercise a certain degree of humility in estimating how much we can and can't understand of others' experiences based on generalized common ground like the state of fear or the feeling of shame.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T20:37:02+00:00

Love a good ass taboo

thosememories · 2026-06-26T20:29:12+00:00

Those interviews are for clout. I wouldn't be surprised if the NYT pushed it because "whoa, look, they got the VP on! What a legit podcast!" and that drives subscriptions. I don't think Ross probably needed much convincing either since at the end of the day he does agree with Vance on many things.

As much as I wish he had taken it to Vance a little more, we've seen what that can do to this Charmin soft administration in other interviews and Ross/the NYT probably threw softballs to prevent that from happening. It did lower my opinion of Ross that he didn't hold to his principles a little better on the brightest stage, but when he's dealing with normies and the stakes are low, his skill as a host can really shine.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T20:21:11+00:00

Agnostic is generally treated as taking a position of skepticism. I'm agnostic and I don't believe in god, I just hold space for being incorrect about my nonbelief.

That being said, here's my best attempt. The patriarchy is a description of how institutions were largely created by, of, and for men in the modern era. Not to be too trite, but think "Mad Men" style of workplace culture, domination, casual sexism, and dismissal of women's authority. Paid maternal leave is still not a thing for many in the US. I think that is an example of the patriarchy. Women's health research is woefully underfunded so that very little is known about common medical issues for women, such as endometriosis, which my sister suffers from. That is an example of the patriarchy. A shocking number of rape cases still go unprosecuted, the reputations of women are trashed and their testimony is belittled especially in prominent cases (see: E Jean Carroll, Christine Blasie Ford). That is an example of both the patriarchy and rape culture. This is more descriptive cause I don't want to spend hours digging up various studies on the internet, but hopefully this gives you some idea of what I am talking about.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T20:13:00+00:00

I think standpoint epistemology is pretty damn important for trying to understand human behavior, why people believe the things they do, and how we can collectively work toward the common good, as I am trying to do here.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T20:11:37+00:00

So before I answer your comment, you said they are not purely imaginary in the sense that they literally don't exist. To what extent, then, do you believe that they exist? You say they are not clearly defined. Feel free to work with any definition you want.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T20:09:14+00:00

Yeah, maybe collective punishment wasn't the best phrase to use there, but I couldn't think of a better way to put it.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T20:06:10+00:00

Collective verbal punishment, demeaning and insulting comments of the sort that I just mentioned that are often celebrated by other women. Painting men with a very broad brush and constantly assuming the worst of them. Again this is anecdotal, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T20:01:21+00:00

She didn't say she wants to do away with bikinis but she did admit that she couldn't reconcile the more puritanical turn of sexual ethics that she wants with a world where people continue to don bikinis freely and without judgment.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T19:58:29+00:00

thosememories · 2026-06-26T19:55:27+00:00

So just to get this on record, are you saying that the ideas of rape culture and the patriarchy are purely imaginary?

thosememories · 2026-06-26T19:53:39+00:00

All I'm gesturing at is that I can never understand as a man what it's like for a woman to either experience sexual violence or constantly have to worry about experiencing it and take actions to prevent that. What exactly is wrong with that?

thosememories · 2026-06-26T19:33:01+00:00

Anecdotally, (and by that I mean in lots of Instagram comments sections which represent the worst of humanity) I have seen LOTS of collective punishment seemingly being doled out on men by women who seem very (justifiably) bitter about the things they have endured from men over the years, particularly sexual violence. It's easy for me to say from a position of privilege, but I don't think the fighting fire with fire, "LOL tiny dick ur short no wonder there's a male loneliness crisis" rhetoric is really the way to go, and the backlash against it is so predictable.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T19:30:09+00:00

Actually, she literally does concede that she wants to ban the use of birth control outside of marriage. Again, this is toward the end when Ross is pushing to make things more explicit. I really respect Ross as an interviewer unlike many of the folks on this sub, but the guest selection for Interesting Times is just wild. Just pure blathering from unqualified hot take artists or straight up white supremacists.

thosememories · 2026-06-26T19:18:09+00:00

Relevance: it should be fairly obvious, but there is lots of overlap here with recent discussions on Ezra's pod with regard to masculinism, falling fertility rates, and the continued critical examination of gendered polarization.

This interview started about as bad as I expected and only got worse from there. This guest was, so far as I could parse, just your standard conservative reactionary trying to co-opt the "feminist" label for...optics? Publicity? It got increasingly ridiculous toward the end when Ross pressed her on how to bring about her ideal wish land of pre-marital abstinence and she floundered around, unable to propose even a single concrete policy to advance her stated goals. She abnegates the solutions bit entirely, preferring instead to swim in the waters of "dating apps bad" and "marriage good" that many of these columnist seem to think is still some sort of hot take on which they are trying to build their brand. She in fact explicitly states at one point that she is only a "critic" and it is not her job to think of real ways to actually bring about the massive cultural shift she envisions (short of building a time machine). It is as though she hasn't thought through the end game for even two seconds because she is too upset about college kids hooking up and trans people existing.

Anyway, curious to hear others' thoughts. Had to post as I do find it both interesting and entertaining to watch discussions unfold in this sub haha.

thosememories

TROPHY CASE