An_Old_Big_Tree wrote on March 1, 2019 at 4:21 PM

Reply to comment by PerfectSociety in Need advice. My partners 13 year old has started using words like Thot ( for a laugh ) , one of many alt/right things she's picking up from friends. How would you deal with this ? by Glenarchist

I think part of it was that I didn't really see how these horrible views had severe life and death consequences for the people in my life whom I was close to - my mother, friends of mine who were African American, etc... As I got older and I realized the real implications of these views and the harm they had on real people, I assessed them more seriously and was disgusted with them, which is how I abandoned them.

I feel like this element is significant. I'm not sure how one could reproduce this experience for their children generally though.

PerfectSociety wrote on March 1, 2019 at 6:07 PM

I think people would have more success simply providing leftist outlets for children's desire to be obnoxious, vulgar, and othering. But you'd have to provide it as an option for them. If you try to force it on them, I don't think it'll work. The desire to shit on other people can be satisfied with a leftist youtube channel that shits on conservatives or something idk.

An_Old_Big_Tree wrote on March 1, 2019 at 7:49 PM

I feel like being obnoxious and othering are not values I'd like to reproduce as much as any other right-wing value.

I think the process of 'othering' is very close to the process of dehumanisation, which I suspect is the fundamentally fascist mode.

PerfectSociety wrote on March 1, 2019 at 10:37 PM

Doesn't bashing the fash require dehumanizing them? I mean, wouldn't it be harder to bash them if we had empathy for them? I feel like you can't get away from othering, you just have to use it when it's useful but understand when it's not.

An_Old_Big_Tree wrote on March 1, 2019 at 10:45 PM (edited on March 1, 2019 at 10:45 PM)

I prefer looking at it this way.

Allowing for all forms of human life that don't depend on the dehumanisation of others is a basic general rule that I think is useful.

I'm not sure it's possible to escape othering in such a large world, but putting all of our energy into tending towards sharing the world, a world in common, is a good move, and I think maybe part of that means being strong enough to crush a fascist even though they're human.

But I do think that we need to trouble the whole concept of humanness in various ways also, but that goes beyond the scope of this comment! It is why I made f/Humanness though.

celebratedrecluse wrote on March 1, 2019 at 9:38 PM

Ironically, othering and alienation are central to the revolutionary identity & experience, particularly on the left & post-left.

Without othering, we'd be doomed to subsumption into liberalism, which is itself another system of othering.

#otherception

An_Old_Big_Tree wrote on March 1, 2019 at 10:48 PM

I don't think that othering is equivalent to differentiating, which it seems you're talking about here.

I think of the other as something relatively opaque, and there are quite a few consequences of that.

celebratedrecluse wrote on March 2, 2019 at 11:03 PM

Sure, but it can be a fine line between othering & differentiating, especially with the social conditioning we are all privy to from dominant society that predisposes/biases us toward both depending on the context.

I don't disagree with you, I guess I'm just thinking out loud about all the nuances. :)