I honestly don't really disagree with anything in this post. I think what I may have meant is a very high percentage of the people here are within the same spectrum of the left, with a strong intolerance of mid-far right ideas or influences.
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Can We Just Admit that Joe Rogan is Alt-Right Already?
- Thread starter BWoog
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I honestly don't really disagree with anything in this post. I think what I may have meant is a very high percentage of the people here are within the same spectrum of the left, with a strong intolerance of mid-far right ideas or influences.
Ted Nugent isn't alt right and he's mocked and called for the harm of non-whites. It really is just a term of rebranding.
i dunno if you consider Alex Jones alt-right. Probably not Steven Crowder?
the only one i can think of is Jordan Peterson that ppl like to call Alt-right (although i literally have no idea what his views on race are)
he interviewed Ted Nugent recently, i dunno if ppl consider him alt-right or not
Heather Heyer was white wasn't she?
so by your definition that wouldn't make them alt-right
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You would need to define what mid-far right ideas or influences are to you. If it's anything to do with racial superiority, ethnic nationalism, racism, people not being seen as equals, homophobia and the likes no, it's not tolerated. Why should it be?
The thing that's causing a few distress and confusion is what I alluded to earlier. There's a small minority who may call themselves Conservatives, who are young, and maybe are far more liberal and tolerant than their parents generations around gay marriage, equality, LGBT and so on. The divergence from calling themselves part of the left is the free speech hill. They claim the left is very authoritarian in aspects of debate/discussion/what you watch/what games you like/etc. Merely saying you laughed at some politically incorrect comedians joke = you are a Nazi or something like that. Intellectual honesty is to call said comedian what you think they are without resorting to hyperbole. You can criticize someone without thinking everyone who you see as an asshole is also alt-right/a Nazi.
That's not true, not as a blanket generalization. Some of the so-called liberals or Conservative youth simply weaponize some examples of people on this side being a bit crazy and then imply it's all of us. For example they would take this topic and say look at everyone on the left saying Joe Rogan is a literal Nazi, therefore, this is why we abandoned the left and you should too.
Dave Rubin's made a good career packaging that idea and running with it. It's just not intellectually honest to take some people from one side and imply everyone is like that. Even then, if you are being honest about how progressive you are around many issues, you can't escape that many of the political figures on the right are still very intolerant towards LGBT/race/etc, even if some of them have gotten better in recent generations. Who you vote for means you get all the bad with the good. It's not something to piss away without serious consideration. For example, voting for Trump to give it to political correctness was about as careless as you could ever be politically. You get EVERYTHING with Trump and his party members/choices.
Hence me joking just because I cherry pick some Rogan podcasts with guests I'm interested in, doesn't mean I wake up the next day and shout I'm abandoning the left and voting for the Tories. I don't agree with everything the SNP do, but for many important issues, I see them as progressing a country in the right way. Same with Labour, but I support Scottish Independence so I'd like to see that in my lifetime and vote SNP.
Funnily enough that gets me called a Nationalist, but you'd have to be incredibly ill-advised politically to suggest Scottish people supporting independence = ethnonationalism.
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They are both Canadian and I don't think Gladwell is doing anything with malicious intent, he just cherry picks some pretty benign ideas from Peterson in the podcast and then uses Sam Harris as a... movie psychologist. Just seems like he could have used someone else or not mentioned them for the content he was trying to do.
That's another solid point that is rarely addressed in these conversations: white supremacists kill white people everyday, b.
I suppose those are just broken eggs to business people, school shooters and the people who don't take terrorism in this country seriously because of the race of the terrorists(nearly all of mainstream media, most all politicians)
I agree that calling this forum very far-left in it´s entirety is incorrect. My first thought would be to label ERA as very left, too though because there is a group of very loud people who subscribe to very "progressive" ideals. At least it looks that way.
There is probably a big "center-ish" majority here that never says much in political threads.
There are people in this very thread, for multiple pages on end, who not only disagree with the OP, but have vehemently detailed why such an assertion is incorrect.
So, perhaps this place isn't as much an "echo chamber" as you claim to be
Nuance is dead. Unless Rogan starts espousing white nationalist ideals, then no he isn't alt-right. He has a wide range of guests on his show and doesn't really claim to be intelligent at all. The guy is just good foil to let people keep talking, some of his guests are pieces of human excrement, others can be super interesting. I doubt too many people listen to his guests and say I'm going to abandon all my existing values just because I heard what Gavin McInnes had to say.
Basically:
If your father beats you, it's because your mother is a careless whore.
You can't get laid? It's because women are careless whores.
Women get sexually harassed at work? It's because they're careless whores.
Nelson Muntz bullies Bart Simpson? It's because nelson's mother was a careless whore.
Society seems to be crumbling all around you? It's because women are careless whores.
He's incel Jesus, and his empty toddler-level self help platitudes of 'tidy your room', and 'stand up straight' are not really aimed at 'helping' anyone.
This is pretty good.
Also, when you do have communities that skew fairly notably to left or right, you get a certain amount of self-eating. With the right, you see it expressed in things like ludicrous hyperpatriotism, calling Republicans RINOs because they happened to compromise with liberals on an issue, etc.
It seems more common with the left these days. "You debated with the enemy!?!? Heresy!!!"
As a socialist-minded individual with deep issues with the trajectory of the country regarding institutional racism, Citizens United, etc, it's a little despairing to see extremist infighting bubble over that tends to reduce the quality and intelligence value of debate and conversation. It's perfectly okay to detest evil, while I feel it's not particularly valuable to demand that everyone subscribe to an identical stance of confrontation and conformity, as if there is only a single allowed perspective on everything. Thinking that way seems to guarantee division, which guarantees weakness.
Sorry, I meant to say victims, and I edited my definition.
I did look through /pol/ when charlottesville happened out of curiosity, and they were mostly just mocking this picture
http://i./i/pix/2017/08/13/13/433547B400000578-0-image-m-9_1502628468808.jpg
I didn't know the confirmed casualty was white.
You're assuming literally half this forum ever reads anything past the OP before posting.
Really? There are literally millions of people on the left and you'd probably find the vast majority are not careless in saying a descriptor such as Nazi. As many say, go off the internet and see if average people in public are calling lots of people Nazi's. Then again an issue discovered in this topic is some don't see alt-right and Nazi as always interchangeable, whereas others do. My understanding was alt-right was white supremacy and/or some form of being a Neo-Nazi.
There's also nothing wrong with subscribing to progressive ideals, the best interpretation of what you just said is thinking you might not like how confrontational or in your face some people here can be. You've just got to get used to it and try and hold your own. To be quite honest compared to Twitter or Facebook Era will be a dream. If anyone does verge into blatant name calling or out of control aggression they probably will get slapped here, even if they are arguing the progressive argument. The rest of social media will have people non-stop threatening to attack each other or just non-stop verbal abuse lol.
The forum is left-leaning, hardly far-left. I don't think some people understand what far-left even means. That could be a geographical issue at times. Like me earlier highlighting how some basic ass socialised healthcare that most of Europe has, see's some Americans go right to "that's far-left communism".
I don´t know if this post was in opposition to mine or making a more detailed argument based upon the same grounds? I basically agree with everything you wrote.
Crossed wires I think. I read this as you were surprised
Whereas I think a little bit of a challenge for the OP would be expected, even within a left-leaning forum. Primarily because some will ask by alt-right do you mean white nationalist/Neo-Nazi? A few other posters have just come in and blatantly use the Nazi descriptor.
"This forum is an echo chamber."
"I can't be actually bothered to read stuff on this forum, I'm just going to drop my take and leave."
"I demand my opinion be given the same weight and consideration as other people who've spent much more time on the same topic."
In recent times I've come to think that "echo chamber" is shorthand for "I don't really read threads I just skim the titles, form a preconception of how the thread is going to go, and then assume that's what actually happened, proving the existence of an echo chamber".
The fucking funny thing is that if there's anything that's echoing here it's the idea that people are calling Joe a Nazi literally. Would anybody care to quote all the people in this thread that have said as much?
Except in the Rogan interview where he literally says "If women consistently don't like you, then clearly it's you."
Sweet jesus, this forum.
Only a few have, the bigger issue is arguing the definition of alt-right as for some alt-right = Nazi/Neo-Nazi. Whereas for others alt-right does just seem to be the new way to say Conservative/some who politically might have some right-wing views.
A lot of folks on political ERA are desperately trying to ensure anyone with centrist or right-leaning ideas are labeled alt-right, knowing full well the cultural consensus already marries "alt-right" with "racist." They also feed each other's silly notions through echo-chamber threads on this forum. It's not everyone, but it's definitely some of the loudest. I'm about as liberal as all get out, and this forums puts me off consistently with its utterly vehement, toxic rhetoric. Good thing non-political threads and the VG side are generally great.
I'm no lover of the guy (I've not even seen his show) but I think the key detail that makes one a Nazi or White Supremacist is, respectively, believing in the tenets of National 'Socialism' or believing in the superiority of the white race. If he doesn't believe in these (for want of a much better word) 'principles', I don't think we can legitimately label him as either, can we?
You'll think I'm splitting hairs here, but while enabling their racist shit is fucking awful, it's a very different level of awful to actually being a Nazi or White Supremacist. By your rationale, the BBC are Nazis/White Supremacists for having Nick Griffin on Question Time back in the day. I have my problems with them, sure, but it is hard to argue the BBC is a Nazi institution.
I personally don't think he's alt-right. I think he's an incredibly curious dullard who is highly succeptible to conspiracies and shallow philosophies and has simply been mining the motherlode of those things and reached the logical conclusion of that endeavor. He may as well be alt-right but he could just as easily have become a Scientologist.
The issue is that if people consider "centrists" to be part of the alt right or not. By centrists I mean people who look at "both sides" (though largely that means shitting on the left) platform folks who have utterly abhorrent views with no regard to the consequences of doing such. For example we already have somebody in this thread saying Peterson's a stand-up guy solely because he was featured on the show. Did Joe manage to say anything about Petersons view on incels that nobody else had before, does Peterson or his fanbase care about the critiques? I fucking doubt it, because Peterson's fanbase respond to critiques by saying that people just aren't smart enough to understand Peterson. At the same time it's likely new people have been introduced to Peterson through Joe and Joe's legitimising Peterson. So the issue is if somebody's going out of their way to legitimise the alt-right does that make them complaint to the movement? I honestly think it's one of the most damaging things someone could do, whether you consider them to be apart of the movement or not is just semantics.
Also let's not be unreasonable, him socialising with this group is pretty fucking damning:
Like, if you don't want to be labelled a racist then maybe don't hang out with somebody who defends race science? Especially if you've said racist as fuck things in the past.
I would not say Joe Rogan is alt-right. I do not think Ben Shapiro is alt-right neither. Is Shapiro an asshole? Of course. But alt-right? no. Not every Republican or conservative is alt-right.
I agree that most posters are not doing that and the vast majority of people arguing against Rogan here have been reasonable.
Since you asked, tho, posts
154
200
353
414
492
500
605
either plainly state that Joe is a nazi or directly imply it. Was curious myself so I perused the thread lol
Maybe some people at times can be a bit hyperbolic, but I think it's a little reactionary to suggest the whole forum is an echo-chamber. You have to be able to handle political debate to take part in political topics. You can't just run away the second someone or a group challenge you shouting "echo chamber!". I've learned some stuff being on GAF and here, and have shifted some of my compasses around a bit. Notably around American politcs where I'm an outsider and even a bit around the concept of comedians punching up. Not that I can ever escape my underlying feelings of importance of comedy/satire/wit and mockery for how useful it can be for the human conditions, but around listening to why others can come off badly via comedy/humour if they are constantly the brunt of it.
I think an interesting hypothetical for some would be would you live in a dictatorship if it meant "your side" was therefore always in charge? Most of us live in some forms of democracies, where a political pendulum can swing around between various parties. Often 2 parties, but sometimes more. Personally, I accept this is so far the best we can have. Therefore my short to long-term goals, while "fighting" for my side, also revolve around trying to collectively move a country forward to be more progressive. In the same way I wouldn't see eradicating religion as a good thing, but more so "reforming" it's social views
http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/attitudes-towards-gay-rights/
I think it's good if there are more Conservatives/right-wing people becoming more tolerant on certain issues, even if I don't align myself with them overall. Apart from trying to "win" elections, we also have to try to collectively move our societies forward.
Generally agreed. It can be easy to see threads like this one and read just the first page and become exasperated that this entire forum is an echo-chamber, but as you said, it feels that way more often than it actually is that way. This thread starts to level out a bit past the first page, and while there's a fair amount of shit-flinging, there's also a fair amount of decent discussion too.
500 is a direct response to someone not caring if he's alt right, not that he is a Nazi. 154 seems to be in defence of him being alt-right, so technically Nazi wasn't used.
Otherwise I'd say it's about if choosing to platform and socialise with Nazi's makes you one yourself. Even if you want to argue against that I don't think 5 posts in what's coming up to a 700 thread that explicitly call Joe a Nazi is enough reason to derail the topic to the whole "The entire forum think's that Joe's a Nazi, this is a far left echo chamber!" or "You're making the term Nazi meaningless!" like it has. Especially given people are justifying why.
Anyone complaining about echo chambers makes me laugh, when we constantly have threads with people bickering and loudly and often harshly disagreeing back and forth constantly for 10 pages.
Pretty much. The only echo chamber is their minds.
Not really. It highlights his lunacy rather well.
I've stopped listening largely due to the right wing guests (Alex Jones, NRA reps and Ted Nugent come the fuck on) he has on and doesn't challenge until they attack one of his sacred cows (usually weed). Sad that he doesn't see the contradiction in that and instead blasts people for being PC over topics that are close to them.
All that said he is no way alt right, and neither is anyone at that table, unless the term has become functionally meaningless. He's just an out of touch rich guy.
All that said he is no way alt right, and neither is anyone at that table, unless the term has become functionally meaningless. He's just an out of touch rich guy.
I don't think Ben can be classified as alt-right because he wouldn't support anybody who believes the great replacement/Jewish conspiracy, though I'm guessing he would if he wasn't Jewish. At the same time he wants America to become a fascist military state so they they can murder all brown people because they're literally born evil.
I'm glad you said that about Shapiro. I don't think he, nor most of the others in his "group" are alt-right either, and certainly not nazis. Unfortunately, both you and I will possibly be labeled as such for saying just that.
The term "nazi" used to mean something. There was a bite to it, it stung to even hear. People would shudder at the word because of past connotations. Today, people are stripping it of it's meaning. It's tossed out so willy-nilly that I'm never shocked to hear it aimed at people anymore. It's every bit as bad as the idiots on the right that would go on and on about Obama being Hitler. Talk about going overboard and misusing terms.
A lot of these people can have opinions you don't agree with. They can even be huge assholes in terms of how they speak out about things, but the vast majority of them aren't alt-right nazis. Most people laugh at that idea now, it's ridiculous.
Is it really that bothersome to people that a bunch of dudes sitting and eating a meal together, all with different views with different ideals? They're human like many of us and just enjoy good company for a night out.
Me and a few of my friends don't see eye to eye on many many things but hell im not cutting off our friendship over it. They're there for me and I'm there for them.
Who cares if Joe is with these guys. He seems like a stand up guy to me and a person who wouldn't harm anyone on purpose. His show is pretty good too.
Me and a few of my friends don't see eye to eye on many many things but hell im not cutting off our friendship over it. They're there for me and I'm there for them.
Who cares if Joe is with these guys. He seems like a stand up guy to me and a person who wouldn't harm anyone on purpose. His show is pretty good too.
If he doesn't know who Jared Taylor is, I'll wait to see if he comments and say he will not participate in any more dinners where he is present.
Its a sign of the times. The country is more polarized than ever and racial tension is high. We had a thread not too far back about getting Trump supporter friends and family out of your lives.
Suum cuique.
Exactly. Fuck the buzzword labels, Joe is clearly part of the right wing talk radio machine. We don't need to debate if Alex Jones is alt right, because we know he stays on trash.
The fans of these personalities aren't in the groups they aim at, so no big deal to them. To the rest of us and people with certain standards of decency, fuck the edgy racists
Got it :)
This thread is an exception from my experience, hence my surprise. There seems to be a critical mass of people who don´t think that Rogan is doing a bad thing by talking to people with different view points. And they are actually posting.
That's exactly what Joe Rogan is, a fucking JAQoff
I love it and I'm running with that, dude
I haven't read all this thread just little bits, but I've heard a lot of his podcasts and watched some of his YouTube videos and I don't get that impression at all.
The impression I get of him is he likes knowledge, all sides of knowledge too, he shuts down a lot of scumbags too if he thinks they're talking shit, I've also noticed if he's proved wrong he'll own it and if he has an opinion on something he won't straight up dismiss it he'll hear the other side to the story, I could be wrong on that as I haven't listened to everything he's done.
As far as calling him a racist though, no I've never got that from him.
The impression I get of him is he likes knowledge, all sides of knowledge too, he shuts down a lot of scumbags too if he thinks they're talking shit, I've also noticed if he's proved wrong he'll own it and if he has an opinion on something he won't straight up dismiss it he'll hear the other side to the story, I could be wrong on that as I haven't listened to everything he's done.
As far as calling him a racist though, no I've never got that from him.
It's almost as if people being chill with bigots for so long shockingly finally led to some consequences.
How about this clip before he had a lot of eyes on his podcast?
I'm not going to go into the rest because I'm tired of people not reading the thread.
Ben's not a Nazi because he's Jewish, that's literally all that's stopping him. So instead he goes one level less deep and instead of blaming the Jews he just flat out blames the brown people for everything. He's a radical Zionist which is no better than being a Nazi. He believes that the state should be free to arrest people who critique it in times of war (despite apparently being all about free speech) and that there should be a mass expulsion of all brown people in Isreal and Palestine by which he means genocide. If you think those opinions are just things people shouldn't agree with but be civil over I don't know what to say. There's much more in the article here that talks about his racist, transphobic, fascist views and how the idea that he's about facts rather than feelings is hilarious.
Also I referred to the softening the word Nazi thing earlier in the thread, would you mind responding to my post there if you want to talk about that?
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Rogan is a bit of an anomaly in that the cogs of the Universe turned in such a way for him he ended up with what is seemingly the most popular podcast in existence. He has over 1000 podcasts of roughly over 2 hours each with varying guests. Literally no one else has that. If you ignore everyone he's ever spoken to you don't mind and just zone in on select people you hate you can confirm your own biases in suggesting he must be one of the most damaging people on the planet. In reality, it's a little more complex than that, in so far as quite a few decent people have gone on his platform due to how large it is. Audiences/guests will come to him. Others will run a mile because they're scared of 2~3 hours of exposed conversation where they can't hide or fully control the dialogue. As I said myself Rogan is many things, some unflattering, but the topic began on the basis of not here's some things wrong with Rogan, like a racist joke, but just right to he's alt-right (and others said Nazi).
Now, an issue here is many subscribe to you must never give anyone a platform who is deemed as controversial or an asshole. Eh, you'll find most libertarians rightly or wrongly will value conversation with their enemies/the public enemies. It is what it is, Rogan's hardly the only person on the planet who will talk to some of the dregs of society.
The thing with Peterson and some of the voices he has on like Harris and even Weinstein is like it or not, you won't be able to make yourself pure enough to have zero overlaps with them on some things. Even Peterson who is undoubtedly a Conservative, more than the others who seem to be further left on the political compass. That doesn't mean you need to like them, or you are guilty by association, it means you as an individual will have to accept in the real world, you can overlap with people you don't like on some important political or social issues. If you are mentally fragile (not aimed at you as a derogatory statement) that might mean you fold in on yourself and give yourself 1000 lashes for daring to think like someone you hate. If you have confidence in your own beliefs you'll be able to accept what I've argued in here, like it or not you will overlap at times with your perceived enemy. It just happens and more people need to learn to deal with it. Ultimately, I'm happy if Conservatives and Religious people can become more tolerant around certain things, even if I'm an atheist and vote for left parties all my life. Just because a genuine Republican might exist who is for gay marriage doesn't then mean me as leftie for gay marriage is 100% behind said Republican. That's toxic reductive thinking.
When people fail to understand that will happen (overlaps) it results in a never-ending feedback loop where you have to find a way to call someone the worst thing imaginable to distance yourself as much as possible. You can't be seen as even having 1 thing in common with the person, or you're complicit by association. THAT can occasionally cause the beloved "purity test", when it gets soo bad even generic people on the left who genuinely stand alongside you have to be cast out in your never-ending persecution complex where anyone who doesn't think 100% the same as yourself might lead others to think lesser of you. Nah, real life doesn't strictly work like that, you only have control over your own mind and actions, and if someone else you hate thinks like you on some subjects, tough, you're going to have to find a way to accept that. Sometimes it is objectively good if even your "political enemies" end up in agreement with some things you think.
We can't line up and shoot everyone we hate, or in a less satirical remark (advocating violence is rhetorical here), lock them all up. Unfortunately part of living in a democracy is trying to debate in ways which change the minds of our opponents, even if it's incremental steps forward. It can be done and will be done as science and reason often do win out with a large enough collective, even if some people take longer to be dragged forward. What's a better alternative right now? A genuine dictatorship where there is no vote, no debate, no challenge, no conversations and so on, as long as it's your side in charge of the dictatorship? Yeah, that's never happening, for either side. Although some of our Governments are trying to slowly erode the power/laws/equality the people have. Or they're trying to block progress going forward.
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